Draft:Joni Baboci

Baboci worked as an architect at Studio A in Tirana from 2010 to 2013.^[8] From 2013 to 2015, he served as executive director of Atelier Albania, a planning and architecture initiative within Albania's National Territorial Planning Agency, AKPT, under the Ministry of Urban Development.^{[8] [15]} Atelier Albania advised the Albanian government and promoted national planning through a "learning by doing" approach.^[15]

Atelier Albania dealt with national and regional strategic planning, and Baboci led work on Albania's national plan, the regional plan for the Albanian coast and the regional plan for the Tirana–Durrës region.^[2] Albania's General National Plan, Shqipëria 2030, functions as the country's highest territorial-planning instrument.^[16] The General Coastal Plan, formally the Integrated Cross-Sectoral Plan for the Coast, guides development and protection along Albania's coast.^[17] The Tirana–Durrës integrated plan covers Albania's principal metropolitan and economic corridor.^[18]

Baboci contributed to central-level planning reform and to the drafting of Albania's new territorial-planning law.^[8] Law No. 107/2014, "On Territorial Planning and Development", became Albania's core legal framework for territorial planning and development. The law defined central and local planning responsibilities, established the Overall National Territorial Plan as a mandatory reference framework and created a national territorial planning registry based on interoperable GIS databases.^[19]

Baboci also served as one of the project managers for The Metabolism of Albania, a research-by-design project by IABR/UP and 51N4E with Atelier Albania, the Albanian Ministry of Urban Development, the PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, TU Delft, .FABRIC and other partners. The project examined Albania through territorial flows such as water, food, energy, waste and mobility. IABR/UP later published the results as The Metabolism of Albania: Activating the Potential of the Albanian Territory.^[15]

From 2015 to 2020, Baboci served as General Director of Planning and Urban Development at the Municipality of Tirana.^[8] In 2018, he led a municipal team of more than 100 architects, planners and engineers.^[2] He later served as senior adviser for urban planning to the Municipality of Tirana.^{[20] [9]}

Baboci played a central municipal role in preparing and coordinating Tirana 2030, also known as TR030, the General Local Plan for Albania's capital. Stefano Boeri Architetti led the international design team with UNLAB and IND, while Baboci led the technical and administrative team from the Municipality of Tirana.^[21] Stefano Boeri worked with Baboçi and more than 50 Albanian professionals to develop the city's 2030 vision. The municipal planning department held public hearings across the city, and an online version of the plan allowed users to submit comments and questions that Baboçi answered.^[3]

The Tirana General Local Plan combined strategic projects, adaptable land-use regulation, form-based rules and detailed local plans to guide urban growth, infrastructure provision and redevelopment.^[4] The Tirana municipal council approved Tirana 2030 in December 2016, and Albania's National Territorial Council approved it in April 2017.^{[22] [3]}

During Baboci's tenure, Tirana standardized its planning and development-control system through clearer plan rules, detailed local plans, neighborhood-scale masterplans and electronic permitting. From 2017, authorities in Tirana granted building permits only through the government's electronic platform, which made the permitting process faster and more predictable. Tirana processed twelve times more building-permit applications in 2019 than in 2014, with only a modest increase in planning-department staff.^[4] Albania introduced the centralized electronic building-permit system as part of an Open Government Partnership commitment, with the National Agency for Information Society as lead institution and the Ministry of Urban Development, AKPT and local governments as supporting institutions.^[23] From September 2016, Albania required applicants to file building-permit applications online through e-Albania, and municipal administrations stopped accepting paper applications.^[24] Baboci redesigned Tirana's planning and permitting process through an electronic system that increased transparency and predictability.^[8]

Tirana also expanded open urban-data tools during this period. The GIS database produced for the General Local Plan became one of TR030's key deliverables, and Tirana made the data available to OpenStreetMap and to the public through an open-data portal.^[4] In 2018, Tirana worked with Open Labs and OpenStreetMap volunteers from Albania, Kosovo and Belgium to make TR030 spatial data publicly accessible. Baboci, then General Director of Planning and Urban Development, said the municipality's research, analysis and data-gathering work for TR030 constituted public assets that the city should distribute through OpenStreetMap and other open-source channels.^[25]

The municipality also used land-value capture and development-linked fiscal tools during this period. A revision of Tirana's Infrastructure Impact Tax coincided with a construction boom and, by 2019, new development generated more than 47 percent of municipal revenues.^[26] Baboci implemented a value-based infrastructure impact fee for development and raised more than 100ドル million in new municipal revenues through that instrument.^[8] Tirana also required developers to transfer 3 percent of all new residential development to the municipality, a mechanism that expanded the city's social-housing stock and distributed it throughout the city.^[4]

Baboci coordinated municipal urban-design and public projects linked to Skanderbeg Square, the New Boulevard, the New Bazaar, Air Albania Stadium, the Pyramid of Tirana and new school infrastructure.^{[8] [5]} Princeton University's Innovations for Successful Societies linked Tirana's planning reforms to a wider municipal agenda focused on public space, school access, active mobility and child-friendly urban policy.^[3]

From 2017 to 2019, Baboci lectured at the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism at the Polytechnic University of Tirana.^[8]

After a decade in the public sector, Baboci moved into international consulting and spatial-data work through Layer, a company he founded in 2021.^{[8] [1]} Layer develops spatial-intelligence systems for institutions that make decisions about land, infrastructure, climate, mobility, assets and growth. LINA describes Layer as a spatial-orchestration platform with global data coverage for teams working in urban governance and planning, using artificial intelligence, spatial datasets and geographic models to support decision-making.^[1] Baboci developed Layer from his experience in Tirana, where limited data availability, granularity and georeferencing made data-driven urban planning difficult.^[1]

Since 2020, Baboci has provided consulting services to the World Bank in urban planning, urban strategy, urban development and urban design, with work covering cities in North Africa, West Africa and Eastern Europe.^[8] He worked as a Senior Urban Development Specialist on a World Bank case study of urban planning in Tirana and as a consultant on wider urban policy, resilience and spatial-development work in the Western Balkans.^{[4] [27]}

Layer has worked with UNDP, including training public officials on spatial data, analytics and workflows.^{[8] [28]}

Triennale Milano and Eni engaged Baboci to design and develop research for an observatory on the circular economy.^[10] He worked as a Circular Economy Consultant for Triennale Milano from 2020 to 2021.^[8]

From 2024 to 2026, Baboci served as chief technology officer of Wavelr, a Germany-based climate-technology company that uses geospatial data and artificial intelligence for solar and energy-transition analysis.^{[8] [29]} In 2025, he became director of Spallian East, a Tirana-based hub for artificial-intelligence research, software development, data analysis and strategic consulting for local governments and public services.^[8]