Comparison of the Moldova HiTech Park Location near Arena with the Principles of the New Urban Agenda / Habitat III
If we assess the location of Moldova HiTech Park near Arena not through the Chișinău Constitution, but through the New Urban Agenda — the UN’s global urban framework adopted at Habitat III, the conclusion becomes even more significant.
In this case, it is more accurate to speak not of a “legal violation” of Habitat III, but of inconsistency with, or movement in the opposite direction from, several key principles of the New Urban Agenda. The New Urban Agenda is an international framework for urban policy, not a directly enforceable urban-planning regulation.
1. Compact development — the clearest contradiction
The New Urban Agenda promotes efficient land use, compactness, appropriate density, connectivity, and mixed-use development in order to prevent uncontrolled urban expansion and reduce the need for travel.
The Arena option essentially produces the opposite process:
existing city → agricultural land → new isolated employment centre.
Instead of using the city’s internal reserves, this approach leads to greenfield urbanisation and expansion of the urban footprint.
Assessment:
Arena: strong inconsistency — −2.
2. Efficient use of land and natural resources
Habitat III links sustainable territorial development to the rational use of land and natural resources and to limiting excessive land consumption caused by urban sprawl.
In the Arena case, agricultural land is converted to accommodate a new urban development.
This issue becomes even more important because there is a real alternative in the form of unused or underused industrial land within Chișinău itself.
The question therefore is no longer:
Can agricultural land be rezoned?
but rather:
Why should new land be consumed if the same function can contribute to the regeneration of an already disturbed and underused urban area?
Arena: −2.
3. Priority for regeneration and reuse of existing urban land
The New Urban Agenda explicitly includes renewal, regeneration, and retrofitting of existing urban areas among the tools of sustainable development.
From this perspective, the comparison is almost symmetrical:
Arena: greenfield → urbanisation.
Eastern City: brownfield / underused industrial land → regeneration.
The Eastern City therefore applies precisely the mechanism promoted by the Agenda as one of the pathways toward sustainable urban development.
Arena: −1/−2.
Eastern City: +2.
4. Mixed-use development
Habitat III considers mixed-use development one of the principal instruments of a compact city: housing, employment, services, and other functions should be combined in ways that reduce the need for travel.
At Arena, the dominant function is clear:
more than 21,000 jobs.
Even if the masterplan includes some housing and public functions, the residential component is not comparable in scale with the number of jobs generated.
The area therefore remains primarily an employment destination.
In the Eastern City, the proposed balance is:
38,000 residents / 30,000 jobs.
This represents a much more balanced functional structure.
Therefore:
Arena: −1.
5. Integration of land use and transport
This is one of the fundamental principles of sustainable urban development:
spatial structure should first reduce the need for travel, and the transport system should then serve the remaining demand.
In the Arena case, the sequence is essentially reversed:
create a peripheral generator of more than 21,000 jobs → then build transport infrastructure to solve the mobility problem that has been created.
This clearly illustrates the difference between transport accessibility and appropriate land-use planning.
A good road to an unsuitable location does not automatically make the urban-planning decision sustainable.
Arena: −1.
6. Priority for public transport and Transit-Oriented Development
The New Urban Agenda supports compact, mixed-use development around public transport systems and major mobility hubs.
Near Arena, such a high-capacity public transport system does not exist as an initial condition. It would have to be created later to serve the project.
In the Eastern City, however, an existing railway corridor can become the structural backbone around which the new urban centre develops.
Thus:
Arena: development first → transit later.
Eastern City: transit corridor → development around it.
In the logic of Habitat, the second approach is considerably closer to Transit-Oriented Development.
Arena: −1.
7. Reducing car dependency
Compactness and mixed-use development are directly linked to reducing the need for travel and supporting public transport, walking, and cycling.
An isolated centre with more than 21,000 jobs located alongside major road infrastructure objectively creates a risk of high car dependency.
Even if high-quality bus services or other forms of public transport are introduced later, the spatial model initially favours the private car.
Arena: −1.
8. Protecting agricultural land and strengthening urban–rural relationships
The New Urban Agenda treats urban, peri-urban, and rural territories as an interconnected system and promotes sustainable use of land and natural resources.
Urban–rural integration does not mean that agricultural land should gradually become a reserve for urban expansion.
On the contrary, continuous absorption of peripheral land is one of the problems associated with uncontrolled urban development.
Therefore, locating a major campus specifically on agricultural land produces another significant conflict:
Arena: −2.
9. Infrastructure efficiency
One of the advantages of a compact city is the reduction of the cost of infrastructure provision per resident or user.
Here, our earlier comparison of the efficiency of each million euros invested aligns particularly well with the logic of Habitat.
In the Arena option, it is necessary to extend:
roads + water + electricity + gas + public transport
towards a new peripheral node.
In the Eastern City, the same infrastructure simultaneously serves:
HiTech Park + 38,000 residents + 30,000 jobs + schools + services + public spaces.
Each kilometre of pipeline, road, or transport line therefore serves more people and more functions.
Accordingly:
Arena: −1.
10. Environmental sustainability
Here, the situation is more nuanced.
HiTech Park itself can be designed to a very high environmental standard:
energy-efficient buildings, green spaces, MBR treatment systems, water reuse, renewable energy, and modern environmental technologies.
All of these measures are consistent with the New Urban Agenda.
However, Habitat does not assess only the building or development site. It also considers the consequences of the territorial model.
At the same time, the Arena location produces:
loss of agricultural land + additional travel + new roads + expansion of the urban footprint.
This creates an important distinction:
A high-quality environmentally sustainable project can still be located in an environmentally and urbanistically unsuitable place.
Therefore, the assessment could be:
within the project itself: +1/+2;
at the citywide level: −1.
11. Social integration and access to opportunities
One of the central principles of the New Urban Agenda is “leave no one behind” — equal access to jobs, services, infrastructure, and opportunities.
A specialised peripheral technology campus makes access to more than 21,000 jobs more dependent on mobility.
In a mixed-use urban environment, employment becomes part of the everyday urban structure.
However, this should not necessarily be described as a direct contradiction.
Arena: 0/−1.
Where Arena does correspond to Habitat principles
It is important that the analysis does not become one-sided.
Moldova HiTech Park clearly corresponds to several important principles of the New Urban Agenda:
economic development and innovation — +2;
creation of modern infrastructure — +1;
digitalisation and smart-city approaches — +2;
modern environmental technologies — +1/+2;
creation of a new centre of activity — +1.
Therefore, the problem is not HiTech Park itself.
The issue is the choice of its location within the territorial structure.
Summary assessment
This produces a particularly interesting situation:
HiTech Park as a programme aligns well with the New Urban Agenda. However, its chosen location near Arena contradicts or weakens a significant number of the spatial principles of that same Agenda.
This is precisely why the comparison with the Eastern City is so revealing.
We retain the same HiTech Park, the same companies, the same investment, and the same more than 21,000 jobs.
Only the location changes.
But by relocating the economic core to unused industrial land within the city, close to the railway, housing, the Bâc River, and the existing urban infrastructure framework, most of the negative indicators can potentially become positive.
This essentially confirms the central thesis of the previous analysis:
The problem with a major project may not be what is being built, but where it is being built.
In this case, the principles of Habitat III and the Chișinău Constitution dashboard lead to essentially the same conclusion, even though they approach the issue from two different perspectives.
