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12 Features of Sustainable Community Development: Social, Economic and Environmental Benefits and Two Case Studies Steven
Peck, Peck & Associates |
This article contains a description of a framework of twelve major features of sustainable community development. It provides examples of the quantitative and qualitative social, economic and environmental benefits of implementing these features and provides questions that can be used to help determine to what extent they are being incorporated in development plans. Increasingly, the manner in which we develop and redevelop land is being viewed as a key determinant in the social and environmental health and economic well being of Canadians. The framework is used to describe two case studies, one from Davis, California and one from the newly planned Southeast False Creek, Vancouver, British Columbia. The twelve features of sustainable community development were used during research for an upcoming Canada Mortgage and Housing report, entitled, "Sustainable Community Development in Canada & Internationally: Charting a Role for the Federal Government in the 21st Century."
There is no universally acceptable definition of sustainable community development in large measure because each development site has its own characteristics that result in unique opportunities and constraints. For example, a 2,000 hectare greenfield site situated beside a lake clearly presents different opportunities than a 300 acre brownfield redevelopment in the industrial port land area of city. Likewise, an eco-village located fifty miles from an urban centre offers different opportunities for sustainable development than a major condominium development in the core of a city.
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There are undoubtedly more approaches to sustainable community development than there are terms used to describe it in the literature, and there are many terms. Sustainable community development is often referred to as ‘green development’, ‘green real estate development’, ‘green communities’, or ‘sustainable built environments’, ‘sustainable communities’, ‘sustainable real estate development’ and ‘healthy communities’. |
A research project on barriers to sustainable community development and the potential role of the fedeal government in overcoming them was prepared for Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC). The core research team consisted of Ray Tomalty, Ph.D., Anna Hercz, Ph.D., Guy Dauncey and myself. We divided the many distinct characteristics of sustainable community development into a framework of twelve major features. Our review of the literature and interviews with experts from across Canada also helped us identify three major scales, or levels, at which actions in support of sustainable community development and barriers to implementation take place:
· The building level, where important features include urban design, the use of renewables, improving energy efficiency, facilitating the 3Rs, and using ‘green’ materials. There is a considerable amount of work being undertaken in this area, the focus of significant government programming domestically and internationally since the 1970’s.
· The development site level where important features include the integration of ecological protection, use of alternative sewage and storm water management, and encouraging alternatives to auto use. This level and the subsequent level have only more recently, in the last decade, become the focus on efforts to develop government programs that support sustainable community development.
· The planning and infrastructure level which includes features such as promoting higher density, supporting affordability, supporting livable communities with vibrant local economies and adequate community services, and implementing regional growth management and protection of watersheds and other significant ecological resources.
Successful holistic sustainable community development incorporates multiple features, described below, to achieve the maximum social, economic and environmental benefit. The manner in which we develop and redevelop our communities can have significant and long ranging impacts our economic competitiveness, social and environmental health.
Table 1 lists the major features of sustainable community development, each of which is described in more detail below, along with examples of benefits and questions that can help in the planning and implementation of sustainable communities.
Table I: Major Features of Sustainable Communtiy Development
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While all of the features may not be relevant to every development site, they do form a holistic and integrated framework that can help us to understand the potential for sustainable communities and what needs to be considered in development and redevelopment to implement them.
1. ECOLOGICAL PROTECTION
If the current pattern of development continues, one third of Ontario's remaining farmland will be paved over by the year 2020. It is not only loss of farmland which worries people - it is also loss of habitat, forest cover and recreational green space which can be used for parks, nature reserves or trails. In Charleston, Carolina, a study showed that depending on the way it was designed, for the same number of houses a proposed development could provide either 30 acres or 400 acres of green space. When green space is protected, studies show that nearby property values can increase from 5% - 50%, as homeowners place value on the amenity.
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Questions for
Sustainable Development Proposals – ·
Has an ecological and
habitat inventory of the site been conducted? ·
Are plans in place
that provide ecological protection for creeks, swamps, nesting sites and
groves of trees, on the site? · Do the plans propose conservation covenants or other protective measures for ecologically sensitive areas? · Is there a monitoring and enforcement strategy in place for covenants? · Is there a watershed management plan or regional green space protection plan? |
2. DENSITY & URBAN DESIGN
The typical post-war subdivision has 4-7 units of housing per acre, consuming large areas of land, making it hard for the residents to get around on foot, and economically unviable to run a transit service to the houses (because of the distances involved). In large part because of the design of suburban sprawl, the average household trip in North American increased from 7.9 to 9 miles between 1983 and 1990, while the average household car trips per day rose by 29%.1 Low density development makes it difficult for small businesses to operate successfully within residential areas, requiring instead that they locate on major roadways or in malls to obtain sufficient access to customers to remain viable. The resulting segregation of land uses reinforces the need for and use of cars – without one, access to even local services is severely constrained.
