This October, Helsinki residents are invited to vote on nearly 400 ideas for using EUR 8.8 million in funding, as part of the OmaStadi participatory budgeting programme. Voting to determine which ideas will be implemented will take place on 6-28 October 2021 at omastadi.hel.fi.
Voting takes places electronically on the omastadi.hel.fi(Link leads to external service) website, which lists all of the proposals and their budget frameworks. City inhabitants worked together with municipal experts this spring to develop each of the proposals selected for the voting round.
The proposals are divided into seven groups based on the area of the city to which they apply, with a separate category for ideas that affect the entire city. People casting votes are free to vote on proposals in one of the seven areas, as well as those that concern Helsinki as a whole.
– OmaStadi is a small step towards residents having more say over their neighbourhood welfare and services. The proposals and resulting discussions directly let elected decision-makers and city officials know the wishes of local residents. Active voting also turns resident-submitted dreams into reality in neighbourhoods throughout the capital, said the City of Helsinki’s Deputy Mayor for Culture and Leisure Paavo Arhinmäki.
Your OmaStadi votes can make Helsinki even better
– The City of Helsinki has quickly and competently executed the OmaStadi projects that received the most votes. By voting, you can truly have an influence and see resident ideas come to fruition in a relatively short timeframe. This is direct democracy at its finest, said Kirsi Verkka, who has been development manager of the OmaStadi programme from its inception.
Voting requires residents to verify their identity and eligibility with some form of strong identification, using for example online banking codes, or in the case of younger voters, Wilma IDs. Another option is to vote in person while showing a valid ID. A list of municipal service locations that will facilitate in-person voting will be posted on the OmaStadi website before the voting begins. All permanent city residents over the age of 12 are eligible to vote.
After the voting begins on 6 October, visitors to the omastadi.hel.fi website will be able to follow the progress of the resident voting in real time. The results will be made public on 29 October, just a day after voting ends. Implementation of the winning proposals is scheduled to begin in 2022.
Helsinki’s OmaStadi - Creating a city of dreams together
Civic participation is an important part of the City of Helsinki’s operations. The municipality actively invites its residents and partners in cooperation to develop the capital, along with its services and neighbourhoods. Helsinki is a community-oriented city that is home to encounters and activities that have an impact.
OmaStadi is the City of Helsinki’s lasting commitment to the promotion of participatory budgeting. Resident ideas are jointly developed into proposals that city inhabitants can vote on. Projects receiving the most votes are executed faithfully by the city. In the first round of OmaStadi, the city allotted EUR 4.4 million to the programme and in the second round, this sum was doubled to EUR 8.8 million and a decision was made to extend the time period in which projects are executed. The second round of the OmaStadi programme is currently underway.
The first round of the OmaStadi programme, which took place in 2018-2019, resulted in the City of Helsinki carrying out 44 projects(Link leads to external service) to improve the city.
Read more:
OmaStadi(Link leads to external service)
How to participate in and influence the development of Helsinki(Link leads to external service)
Photo: KMG Turku advertising agency.
Article has been published on 29.9. and updated on 4.10.