St. Koloman, Salzburg, Austria

St. Koloman is located on 850 m altitude, away from the big north-south traffic axes, but only 30 km away from the capital of the state, Salzburg. At present, the municipality has 1,620 inhabitants, with a growth rate of roughly 35% in the past 20 years. The birth rate exceeds the death rate, plus there is a strong migration tendency. As a result, more young than old people live in St. Koloman, considerably more than the national average. This pleasant demographic development is the consequence of good-quality housing in a beautiful landscape, good traffic connections to the cultural centre Salzburg and not least the many initiatives of the municipality to improve and further develop the quality of life of its citizens.

Since 1987, St. Koloman has participated in the village renewal competition. The revitalizing of the old school building as a community house, models to secure land for development, design of the through-route and the construction of a recycling site have been priorities from the start, just to name a few. The community house has developed into a mulch-functional place of encounter. The tourism association, societies, after-school music clubs, doctor, parental counseling, library, dialect archive, natural museum and two rooms for events can all be found in the building. Near the community house, a new supermarket has been constructed in cooperation with the storage facilities and the Raiffeisenkasse.

There are only few jobs in St. Koloman itself. The majority of the population commutes, the smallholdings doing small alpine farming are mostly run as a second income. Only in the tourism sector, there is potential for value-added. Here, the focus is on soft tourism and together with 13 surrounding localities, complementing offers have been developed.

The municipality also participates in the e5-program, the primary goal is building awareness for saving energy and using alternative resources. There is a high density of solar plants and a concept for cost reduction in view of the road lighting. The IT-supported optimization of the water supply shows exemplary use of natural resources. A strategic plan with careful consideration of future needs is in effect in the area settlement development. The municipality buys potential land for developments and preferably sells the plots to young families from St. Koloman for affordable prices, all under the motto “Model to secure development land”.

The improvement of the social quality of life also plays an important role. This is mirrored in projects such as the “Generation Village St. Koloman” or “Family Friendly Municipality”. The geographic and natural separation of the neighbouring localities has resulted in a strong community and a sense of belonging inside the village, displayed in a vivid social life. The identification with history give the village an identity, the natural museum, dialect archive and the professionally recorded chronicle of the village bear witness to that end. The strong social community sense also shows in case of personal hardship or catastrophes. There is a self-help society for removing snow, just to name one example; the municipality clears the communal roads, but members of the society are responsible for the private roads.

St. Koloman convinces through the construction of a multi-functional community house and the continuous improvement of quality of life, whereby a strong sense of community and identification with the home village plays an important part. The responsible handling of natural resources also deserves mentioning, so does the development of soft tourism in cooperation with regional partners.

Evaluated: 2010