It is this sprawling, low density style of development which is chiefly responsible for the loss of farmland, the weakening of the sense of community, and rising C02 emissions from local travel. In response to these problems, a new approach has been developed known as 'the new urbanism', or 'traditional neighbourhood development' (TND). TND features a grid pattern of narrower streets, sidewalks, smaller set-backs, front porches, the clustering of homes (reducing the need for expensive infrastructure), greater protection of green space, the use of urban design codes, town squares and village centres planned as attractive gathering places, and steps to encourage pedestrian and bicycle travel, in addition to cars.
In New Jersey, a study which looked at the years 1990 - 2010 comparing low-density 'sprawl' development to planned green development showed that the green development model would save taxpayers $9.3 billion in avoided capital costs, while saving 175,000 acres of farmland.2 A recent review of North American studies on infrastructure costs and urban form found that on average, publicly borne capital costs for roads is reduced by 25% and 15% for water/sewer infrastructure in compact development compared to current development patterns.3
Sustainable community developments not only impose far less demands on public finance for infrastructure capitalization and maintenance but also help to ensure quality of life by preserving green spaces and reducing pollution. Metropolitan development patterns are increasingly being recognized as key variables in understanding and controlling pollution. Some research has suggested that the indirect environmental impacts associated with the spatial arrangements of businesses and related transportation impacts outweigh the impacts of direct emissions associated with industrial processes and operations.
Turning farmland into housing is also an expensive option for local tax-payers, because of suburban sprawl's high development costs. A study in Virginia showed that an acre of farmland generated $1 in taxes for every $0.21 that it cost in municipal services, while rural low density housing cost $1.20 for every $1 that it generated in taxes.4 At the current rate of urban growth in Ontario, it is estimated that within 25 years, 20% of the remaining arable farmland in the province will be lost to low density urban developments.5 This degree of loss in farmland raises concerns regarding long term food security in Ontario, which must increasingly rely on imported food as local production diminishes. In the U.S., from 1996 -7, at the local and county level, more than 100 governments sought voter approval for tax increases or bond referendums to curb suburban sprawl by buying undeveloped land.6
3. URBAN INFILL
Greenfield developments always require new land, whereas urban infill initiatives are inherently more sustainable, because they re-use land that has already been urbanized. At its best, urban infill is a celebration of city life, bringing new housing, commercial life and neighbourhood activity to a neglected or abandoned area. Urban infill can make use of existing infrastructure and help to financially support existing public transit systems and commercial activities. Neighbourhood design charrettes are increasingly being used to involve many players in gathering redesign ideas, and building the kind of partnerships necessary to overcome outmoded zoning patterns or the resistance of local landowners.
A study conducted for the Golden Task Force on the Future of the Greater Toronto Area, found that savings of between 22-32%, depending on the amount of infill and compact development achieved, could be realized for hard services (roads, sewers, water and transit). This would represent savings of $700 to $1 billion annually for the GTA.7
4. VILLAGE CENTRES
The standard modern subdivision is built without any thought of including a small commercial centre within walking distance of most of the homes. This lack of a social gathering place has a subtle negative effect on neighbourhood life, since people have less occasion to meet each other and build up the network of relationships that creates a true community. The lack of a close-by commercial centre is another encouragement to own and use cars: residents must drive somewhere else to buy a paper or a bottle of milk.
5. LOCAL ECONOMY
Conventional suburban development – especially in "bedroom communities" -- pays little attention to the need for "complete" communities, i.e., a balance among residential and employment development. Without a local economy, the residents of a new development are obliged to drive to work somewhere else, leaving the neighbourhood empty of life in the daytime, while filling up the roads and releasing more carbon dioxide emissions.
