Source: Dzerkalo Kolomyia
A strategic plan for Kolomyia’s development has been successfully finished. The document was created by Kolomyia City Council with the support of PLEDDG Project. The final document contains more than a hundred pages and covers a period of 10 years until 2027. By 2027, Kolomyia is envisaged to become a regional economic and tourist center of the Subcarpathian region with a high quality sustainable urban environment. Those two goals were assigned top priority in a new development strategy.
The document begins with an analysis of Kolomyia’s strengths and weaknesses. A favorable geographic location in an environmentally friendly region, good transport connections with two regional centers of Ivano-Frankivsk and Chernivtsi nearby, availability of unoccupied land plots, a large number of historic and architectural monuments, multicultural history, cultural and religious tolerance have been singled out as Kolomyia’s strengths.
According to the Strategic Plan, the abovementioned factors provide an opportunity for tourism development, creation of industrial parks with new production capacity, development of consumer-goods manufacturing and food industry with an ethnic theme and growth in the volume of trade. They also help position the city as a regional center of Pokuttia and Hutsulshchyna.
Among other significant advantages, we see positively the attraction of foreign investors to the local economy (Leoni, for example), availability of free land plots; ‘old’ industrial estates suitable for investment or revitalization and civil engineering activity; well-developed small and medium businesses; availability of training facilities providing a variety of training courses in the most popular and high-demand sectors for potential investors. Put together with opportunities such as development of industrial parks, consumer-goods manufacturing and food industry, cross-border cooperation, it will enable a mid-term development of Kolomyia as a regional industrial and logistic center of Subcarpathia with a multi-industry high-tech economy.
Among the downsides, there is lack of capital for city infrastructure development, the absence of land inventory and a city promotion plan, poor urban infrastructure, inefficient transportation system, depreciation of utility system, the absence of waste treatment facilities.
The negative factors pose a serious threat to Kolomyia. In particular, the city’s aging population, the brain drain of working-age population, decay of heritage-listed buildings and major tourist sights, absence of a city development plan. In general, Kolomyia’s local environment is rather unattractive, which has a negative impact on the city image, its investment opportunities, business and tourist attractiveness.
Regarding particular activities planned within the framework of a Strategic Development Plan, Kolomyia City Council is planning, first of all, to improve land resource management, in particular city border demarcation, allocation of land for an industrial park, finalizing the urban land inventory process. Another major objective of the Plan is a city promotion campaign and efforts to increase its investment potential. The local government is trying to encourage an active dialogue with local business. Another objective is to tailor academic curriculums of local schools and colleges to suit the current market needs.
Tourism is one of Kolomyia’s top priorities. Tourist infrastructure development and better quality of tourist services is one of the key objectives of a development strategy.
Working towards another strategic goal – making Kolomyia a city with a high quality urban environment – demands that we focus on road and sidewalk renovation. We have mapped a few streets that are in need of urgent renovation, namely Mitskevytcha, Petlyury, Franka, Atamanyuka, Starytskoho, Khmelnytskoho, Shkrumelyaka streets.
Besides major road renovation, we are planning to build traffic circles on main city roads, create a pedestrian area in the old city center and modernize water supply and sewage networks. Another sphere that needs looking into is improving energy saving of public and residential buildings in Kolomyia.
As it has already been mentioned in the document, the construction of new buildings and renovation of existing public facilities was characterized as yet another major goal. We are planning to build a new swimming pool, renovate the premises of former out-patient hospital on Shukchevycha street and convert it into a training and cultural institution, create a Polish cultural center on the premises of the Youth Center.
Basically, those are our key projects for Kolomyia for the coming ten years in compliance with a new City Development Strategic Plan. It is important to ensure that the key objectives will be implemented. We will see how it goes.