The vote on the first participatory budgeting for Józsefváros ended on July 24, 2022.

The municipality’s staff and members of the district working groups tallied the votes cast online and in person: nearly 700 residents of Józsefváros cast more than 2500 votes during the voting period.

The order established based on the votes determines which projects the municipality will implement for the value of HUF 40 million per zone, and for a total value of HUF 120 million.

You can check the winning ideas here: https://reszvetel.jozsefvaros.hu/eredmenyek/

In Zone 1 (Palotanegyed, Csarnok negyed and Corvin negyed), the ballot was made up of many smaller ideas, which is why this zone had the most ideas to cross the 40 million mark. However, many of these ideas may not only affect the lives of the people living in Zone 1. The following ideas will be implemented for a total of HUF 40.6 million:

• micro parks, which are the top winner ideas in all zones,
• the idea of “Egy VÍGabb utca”; this idea aims to make the area of Víg utca behind the Csarnok negyed more livable,
• the municipality will hire a Disability Case Manager,
• separate waste bins will be placed in Népszínház utca,
• we will expand the municipality’s free legal aid service to cover condominium matters as well,
• rain and sun sheltered bus stops will be built,
• we will organize the first plant and craft fair in the spring,
• we will make the corner of Bérkocsis utca and Fecske utca better accessible, and
• we will organize dog friendly community development programs in the Csarnok negyed.

In Zone II (Népszínház negyed, Magdolna negyed, Kerepesdűlő) fewer, but more expensive ideas have been voted on. In this zone a public toilet facility was also on the ballot paper, the estimated cost of which alone is estimated to exhaust the zone’s available budget. The public toilet facility was eventually voted in 4th place, but this would have been far beyond our available resources. The good news is that in February this year, the City Council of Józsefváros approved the establishment of two public toilet facilities at the expense of the 2022 yearly budget, and the selection of the sites on which the facilities will be built is currently in progress. Given the results, one of the toilet facilities will be located in Zone II. This means that several of the ideas voted on in the zone can be implemented for a total of HUF 36 million:

• we will establish micro parks here as well,
• we will improve the dog-friendly infrastructure of II János Pál pápa tér,
• we will reopen and improve the green space in Dankó utca,
• we will organize day activities for homeless people, and
• rain and sun sheltered bus stops will also be installed in this area.

In Zone III (Losonci negyed, Orczy negyed, Ganz negyed, Tisztviselőtelep), it is of no surprise that

• the building of micro parks was voted for the first place,
• and the public toilet facility on the second place.

A total of HUF 46 million will be allocated to these two projects in the zone.

Thank you to all who contributed to the participatory budgeting process and helped us decide what to spend HUF 120 million on.

In August, there will be no meeting of the Council, but on August 24 at 6pm we will celebrate the people involved in the process: all those who submitted ideas – whether these ideas won or not –, the participants in the working groups, the ambassadors and volunteers of the participatory budgeting, and the municipal staff who invested a lot of energy in filtering, submitting and selecting ideas. The event will take place in Grund and you can find more information here: https://jozsefvaros.hu/otthon/hirdetotabla/hirek/esemenyek/2022/08/unnepeljuk-egyutt-a-reszveteli-koltsegvetes-nyerteseit/

The winning ideas will be implemented after the decision of the City Council in September, and we will keep you informed on our websites: www.jozsefvaros.hu and http://reszvetel.jozsefvaros.hu.