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Questions for Sustainable Development Proposals
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In a 1996 US national home-buyers survey, almost three-quarters of the respondents indicated that they would like to live in a community "where I can walk or bicycle everywhere."8 In 1995, a Louis Harris poll found that 21 million Americans would be willing to ride a bicycle to work "at least occasionally" if they could do so on a safe bicycle lane or off-road path, and 13% of all Americans said that they would be willing to ride a bicycle to work on "a regular basis" if they had the facilities to do so.9 And yet in today's real estate market, this option is very rarely available. A mixture of design strategies including the provision of greenways, traffic calming and attractive pedestrian connections can encourage residents to walk or cycle around, increasing their health and enjoyment, while reducing C02 emissions. Narrower roads reduce the paved surface area and lower construction costs, and by enabling a family to live with one car instead of two (or without a car), a larger percentage of their income can go towards a home mortgage.
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Questions for Sustainable Development Proposals
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7. AFFORDABLE HOUSING
A sustainable community involves human diversity and variety - but the high cost of housing in many modern subdivisions effectively excludes people of different income levels. More sustainable communities encourage a mix of housing types and income levels by adopting housing policies such as density bonusing, inclusionary zoning or by creating land trusts and encouraging non-profit housing.
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Questions for Sustainable Development Proposals
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8.
LIVABLE COMMUNITIES
A sustainable community is one that provides ample opportunity for sociability, personal development, and community participation. The New Urbanism makes a conscious effort to design for community as a whole, including the community facilities that make a place more than a set of roads flanked by houses. Village Homes (Davis, CA, see below) is an excellent example of the way in which something as small and inexpensive as a community barbecue pit on common land can bring people together, and add livability.
New Urbanism differs from conventional development in a wide variety of ways (at least in principle – in practice, many new urbanist developments are not so different from conventional developments. Ellis (1998, p. 46) has identified forty-one different design features, grouped into four different categories: aesthetics, connection, housing cost, and utility (see the table below).
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I. AESTHETICS A. Architecture/Urban Design
B. Technical
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II. CONNECTION A. Better transit 15. Incorporated/increased mass transit B. Design of parks 16. Interconnected park system/walkways/bike trails C. Design of streets
D. Integrated Commerce
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III. HOUSING COST 25. Borad mix of density and housing types A. Density
B. Mix of Housing Types
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IV. UTILITY A. Amenity
B. Efficiency
C. Safety
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Table 4.1 (Ellis, 1998, p. 46)
New urbanism began in the US. The first project identified as new urbanist was Seaside, a new community built on a 32 hectare piece of beachfront along the Florida Panhandle in 1982. The second project was in Kentlands, a 352 acre community located outside of Washington, D.C., From there, new urbanist designs spread to many other locations in the US and in Canada, where over 40 such projects have been or are being built.
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Questions for Sustainable Development Proposals
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9. SEWAGE
AND STORMWATER
The normal
approaches here are (a) to pipe the sewage to whatever treatment plant exists
locally or to plan an individual septic field for every house, and (b) to
collect the stormwater run-off in an engineered underground system and pipe it
to the nearest river or ocean. From an engineering perspective, this
seems efficient.
From
nature's perspective, however, things look a little different. That sewage may
only receive primary or secondary treatment, allowing all sorts of nutrients to
be wasted, and all sorts of chemical pollutants to be entering the ecosystem.
Those septic fields take up a lot of space, and make it hard to cluster houses
together in order to protect green space. And those underground stormwater
drains carry away the rainwater that used to permeate gradually into soil,
allowing the root systems of trees and shrubs to feed. Without the moisture,
they become stressed, and may die. The greater the paved area within a
development, the more stormwater is collected, and the less is returned to the
ground.
When a
traditional neighbourhood development (TND) was compared to a typical low
density suburban subdivision, a study found that the volume of run-off from the
subdivision was 43% higher than from the TND, because less land had been
hard-topped. In addition, the nitrogen and phosphorus loadings and the chemical
oxygen demand were all higher in the subdivision.10
The
sustainable approach to sewage looks in two directions, towards (a) individual
composting toilets coupled with miniature constructed wetlands, for greywater
treatment, and (b) tertiary sewage treatment systems with source control
programmes, or large-scale constructed wetlands to control stormwater run-off.
These techniques often bring ancillary benefits. For instance, a 1995 EPA report
found that aesthetically landscaped run-off controls such as ponds and wetlands
can increase property values by as much as 50% by appealing to buyers who are
interested in hiking around wetlands and lakes, or bird watching.11
10.
WATER
Water
management cuts across many features of sustainable community development.
