Regeneration, heritage and community: Field notes from the Advanced Cooperation Mission in Santo Domingo   

Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic | 6–8 July 2026  

The IURC programme held its Advanced Cooperation Mission in Santo Domingo as part of the Community of Practice on urban regeneration and social cohesion, hosted by the National District City Council. The mission centred on one of the most historically significant urban cores in the Americas — a UNESCO World Heritage Site — to explore how Santo Domingo is approaching the regeneration of its Colonial City through integrated governance, public-private collaboration and community co-management. 

Day 1 | History as a foundation for urban regeneration  

The mission opened with a guided tour of the Colonial City led by Kin Sánchez — journalist, historian and cultural advisor to Santo Domingo’s Tourism Cluster — whose presentation of the city’s historical foundations set the tone for the days ahead. The tour, aboard the Chu Chu Colonial train, offered the delegation an immersive first reading of the historic urban fabric, including a visit to the Catedral Primada de América — the oldest cathedral in the Americas — where Kin walked participants through its main architectural features and the layers of history embedded in its stones. 

The afternoon moved to the Palacio Consistorial, where a folkloric ballet performance at the entrance marked the beginning of a welcome reception hosted by the city. Mayor Carolina Mejía and the Ambassador of the European Union in the Dominican Republic, Raúl Fuentes Milani, joined the delegation for a meeting that went quickly to the heart of the mission’s themes: the role of public-private collaboration and community engagement in the regeneration of degraded public spaces, and the long-term sustainability of recovery interventions.

The Mayor presented Santo Domingo’s experience as a model of multi-stakeholder urban regeneration — one where partnerships between local and national governments, the private sector, financial institutions and community organisations have transformed neglected parks, plazas and urban boulevards into safer, more accessible and more vibrant public spaces. At the centre of this approach: co-management models in which citizen representatives, elected by local community associations, play an active role in maintaining and safeguarding regenerated spaces after the initial intervention is complete. As the Mayor made clear, the quality of the intervention itself is only part of the equation — what makes it sustainable is what happens next. 

Day 2 | Integrated governance and the long view 

The second day opened with a presentation by architect Marcos Barinas on the recovery project for Parque Enriquillo, currently under construction. His account of the project made one thing clear: urban regeneration cannot be addressed in isolation. Without improving the surrounding environment and strengthening residents’ sense of belonging to the space, any physical intervention risks losing its impact over time. 

At Palacio Saviñón, the group visited the Expo Ciudad Colonial Viva exhibition, led by Melina Cruz Fersobe, Head of the Tourism Observatory of Santo Domingo’s Colonial City at the Ministry of Tourism (MITUR). Melina argued for the importance of building a strong destination brand for the Colonial City — one sustained by knowledge-sharing among public sector and local stakeholders, and anchored in the quality of public spaces and the preservation of the historic urban landscape. For her, these elements are inseparable from the long-term sustainability of the destination and the broader goal of territorial cohesion

The session continued with a presentation by Jaime Read Ortega, Coordinator for the Implementation of the Integrated Tourism and Urban Development Program for the Colonial City. He explained the institutional architecture behind the programme — a coordinated effort between the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the Government of the Dominican Republic, with MITUR as executing agency, the National District City Council as local government, and the Ministry of Culture (MINC) as the institution responsible for heritage management. The programme encompasses planned street interventions, a housing recovery programme and an electric bus pilot supported by the European Union — illustrating how sustainable mobility, heritage preservation and urban revitalization can be addressed as parts of a single integrated strategy.

The day ended with a visit to local parks and the Malecón Deportivo, a waterfront regeneration project converting part of the city’s seafront into a public space for sports, recreation and community use. 

Day 3 | Community, heritage and next steps 

The final day brought the delegation to Parque Pellerano Castro for a meeting with APRECC — the Association of Property Owners and Residents of the Colonial City, established after COVID-19 — and Diana Martínez, Director of the Office of Cultural Heritage and the Historic Centre. APRECC offered a vivid, practical illustration of the co-management model the Mayor had described on the first day: through an agreement backed by a municipal ordinance, the association has become a co-manager of regenerated public spaces, with the legitimacy to participate in decision-making and the capacity, as a non -profit, to mobilise additional funding for neighbourhood improvements. Diana Martínez complemented this with a presentation of the regulatory framework governing the Colonial City — the Zoning, Land Use and Intervention Regulations — which establishes the rules balancing heritage conservation with urban revitalization.   

A guided visit to the Museum of the Cathedral of Santa María la Menor, led by its director Fabiola Herrera, traced the origins of the city itself: the role of the Cathedral and the Catholic Church in shaping Santo Domingo’s early urban structure, the context of Christopher Columbus’s arrival on Hispaniola, and the early stages of what would become the oldest continuously inhabited European settlement in the Americas. The visit connected the regulatory and governance discussions of the previous days to a much longer historical arc — a reminder that the Colonial City being regenerated today is not just a heritage asset but a living record of five centuries of urban history. 

The mission closed with a CoP 2 working session to structure the pilot action, review the framework for the CoP’s final deliverables and agree on next steps. 

About the IURC LAC Advanced Cooperation Missions

IURC Latin America and the Caribbean, part of the International Urban and Regional Cooperation (IURC) programme, connects cities and regions from Latin America, the Caribbean and Europe to co-create sustainable, inclusive, and innovation-driven solutions. Through peer-to-peer exchange and partnerships, the programme contributes to improving citizens’ quality of life while strengthening global cooperation.

Advanced Cooperation Missions are on-site technical visits that build on the IURC programme’s collaborative and knowledge-sharing approach. They provide cities and regions with the opportunity to further develop the themes explored during the online meetings of the Communities of Practice, refine their cooperation action plans and gain first-hand experience of best practices implemented by the hosting city or region.