[GG21 Community Round Proposal] Small Scale Urban Interventions in the City of Split
Name of Proposed Round
Small Scale Urban Interventions in the City of Split
Overview of Round
Split Parks Company is a utility company owned by the City of Split, mandated and funded by the City to improve and maintain green spaces in the city.
In the last couple of years it dramatically increased the number and size of interventions, planting thousands of trees, installing hundreds of street benches and drinkable water taps, and building dozens of children playgrounds.
As our work increased, so did the interest of citizens and their proposals. This is why we started a new project “Let’s make Split greener!” where citizens could propose an intervention and donate for this cause.
This round will mark our move to Ethereum and quadratic funding for funding these projects. We will provide 2/3 funds on top of all raised funds, minimum of $50k.
Social Handle of Your Organization:
Facebook: Parkovi i nasadi Split | Split
Eligibility Criteria:
Location
The plot(s) of land where the intervention is proposed must comply with these criteria:
1. must be owned by a governmental body
2. must be free of conflicting plans or purposes (eg. building a road) in the next 3 years.
3. must not be subject of court proceedings (risk of repossession in future)
Citizens can propose any location, and the team will check if it fits the eligibility criteria. For reference, citizens can check in Green Cadastre of Split.
Type
There are predefined types of interventions possible. These include:
* Trees
* Shrubs
* Flowers
* Grass
* Benches
* Taps
* Lamps
* Playground equipment
Citizens can combine multiple types of interventions in one proposal for a single location.
Round History:
This is the first time this round will be ran on Gitcoin and use QF. Previously, donations were received continuously for the last year through direct bank payments.
Over €50k was donated in the last year.
Team Running This Round:
Clearly identify the round operator with relevant experience, and provide detailed bios and social handle links for at least two additional team members, emphasizing their relevant experience.
- Tomislav Mamić, project leader of muqa.org and a core team member of Gitcoin DeSci Community round in GG20, Twitter/Telegram: tomislavmamic
- Siniša Gašparević, director of Parks Company, the initiator of the round.
- Goran Tahirbegović, project manager at Parks Company, he manages the interventions.
Alignment with Gitcoin’s Mission 7 and Essential Intents 3:
Clearly articulate how the proposed round aligns with Gitcoin’s mission and essential intents.
This round aligns with Gitcoin’s mission and essential intents by [ insert explanation].
Anticipated Size of the Matching Pool:
We anticipate to provide matching of $50k but are ready to match even more if there are more donations. Potentially, every donated $1 we could match with $3, even if lot more than $15k is donated.
However, funds for matching pool are on the bank account of the city and for legal uncertainties and risk aversion, we can’t get them onchain and through Allo smart contracts.
But we feel that this shouldn’t be a burden because even if the City did get the funds onchain, ultimately the payout would be to the Company in one transaction. It’s not worth the legal hassle.
The Parks Company has a €5 million annual contract for these types of interventions and maintenance of existing infrastructure. This means that we can continue running these rounds quarterly indefinitely and even increase the matching funds.
Advisors for This Round:
Vlaho Hrdalo - lawyer and president of Croatian Blockchain Association UBIK
Ethereum Foundation - this round is part Next Billion fellowship and we got support from various members of EF
Funding Mechanism:
We are using Quadratic Funding because we believe it works well for this type of funding program.
Caveat is that we know in advance the cost of each proposal.
For proposals which pass the threshold of 25% of funding, we will match the rest of the funding. For proposals which reach 100% funding through donations, we will close donations and won’t take donations over proposal’s actual costs.
For this purpose we are building a custom interface on top of Allo.
Community Size and Engagement:
Parks Company regularly communicates its activities on our Facebook page and have a lot of interaction with citizens of Split.
We also have ran this donation campaign for a year and got more than $50k donated. Most of donations came from citizens but the largest part of donated amount came from local businesses.
The population of Split is 150k, and all of the citizens, and visitors of Split are potentially our community members.
Type of Projects to Fund
All proposals need to be small scale urban interventions and meet the eligibility criteria set here.
Estimated Number of Eligible Grantees
There is only one grantee: Parks Company.
But we can expect more than 20 proposals from citizens, ranging from small ones (plant couple of trees) to large ones (multiple interventions of multiple types).
Impact Assessment Plan
Because what we are building is a physical public infrastructure that is free to use and there is no way for use to count how many people use it, we will need to use some proxies.
For each proposal we will count mentions in social media and media. Additionally, we could run polls to try getting opinions of the people, but that doesn’t seem worth it for the smaller interventions.
Potential Conflicts of Interest
We, Parks Company, are mandated and funded by the City of Split to create, improve and maintain green urban spaces in the city.
For the most part, we make the plans and decisions on what to care for and where, when it’s not already specified in longterm plan.
In this case, we are letting citizens propose and vote on what should be our next priorities. The city provides the matching funds, and these will go to us to execute the proposals, along with donations.
Citizens can propose interventions, but they can’t carry them out.
With this said, we don’t think we are in a conflict of interest because for us there is no difference between proposals. We don’t care which proposals are voted for by citizens.