Because of their more compact nature, sustainable developments can use up to
35% less water for lawns than a typical low density subdivision,12
and up to three times less herbicides and pesticides. There are numerous
opportunities to improve water use and management using green roof technology
in buildings, and designing parking lots and roadways in a manner that allows
for the ground to absorb water rather than removing it. The reestablishment of
wetlands in degraded rivers and streams is another approach to improving water
quality and quantity management while also providing opportunities for habitat
and amenity space.
11.
ENERGY
It has
recently become accepted by leading scientists that global climate change is
probably the most serious global environmental problem facing the world. The
primary cause is the burning of fossil fuels in our homes, cars and factories,
releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which traps the sun's heat. The
consequences of continued climate change will impact cities, regions and
ecosystems all over the world, mostly in a negative manner, whether through the
death of the world's coral reef systems, the warming of the oceans which is
causing the northward movement of the salmon, or the increased frequency and
intensity of floods, droughts and hurricanes.
Canada has
made a commitment under the Kyoto Treaty to reduce its C02 emissions
by 6% below the 1990 level by 2010. In reality, that means a 25% reduction in
the level that emissions will rise to under our current patterns of energy use.
The average Canadian household produces 4 - 5 tonnes of C02
emissions from their home energy use, and a further 3 - 5 tonnes from burning
fossil fuels while driving. By designing a community with energy efficient
homes, where the residents can walk or cycle to local shops and jobs, this can
be reduced by up to 45%13, a challenge which the International
Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI) and the Federation of
Canadian Municipalities (FCM) are encouraging municipalities around the world
to embrace. Overall, buildings produce 35% of the carbon dioxide emissions in
the US.
In regions
that experience hot summers, where asphalt and concrete surfaces absorb heat,
tree-planting turns out to be one of the most cost-effective ways of reducing
energy use and emissions. A Chicago study found that in one day, 120 acres of
canopy cover could absorb up to 5.5 lbs. of carbon monoxide, 127 lbs. of sulfur
dioxide, 24 lbs. of nitrogen dioxide and 170 lbs. of particulates.14
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Questions for Sustainable Development Proposals
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12. THE 3 'R's
The
environmental impact of buildings and related systems cannot be easily
overstated, nor can the contribution that more sustainable design, construction
and reconstruction. According to the Athena Institute the construction and
operation of buildings account for approximately 40% of the total global energy
and resource use on earth. For sustainable community design, the 3 'R's include
construction wastes recycling, the use of environmentally sound building
materials, and the provision of in-house recycling areas. Buildings take up
significant amounts of land, modify natural hydrological cycle, affect
biodiversity, have major impacts on water and air quality and are the final
resting place of over 90 per cent of all extracted materials from the earth.15
A typical 1700 sq. ft. house requires the equivalent of an acre of
clear-cut forest, and produces 3 - 7 tons of construction wastes. New home
construction consumes 2/5ths of all the lumber and plywood used in the U.S.16
In
Texas, the City of Austin has developed a very successful Green Builder
Programme which encourages builders to construct and homeowners to buy
"Four Star" homes, which have been rated for factors ranging from
non-toxicity to energy efficiency and recyclability.17 When
green design approaches were used in a New York City office retrofit, the
client paid 27 per cent less than the $52 per sq. ft normally incurred by the
city.18
Few
communities have all of these features fully implemented. Most projects in
Canada have only on or two of these features in place, and have not yet been
able to realize the multiple and reinforcing benefits that numerous features
can provide, such as higher densities which support active transportation which
supports the competitiveness of local economies. For one project, the most
visible ‘green’ feature might be energy performance; for another, restoration
of prairie ecosystems; for yet another, the fostering of community cohesion and
reduced dependence on the automobile. The following two case studies
demonstrate how the twelve features of sustainable communities can be realized
and provide insight into some of the many challenges related to implementation.
Case
Study:
Village Homes, Davis, California
When
Village Homes was built in the 1970s, the local realtors refused to show anyone
round the 70 acre, 240 home development because they didn’t think anyone would
want to live there. There were no front roads, no storm drains, and the houses
all faced the same way - for solar gain. Today, it is one of the most
sought-after subdivisions in Davis, and Coldwell Banker Residential identified
Village Homes as "Davis’s most desirable subdivision". The crime rate
is 10th that of Davis as whole, and in 1995 the homes sold for 13% more than
the equivalent-sized homes in a traditional post WWII subdivision located
across the road.
