Paris RIVP
Project name: Budget Participatif de la RIVP (2017-2020)
Last updated
Project name: Budget Participatif de la RIVP (2017-2020)
Last updated
In 2017, The Paris City Council's public housing company, the RIVP (la Régie Immobilière de la Ville de Paris) launched its participatory budgeting portal using the Consul Democracy software.
The portal, called "Budget Participatif de la RIVP", aimed to open participatory budgeting processes around the social housing they manage, in order to be closer to tenants, initiate new forms of exchange and better meet their expectations.
The Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, had been inspired by the success of the Decide Madrid project by the Madrid municipality and looked for ways to implement something similar in Paris.
She said that "participatory budgets are one of the greatest advances made by citizens in Madrid (...). Both the people of Madrid and the people of Paris decide on the future of their city".
Back in 2017, the Madrid team for Citizen Participation, Transparency and Open Government has an Institutional Outreach Unit had been promoting the Consul Democracy software to other municipalities, universities and institutions, and offering advice and knowledge for developing their own digital participation platforms.
On 24 March 2017, "Budget Participatif de la RIVP" was launched as a collaborative online platform aimed at the active involvement of tenants living in the RIVP's properties.
In this first year, a participatory budgeting process was launched for ten groups of properties. It gave tenants the opportunity to get involved in the development of their property by proposing projects, supporting those of their neighbours and voting for the projects of their choice. The chosen projects were implemented with RIVP's financial support.
The themes on which tenants made their proposals were:
Quality of life
Environmental projects and cleaning actions
Collective composting
Shared garden
Social projects against uncivic behaviour
Social events
Neighbourhood parties
Cultural events
Collective dinners
Solidarity
Mutual assistance networks
School support
Bartering schemes
Urban micro-planning
Bike shelters
Mobile equipment for books, CDs, magazines
Vegetable gardens
The phases of the participatory process were as follows. First tenants could propose, enrich and support ideas, through the study of the projects by an ad-hoc commission. Then a voting phase happened where votes were cast through the platform or on paper. Finally, selected projects were implemented by the RIVP.
RIVP is a social rental company that builds, refurbishes and manages housing, student residences, shops and offices for start-ups and innovative companies. It is a local mixed-economy company, 70.74% of whose capital is held by the City of Paris and the rest by other companies and banks.
RIVP was created in 1923 by the Paris City Council to remedy the housing shortage by building, managing and maintaining flats. Today, it has nearly 60,000 housing units (dwellings and homes), 91% of which are located in the city of Paris and the rest in the suburbs.
