Strategy of development

The strategy for the social and economic development of Ciechanow up to the year 2023

Balanced development – a challenge of the 21st century

In the session of the Town Council on April 29, 2004 an important document was passed – The Strategy for the Social and Economic Development of Ciechanów. Local governments are using more modern methods and techniques for administering the commune, to increase the effectiveness of their actions, reinforce social relations, and endeavour to improve the standards of living. The tendencies are stronger, because of bigger awareness of development opportunities, not only as a result of the transformation of the system, but also the  membership in the European Union, and new challenges. Management cannot only be based on accidental, current decisions, but also on a more strategic approach. City dwellers’ participation in planning the future of the town is important, as it increases trust in the local authorities. It also gives a chance that the Strategy will lead up to achieving measurable results and becoming a stable document, not liable to constant changes depending on political pressure.
The Strategy is very important in the context of the Polish membership in the European Union – it supports application for the structural funds and guarantees that the projects fulfill long-term development plans, which make the town a more reliable partner. Accepting the Strategy means that the development of Ciechanów is done in a well-planned way. The town is considered as a stable, competitive, and open to new methods of managing, aware of its needs and ways of development connected with them.
The works on creating the Strategy began in the middle of August 2003, when the President of Ciechanów invited a group of people to participate. At the very beginning, it was based on the analysis from 1999, which needed to be updated. A survey was conducted,  in which the local community could express opinions about the problems of Ciechanów, expected changes, and ways of development. As a result, the Strategy defined strong and weak points, opportunities and threats, as well as the vision of the town in 20 years’ time, together with the mission, which can be considered an overriding goal for the Town Office, and the strategic ways of development, specified by means of long and short-term objectives. A list of tasks, expected results, and indicators has been assigned to the particular operational objectives. What is more, procedures for monitoring and updating the Strategy have been prepared.

The vision of Ciechanów in 20 years’ time formulated in the Strategy:

Ciechanów is going to be a town offering attractive workplaces, creating friendly and beneficial conditions for development of entrepreneurship in its broader sense. The positive changes on the labour market are going to be stimulated by an adequate development of lifelong learning, consistent with the needs. As a result, dwellers' living conditions will improve.
Ciechanów is going to be a clean and well-maintained town, offering various ways of spending free time, thanks to a rich offer of cultural, sports, and recreational activities. It is going to be a place with the ability to attract tourists by means of promoting its long and rich tradition, and a selection of cultural monuments. It is going to make Ciechanów a well-known and easily recognized town in Poland, as well as among the European countries.
The social and economic development of Ciechanów is going to take place with respect of natural resources. Numerous and extensive green areas are going to encourage leisure and spending time with family and friends in harmony with nature.
Taking into account the opinions and expectations of the dwellers, local authorities, social and professional groups, and non-governmental organizations, the authorities of the town declare in the Strategy that they are going to provide the inhabitants of Ciechanów with adequate conditions of living, working, and leisure, take measures aiming at the development of entrepreneurship, allowing the town to reach the competitive advantage over other towns. The actions are going to be taken in co-operation with all the stakeholders and interest groups.

Strategic goals of the development of Ciechanów:

1. Development of entrepreneurship and establishing conditions for crating workplaces.
2. Improving standards of living.
3. Creating and promoting the town’s image.

Strategic goal No. 1 is going to be accomplished through the following operational objectives and tasks:

a) Operating a complex local economic policy, supporting development of free enterprise, and its co-operation with the local economic authorities;

• introducing reduced rates and giving priority for entities creating new workplaces, investing or introducing modern technologies;
• improving the effectiveness of management and the ability to gain outer capital through a partial privatization of some of the communal companies;
• developing various forms of co-operation and interaction in relation to the tasks of the local government with taking into account public and private partnerships;
• complex economic information system directed at enterprises and potential investors, including promotion of the investment offer of the town;
• developing forms of co-operation with the economic self-government, aiming at supporting local enterprise;

b) preparing the ground for investments with the ability to create workplaces;

• constructing a plan of spatial development of the second part of the industrial district;
• legal regulation of the grounds belonging to the Treasury
• expanding grounds for investments, consistent with the plan of spatial development and gradual development of the land;

c) land reclamation and development of the former industrial district;

• stock-taking of former industrial grounds;
• land reclamation of former industrial grounds;

d) supporting education, with special consideration of higher education and stimulating the unemployed;

• close co-operation with non-governmental organizations in the field of various forms of stimulating the unemployed (courses, psychological assistance, support groups, counselling);
• supporting education through allowing access to different sources of information (a workplace database – collaboration with other offices in the Association of Mazovian Towns)
• collaboration with higher education institutions to reinforce their potential and adjust their offer to the needs of the labour market;

e) improving the quality of local administration services through regional co-operation and improving methods and techniques of management and service;

• improving methods of managing the local administration, based on the quality system standards;
• implementing the system of electronic document circulation, information and service circulation with the use of modern technologies, introducing the Electronic System for the Commune Management;
• cooperation with neighbouring communes and administrative districts to lobby for the benefit of the region and common enterprise in different fields.