Design Features
·
ECOLOGICAL PROTECTION:
12 acres of greenbelt & open space; 12 acres of common agricultural land.
·
DENSITY & URBAN
DESIGN: A whole-systems approach to design. The houses are clustered into
groups of 8 and are surrounded by common space. The early residents were
responsible for the landscaping and design of the green space in front of their
housing clusters. 25% of the acreage is open space (agricultural and
recreational).
·
LOCAL ECONOMY: 4000
square feet of commercial office space. Thanks to the agricultural space, by
1989, much of the Village Homes residents’ food was being grown in the neighbourhood.
The agricultural areas include commercial fruit and nut orchards, a commercial
organic produce farm, home-scale garden plots and edible landscaping along
pathways and roads.
·
TRANSPORTATION: Vehicle
access is by the back lanes only, with pedestrian lanes for walking and
cycling. The "front streets" are designed by the residents as grassy
areas, gardens with shrubs, etc. Pedestrian paths and traffic calming designs
with narrow streets encourage a strong sense of community and high property
values. The compact design encourages residents to walk rather than drive for
their daily needs. The grocery store is 10’ walk away, and the largest employer
- the university - is nearby.
·
AFFORDABLE HOUSING: A
‘sweat equity’ programme allowed several low-income construction workers to buy
homes, and some apartment units are part of the development project as well.
·
LIVABLE COMMUNITIES:
The local Homeowners Association owns and manages the household commons,
greenbelt commons, agricultural lands and the community center, and handles the
revenues from office space and some rental units. There are frequent community
events, and 80% of the residents participate in community activities.
·
Community barbecue pits
encourage spontaneous evening gatherings. The turnover rate is very low, with
most residents preferring to remodel and add on, rather than move to a larger
home.
·
SEWAGE &
STORMWATER: The narrower streets produce less stormwater run-off, which is
handled by simple infiltration swales and on-site detention basins instead of
storm drains, saving nearly $200,000 (1980 dollars). These savings were
invested into public parks, walkways, gardens and other amenities.
·
ENERGY: All the houses
are passive solar designed, with natural cooling and solar hot water. The
overall design, with reduced pavement and more space for trees, lowers ambient
air temperature and reduces the need for air-conditioning. Annual household
bills are 1/2 to 1/3rd less than those of surrounding neighbourhoods, because
of the locally grown food and the energy savings.
Barriers/Successes:
When Village Homes went through the planning process in the 1970s, the plans
were opposed by the planning staff, the public works department and the Federal
Housing Authority (FHA). The police had concerns about patrolling the narrower
streets, and the fire officials worried about maneuvering their fire trucks.
The FHA questioned the inclusion of agricultural uses, fearing that it would
reduce property values. The engineers opposed the natural drainage system,
saying that it wouldn’t work, and would harbor "vermin". In order to
get approval, Michael Corbett, the developer, had to put up a bond to pay for
retrofitting with storm sewers in case the system failed. Soon after, Davis was
hit with a 100-year storm, when the Village Homes system worked fine, and also
handled some of the run-off from the neighbouring subdivisions, whose storm
sewers failed.
In
normal circumstances, the opposition from multiple organizations would have
killed the project, and Village Homes would never have been built. At the time,
however, three of Davis’s City Council Members were environmental activists who
were willing to read Corbett’s point-by-point rebuttal of the objections, made
up their own minds and approved the project against the advice of their staff.
Obtaining the financing was also a problem. The banks turned him down because
he had no track record as a developer, and they didn’t approve of the project’s
many innovative features. Corbett eventually obtained infrastructure financing
for the first 10 acres, was able to buy the land over a 5-year period, and
raised $120,000 from 13 investors, who realized a 30% return on their money.19
Case
Study:
Southeast False Creek,
Vancouver, British Columbia
Project History
In
the mid 1990s, in response to regional concerns of air quality and goals of
densification and family housing in the downtown, Vancouver City Council gave
instructions to its Planning Department and Real Estate Services to begin
planning a model sustainable urban neighbourhood with a focus on housing for
families for an 80 acre site in the downtown, along False Creek. (between
Cambie and Main Streets, north of West 2nd Avenue.) The City owns
over half (45 acres) of this site.20
The
planning began with economic feasibility studies in 1996. Development planning
began in 1997, using a three step process: Developing a Policy Statement,
creating an Official Development Plan, and Rezoning the development parcels.
