Efficient use of building assets

The goal of the assessment

The main focus of the assessment was on whether the city’s building asset management and disposal processes had supported its strategic objectives and service needs. The City Strategy states that the city will continue its policy of disposing of facilities

it is not using. The assessment examined the progress in meeting the objectives and measures of the facilities strategy’s sixth policy line. The policy aims to ensure that the city only has facilities that it needs for its own use, or that are owned for other strategic reasons.

Conclusions

The Urban Environment Division has developed building asset management and disposal processes and ownership policies, which now mainly support strategic objectives and service needs. The city aims to change the operating culture, but this will take time and commitment across council terms. The city has been developing its building asset management processes, but overall development has been slowed down by unforeseen changes in the operating environment, among other things.

The process for the disposal of vacant facilities has not always been adapted to things such as divisional rental agreements, so there is still room for improvement in speeding up this process. A project has been launched to develop cooperation between land-use planning and the Facilities Service. A separate process has been created for the disposal of buildings by demolition. The disposal process for premises has recently been developed, so it remains to be seen what its effects will be.

A downward trend has been achieved in the number of empty premises, but this has not helped with the rising cost of vacant premises, which has risen sharply in the last two years. In particular, the costs of Heka’s vacant retail spaces have increased. The Urban Environment Division is responsible for temporarily leasing Heka’s commercial spaces in accordance with the City Board’s 1994 decision.