BCUS Policy Brief 1/2026
By Verena Lenna
This policy brief argues that Brussels should recognise and support community-led welfare infrastructures — such as urban commons, social infrastructures, third places, and community-managed spaces — as part of an emerging model of ecological welfare. In response to pressures on the welfare state, climate change, socio-spatial inequalities, urban vacancy and growing precarity, the brief explores how communities can repurpose vacant land and buildings to meet social and ecological needs. Through two future-oriented scenarios — the eco-resilient city and the cooperative city — the WELCOMIN project shows how shared governance models, public-civic partnerships and cooperative financing mechanisms could help transform these spaces into long-term infrastructures for care, solidarity, ecological stewardship and adaptive urban governance in the Brussels Capital Region.
Main points:
- Community-led spaces can become welfare infrastructure.
The brief frames urban commons, third places and social infrastructures not as temporary or marginal initiatives, but as essential infrastructures for care, solidarity and ecological welfare. - Vacant land and buildings are strategic resources.
Brussels’ underused sites and empty buildings could help address social needs, ecological regeneration and spatial justice, provided they are protected from speculation and supported through long-term governance and financing models. Policy should enable shared governance.
The main recommendation is to create legal, administrative, financial and capacity-building frameworks that allow public actors, communities and civil society to jointly manage these infrastructures through public-civic partnerships, urban observatories and long-term shared governance bodies.