Following these stages, development can begin as the market allows
The
SEFC Policy Statement was adopted by City Council in October 1999, following
over two years of planning work, including the widest public involvement
process ever undertaken for the Policy Statement stage of any single
development in the city. The Official Development Plan (ODP), which will locate
buildings, streets, parks, etc... and ensure the intent and targets set in the
Policy Statement will be met, will take about 1 ½ years to complete, and will
ultimately be adopted by City Council as a bylaw, giving it legal status. The
third and final step in the planning process is the rezoning of the site, into
development parcels, with legal rights and responsibilities, permitted land
uses, densities, and form of development guidelines attached to each parcel.
These parcels can be then sold for development. The zoning and associated
guidelines will ensure it is built as planned.
Following
consultant studies and much public consultation, the city settled on an
approach to sustainability which noted that to be classified as
"sustainable", at the neighbourhood scale, SEFC needed to make a
significant contribution to the larger goals of global sustainability, as
summarized below.
·
Promote healthy social
community;
·
Promote a stable,
diverse site & context economy, which assists all in meeting their needs;
·
Reduce the consumption
of non-renewable energy and resources;
·
Reduce the production
of waste and pollution; and
·
Enhance the health of
the environment, both locally and globally.
Bringing
these essential goals to the table for every decision, helped give the planning
team, stakeholders and the public, clarity on how to proceed in policy and
design. These goals, in addition to many other more conventional city-building
objectives, formed the basis for the creation of the Policy Statement.
The
Policy Statement outlines a vision and detailed policies to achieve one of the
first complete, "high-density", sustainable, urban neighbourhoods
ever planned.
Design Features
ECOLOGICAL
PROTECTION: High density will help preserve farmland and natural areas in the
region. Waterfront and parks areas will have designed habitat areas. Surface
water management will increase biodiversity and livability. Contaminated soils
will be entombed and/or treated over time to help clean groundwater. Native
plants and non-native plants used in landscape which support native species of
insects, birds and other wildlife.
DENSITY
& URBAN DESIGN: High density design, celebrating magnificent views,
providing for extensive open space areas. Street wall podiums with a high
degree of pedestrian permeability will make it urban but livable. Some small
development parcels will allow smaller development groups to try innovative
housing forms, such as cohousing. Live/work promoted. Solar access preserved
throughout.
URBAN
INFILL: Reuse and rehabilitation of derelict and contaminated industrial land
in the downtown, to provide a diversity of high density housing close to the
downtown job base. Existing clean industry will be encouraged to stay.
TOWN/VILLAGE
CENTRE: Commercial areas will be provided, allowing retail, commercial, office
and clean industry (high tech) throughout the neighbourhood, providing some
"centres" as well as linear links to the surrounding neighbourhoods. All
such uses will be linked closely with transit.
LOCAL
ECONOMY: A wide range of commercial and employment opportunities will be
offered, including low, medium and high income jobs, to reflect the housing
mix. Mixed use zoning will be employed throughout. Jobs/housing mix analysis
includes employment base offered in downtown as part of larger strategy.
Environmentally and socially responsible business practices promoted. Full cost
accounting methodology to be created to understand long term economic analysis
of development.
TRANSPORTATION:
Fine-grained network of pedestrian and bicycle paths throughout, connecting to
nearby neighbourhoods and shopping/employment areas, particularly the downtown.
Public transit includes bus, streetcar and elevated rapid transit all provided
on or immediately adjacent the site. All residences within a 400m distance of a
transit stop, most much closer. Narrow streets, with extensive traffic calming
measures. A reduced parking requirement. Extensive live/work development promoted.
AFFORDABLE
HOUSING: Housing will be provided for between 4,500 - 7,500 people. 20% of
total housing capacity reserved for (publicly funded) social housing. Some
small development parcels to allow smaller developers / co-ops to build. 35% of
the market housing to meet guidelines for housing families at high-density.
Aging-in-place oriented design encouraged.
LIVABLE
COMMUNITIES: Full community facilities planned, including community centre,
public art, outdoor recreation and performance areas, a neighbourhood office, a
demonstration garden, waterfront boating facilities, and probably a school.
Heritage conservation of many buildings on site, and heritage qualities to be
enhanced through public art and landscape design throughout. A major park (over
26 acres) will be provided to offer a full range of recreational opportunities.
