The overall goal of the Integrated Urban Agenda of Alba Iulia is to generate a long-term action plan for assisting the municipality to develop, over the next 20 years, its social, economic and physical capital in line with the potential that the city holds. The key intervention areas are both domains in which Alba Iulia excels (cultural capital and heritage, valuable landscape, agricultural potential) and areas in which intervention is necessary in order to allow an environmentally friendly and sustainable development of activities.

The Agenda has 6 main pillars for development:

 

The development of Alba Iulia as a touristic and liveable city lies not only with the quality of its cultural attractions, but also with the capacity of the city to facilitate access to the existing points of interest and to provide good-quality spaces for social interaction and the manifestation of city life. As such, creating the necessary connections within the city, requalifying vacant or misused public spaces and developing the main transport service areas in an integrated manner represent priorities for the 2014-2020 programming period – especially since these interventions are preconditions for the future development of tourism, housing, business and industrial activities.

The priority axis encompasses interventions aiming at: 1) interconnection and requalification of open public spaces, 2) integration of main transport services for both people and freight within transport hubs and logistics areas), 3) closing disjoined connections within Alba Iulia and creating an attractive pedestrian and velo network in the city, connected with the adjacent natural areas.

Alba Iulia is a city with an excellent cultural, historic and archaeological heritage. Aside from the Alba Carolina Vauban citadel, the heart of the city and “soul capital of Romania”, Alba Iulia encompasses a plethora of other cultural landmarks and services, which are distributed in both the old town and the Citadel district of collective housing, a dynamic development area. Albeit currently underused and under-promoted, the Citadel and adjacent cultural and touristic facilities (existing and necessary) have the potential to jointly represent a Transylvanian staple in the cultural and heritage tourism industry.  In order to achieve this desired level of prestige, international recognition and touristic attractivity, Alba Iulia has to firstly create its multi-sectoral brand, based on sustainable tourism (culture, agriculture and food, art and archaeology) and liveability, leveraging social innovation, participation and smart governance. 

This priority axis targets a number of three main intervention lines: 1) creation of an Urban Center for social innovation, capacity building and good local governance, 2) creation of an overarching Alba Iulia brand and cultural strategy, complete with high-culture services, 3) capacity building and extension of tourism infrastructure through temporary use and other creative means.

In the current fractured agrarian, vineyard, orchard and new sprawl development landscape of Alba Iulia and its surroundings, the potential of agriculture falls second to the uncontrolled urban expansion and attractivity of other economic sectors or abroad opportunities. Albeit still economic sectors holding a consistent share of the local economy, agriculture, traditional crafts and food industry are declining. Local farmers are missing incentives, opportunities and an urban hub to distribute their goods, which is why the urban-rural agriculture innovative partnerships are a very important part of the current Agenda for Alba Iulia.

In light of the new European opportunities regarding the community led local development (CLLD), Alba Iulia foresees the development of an urban-rural productive system in partnership with local farmers and interested stakeholders, exploiting the benefits of proximity between the city and its high-potential surroundings and pursuing the enhancement of local markets. This will stimulate endogenous redevelopment of agriculture and creation of authentic upper-echelon products of the area, through the innovative use of land (urban and fringe agriculture) and technology (R&D), corroborated with an urban market system of direct sale.

This priority axis targets two intervention lines: 1) the creation of an agriculture innovation cluster using the integrated fund approach for endogenous redevelopment of agriculture and creation of authentic upper-echelon products of the area, and 2) creation of a main market hall using pre-existing industrial heritage infrastructure and a local distribution service to create local produce markets as catalysts for residential public space.

Most of Alba Iulia’s GDP is based on commercial services and primary goods, due to the fact that the main industrial plants have been dismissed. What functions remain (mechanical engineering, ceramics, agri-food) are dispersed within the city and unconnected, while most of the industrial sites are abandoned and pose environmental issues. For this reason and in aims to promote a sustainable and responsible future, this main priority of the Alba Iulia Agenda for 2035 is proposing a set of actions for the reprogramming of territorial productive activities in an integrated way, close to international connections and out of the city center, within sustainable clusters (ecologically productive equipped areas) where services and main networks would be shared between companies.  Within these centers, or territorial concentrations, industrial activities will be supported by R&D activities, connected with ICT technologies and permanent training. Moreover, emphasis will be put on the ecological component, new buildings being planned to be developed to produce energy from renewable sources (buildings as bioclimatic machines).

This priority axis consists of two main intervention directions: 1) economic redevelopment through the creation of eco-industrial business parks and innovation centers on brownfield sites within the city; and 2) good international connectivity for export of high added value products through developing intermodal freight facilities.

Within the framework of an insufficiently developed green public space network, low opportunities for wellness activities and open-air (nature) tourism, the development of  such infrastructure is necessary in order to connect the city and benefit from the adjacent natural areas of great value (river system, Mamut Hill, touristic areas in vicinity).

On one hand, the priority addresses the regional environmental connectivity and development, identifying the ecological networks and connections and incorporating them the metropolitan area’s future environmental tourism infrastructure. It aims at developing recreational parks and developing touristic packets for activity zones within the natural areas of the Municipality, in connection with the larger context.

On the other hand, it tackles the need for touristic representativity by developing wellness and sports infrastructure integrating and upgrading existing facilities such as the stadium and Olympic basin with a regional importance Polyvalent Hall.