Strategic goal No. 2 is going to be accomplished through:

a) development and managing housing resources;

• adapting existing buildings for social flats and building living quarters with social flats for numerous families;
• setting the rules and executing communal housing resources classification to allot social flats;
• gradual modernization of the communal housing resources;
• revitalizing the Bloki district;
• building new flats to let;
• developing technical infrastructure allowing construction in various areas;

b) development of municipal infrastructure;

• development and modernization of the water supply, sanitary and storm water drainage, and heating system, as well as coordinating activities connected with providing gas and energy utilities in the area;
• modernization and expansion of the town lighting;
• providing citizens with access to water supply system;
• liquidation of the combined sewage system;
• reception of 100% of sanitary sewage to the town purification plant;
• building a communal waste-processing plant in Wola Pawłowska;
• using alternative sources of energy and heating, taking into consideration waste-gas recovery heating from the gas compression station in Regimin;
• building a new municipal cemetery;

c) development of transport infrastructure;

• lobbying for the removal of transit traffic from the town by building a bypass of the route 60 or - initially – changing traffic organization;
• collaboration with the Polish State Railways (PKP) and other economic entities to expand or modernize the railway station with a commercial and service complex;
• supporting the process of constructing viaducts (in Śmiecińska, Kacprzaka, and Mleczarska Streets) related with modernizing the main line Warsaw – Ciechanów;
• expansion of traffic lights;
• expansion of cooperation with other road administrators in Ciechanów to undertake common tasks in the field of road industry;
• improving the transport route to Warsaw through lobbying for modernizing the route 50.

d) operating a social policy adequate to the dwellers’ needs;

• initiating and coordinating cooperation based on partnership, exchanging information between institutions and organizations working in the social field;
• adjusting the town to the needs of the disabled;
• improving assistance for victims of natural disasters, domestic violence victims, the homeless (a crisis centre, a shelter), cooperation with other institutional and social partners in the field of care of the elderly, children, and young people from the sidelines of society, and preventive actions relating to alcoholism, drug taking, and aggression;
• flexible management of social and municipal housing resources in line with the current needs of tenants;
• preventing social marginalization of the disabled through fulfilling their educational needs;

e) improvement of the dwellers’ safety;

• fitting surveillance cameras in the neuralgic parts of the town;
• enforcing the local law efficiently;

f) protection and rational use of natural resources;

• intensifying the activity of selective waste collection;
• ecological land reclamation of the closed landfill site in Kargoszyn;
• further execution of the programme "Ciechanów – a healthy town”
• actions aiming at including all immovable properties in the refuse collecting system;
• ecological education of the dwellers;

g) creating conditions for active ways of spending free time;

• effective use of sports facilities in the town with particular consideration of objects administrated by MOSiR (the Municipal Sport and Recreation Centre);
• land reclamation of  former industrial ground intended for recreational purpose (ponds in Krubin, reservoirs in Gostkowska street);
• building district playgrounds and creating green areas;
• marking out and extending the system of cycling paths;
• promoting healthy lifestyle
• adjusting the green area in front of the castle for recreational purposes.

Strategic goal No. 3 is going to be accomplished through:

a) improvement of the town’s image;

• standardization and clear marking of the town;
• making the natural complex “The Łydynia River Valley” more attractive;
• coordinating activities in the field of the green areas in the town;
• preparing complex annual festival calendars in the town;
• organizing national and international sport events;
• cooperation with twin towns in order to organize common events promoting European integration;
• promoting cultural and sports events identified with Ciechanów;
• supporting tourism, also conference tourism, with the use of the town’s historical value.

b) clear marking and modernizing the centre of the town;

• replacing underground infrastructure of the town;
• modernization and standardization of the town lighting and small infrastructure in the centre;
• revitalizing the medieval road from the Mazovian Dukes’ Castle via the Market, Warszawska Street, Kościuszko Square to the Farska Mountain;

c) forming dwellers’ cultural identity

• creating the Town's Historical Research Centre;
• supporting educational activities relating to the history and regional identity of the town in order to build ties between the dwellers and the town;
• The castle as a cultural site and exhibition centre.

The Strategy of social and economic development of Ciechanów stays in line with the Strategy of the Mazovian voivodship. The ways of realizing the documents will be stated in the operational programmes and long-term investment plans. The documents will specify the rules of tasks’ hierarchization, time limits of their realization, expenditure, financial sources and entities liable for the realization. Monitoring the Strategy will be also included in a separate document, specifying measures, ways of calculating the measures, initial and expected values at certain moments of time. The Strategy resolution by the Town Council began composite planning of the town's fyture.

The document, defining the ways of the development is a framework on which the upcoming planned changes will be based.