The park will also offer areas of urban forest, native species habitat, surface
water management systems, and a significant component of community gardens.
SEWAGE
& STORMWATER: Surface water management system to be employed, including
cleaning road runoff. Alternative sewage management systems promoted, including
composting toilets.
WATER:
Low flow fixtures required throughout. Rainwater harvesting from building roofs
used for irrigation. No/low irrigation landscape design. Surface water
management landscape plan. Education for residents. Possibly water metering at
the unit. Goal is up to 50% reduction in per capita water use.
ENERGY:
80% of energy to be from renewable sources (including hydroelectric).
Alternative, renewable and district energy systems promoted, including ground
source and solar. Green building strategy to be created and implemented.
Low-energy maintenance landscape design. Goal of 40% per capita reduction in
green house gas emissions. Air quality strategy created and implemented for
neighbourhood.
THE
3 'R'S: Full recycling systems in every residential and commercial unit.
Industrial ecology waste recycling system promoted. Goal of 80% of demolition
waste diverted from landfills to recycling depots. Landscape waste composted on
or near site. Residential composting systems and education. Green building
strategy, including recycled materials.
BARRIERS:
Existing government regulations and policies, including the Building Code, that
prohibit innovative work. Added legal liability for innovative on-site systems
is a barrier. Financing ‘green’ buildings has proven to be difficult.
Controversy over land use issues and the density for the site has been a
challenge. Financial resources to educate all stakeholders and complete needed
research and strategic plans are required and hard to come by in an era of
local government fiscal constraint. There are also very real limits of what can
be accomplished with current technology.
Committed
stakeholders and enthusiastic Council and staff are key to success. Vancouver’s
high land values and a desirable location combined with strong technical and
design resources in nearby academic institutions should help to propel
Southeast False Creek through the implementation phase.
Conclusion
Sustainable
community development requires new ways of thinking about the interrelationship
between economy, environment and community and new ways of examining the full
costs and benefits of alternatives to conventional approaches to development.
There are many barriers to the implementation of sustainable communities that
cut across the twelve major features described above. These will be discussed
in a subsequent article.
The
benefits of implementing sustainable communities can be significant in both the
short and long term – for developers, residents and society in general. This
framework should help those who are working to implement sustainable community
development projects by bringing a more holistic, rather than the current
piecemeal approach to these developments in Canada.
Steven
Peck, is the principal of Peck & Associates, a Toronto-based consulting
firm specializing in urban sustainability and sustainable technology
development. speck@peck.ca
Guy
Dauncey is the principal of Sustainable Communities Consultancy, based in
Victoria B.C. and development consultant. gdauncey@islandnet.com
Notes:
1. 'The Benefits of Green Development',
Smart Growth Network, USA
2. Rutgers University, Gersh, 1996
3. "Fiscal Impacts of Alternative
Land Developments in Michigan: The costs of current development versus compact
growth, Final Report." June 1997. P. 1-23. South East Michigan Council of
Governments in "Economic Competitiveness, Urban Form and Environmental
Sustainability: Toward a Green Economy Plan for the City of Toronto" Draft
Report. Sept. 1999. Metropole Consultants.
4. 'Two Possible Futures', American
Farmland Trust, 1992
5. See 1998 Ontario Environment
Commissioners Report".
6. New York Times, 9, June '98.
7. "The Economics of Urban
Form". Prepared for the GTA Task Force by P. Blais. January 1996.
8. Harney
9. Getting Smart, Newsletter of Smart
Growth Network, July 1999
10. Dr E. Blood, Jones Ecological
Research Center, Newton, Georgia.
11. "Economic Benefits of Run-off
Controls" U.S., EPA, 1995
12. Real Estate Research Corp, 1974,
quoted by Smart Growth Network
13. Ibid
14. U.S. EPA, 1995
15. "Listen To Your Mother:
Applying Insights from nature is one way to green the construction
industry" C. Kibert et al., in Alternatives Journal, Winter 2000.
16. US Department of Environment, Center
of Excellence for Sustainable Communities
17. US DoE Center of Excellence for
Sustainable Communities, Austin Green Builder Case Study,
http://www.sustainable.doe.gov/success.gdp.htm
18. Building Design, 1995
19. Green Development: Integrating
Ecology and Real Estate, by the Rocky Mountain Institute. (John Wiley &
Sons, 1988)
20. This case study was prepared by Mark
Holland, Planner, City of Vancouver.
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