Estonian Greens: Tallinn platform

The Estonian Greens' platform for the capital is based on the premise that city life doesn’t need to be at odds with idyllic rural life. They want to create a "modern, spacious, and human-friendly city space" in Tallinn that is convenient to live in and easy to navigate for all its residents. The Greens are mainly active in Tallinn.
It includes the following points:
Making Tallinn a green city
- Keep and extend green areas, support vegetating the city's backyards, keep the city clean, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, fight against noise pollution, and plan the city so that everyone can live here as well as possible.
- Make Tallinn pesticide-free, mapping out areas for urban agriculture, introducing communal and rent gardens
- Work towards the city's food independence and thereby creating jobs
- Introducing vertical farming and aeroponics to grow food in the city
- A community garden behind the “superministry” building on the corner of Suur-Ameerika and Pärnu St.
City planning
- Turning Linnahall into a conference center
- Turning the former Patarei prison/sea fortress into a creative center
- Only decorate living trees in the Christmas season
- Cutting the distance between energy production and consumption and making the city's supply renewable by introducing and supporting solar panels, cogeneration plants and smart energy storage devices
Traffic and transport
- Allow people to charge electric cars for free at street lights and in shopping mall parking lots
- Make the whole city accessible for pedestrians and wheelchairs
- Create a network of safe roads and paths for cyclists and pedestrians across the city
- Build parking spaces and storage facilities for bicycles
- Add bike rental points
- Add a carpooling scheme to the city's policy
- Restoring late-night traffic and connecting city districts day and night
- Reducing serious traffic accidents
- Extend the tram network to Viimsi, Maardu, and Rae
- Expand possibilities for park-and-ride schemes
- Parking discounts for cars without studded tires
- Develop a strategy for a combustion-engine-free city
Political change and the city's administration
- Introducing a public initiative system for Tallinn, including the possibility for the people to reject the budget as drawn up by the city administration
- Make the city's transactions completely transparent
- Turn Tallinna TV into a state-of-the-art independent TV channel
- Weed out the city's contracts that are too expensive, or where there's a conflict of interest
- Give Tallinn's administration state-of-the-art smart solutions
- Make the work of city officials traceable to reduce corruption
- Reduce the number of city officials in favor of ICT solutions
- Improve the possibility of long-distance work of officials, so that they can work more flexibly
Education
- Organic food in schools and kindergartens
- Beyond Estonian and Russian offer immersion education for other languages, starting with the kindergarten level
- Increase salaries of assistant teachers
- Vegetable gardens for kindergartens and schools
- Secure bike parks for schools
- Support extracurricular activities and sports options for children
- Create an education innovation center together with the University of Tallinn, providing up-to-date training
- Operational grants paid to private schools
- Support schools and universities in their development of renewable energy and other waste-reducing technologies
- Create a language-learning app to teach Estonian
Opportunities for young people
- Support cooperation between schools and businesses
- Guarantee career counseling for all of Tallinn's youngsters
- Encourage summer jobs and gaining practical experience
- More money allocated for youth initiatives
- Free professional counseling for everyone
Equal opportunities for those with special needs
- Improve the availability of expert advisors, social workers, and psychologists
- Motivate young specialists to work with children as well as adults with special needs
- Integrate children with disabilities into regular schools and kindergartens
- Apply teaching materials to meet specific needs
- Guarantee continued education following basic school to those with special needs
- Create a comprehensive volunteer-based support system to help people with special needs
- Improve the employment opportunities of people with special needs
Basic income guarantee program
- A four-year pilot program to include 1,000 residents
- Income guarantee of €400/month tax free
Animal rights
- Prohibit circuses involving animals in Tallinn
- Assure that any and all institutions in Tallinn fully comply with the Animal Protection Act (lack of funding is no excuse)
- Fund animal shelters
- Support volunteers taking care of animals
- Improve the funding of the city zoo to improve the habitat conditions of the animals and maintain it as a well-functioning educational institution
Waste disposal and clean city
- Waste collection points within walking distance of every home
- Encourage local waste management
- Making the disposal of garbage cheaper for residents and businesses
- Promote packaging-free shopping
- Make large events environmentally friendly and ban disposable plastic items
- Make picking up after dogs easier by placing more dog bins
- Public drinking water fountains across the city to reduce the environmental impact of bottled water
The Greens are open to suggestions — you'll find an email address at the bottom of their platform in English.
The Greens' candidate for mayor of Tallinn is Züleyxa Izmailova.
Editor: Dario Cavegn