Transcript Sustainable Development: why planners and developers disagree

Sustainable Development:
why planners and developers
disagree
Yvonne Rydin
Bartlett School of Planning
University College London
The issue
• Why are urban planners and
developers not working together
to promote sustainable urban
development?
The Urban Planners’ SD Agenda
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Variable pressure from central government
Sometimes local political pressure, but…
Local politics also has other priorities
Tends to prioritise social and economic benefits
An aspirational agenda, that can seem vague
Focuses on urban areas so often rather general
Medium term perspective
Tends to be technologically ignorant
The Developers’ SD Agenda
• Limited market pressure
• Some regulatory pressure, with a strong focus on
products and building standards
• A pragmatic approach that tends to prioritise the
economic
• Usually project or site focused, and only for a
limited time period
• Tendency to concentrate on what can be routinely
and safely delivered (as opposed to what is
technologically possible)
An Relationship of Tension
• Urban planning often puts planners and
developers in opposition to each other
• May disagree about kind of urban
development for an area
• Even if both parties want the same
development, planners usually want more
social (or environmental) gains out of it
A Relationship of Tension
• Local vision and variety is at the core of urban
planning
• This can look like an uneven playing field to
developers involving time and costs
• There is a fundamentally different attitude to
regulation:
– Regulation is key element of urban planning
– Regulation seen as killing innovation by industry
The Way Forward (1)
• Developing on a larger scale
• Provides the opportunity for co-planning an
area
• Teams can build communities of practice
• Shown to be the best way to learn through
doing
• But environmental sustainability may not be
prioritised
The Way Forward (2)
• Enhance the knowledge base of planners
and developers
• Particularly need to target smaller builders
• Need to link urban design to the potential of
environmental building technology
• This could enable dialogue rather than
“yes/no” conversations or a slide to the
lowest common denominator
The Way Forward (3)
• SD needs to be core to the planning
framework at a higher tier than the local
level; this means both the national and
regional levels
• Sweden – dialogue between developers and
government agencies suggests that changes
in the planning system at national level may
be traded off for increasing the
sustainability of new buildings
The Way Forward (4)
• Need a long term framework for sustainable
construction technology
• Fiscal measures providing incentives for
developing higher environmentally
performing buildings
• Technology forcing regulation; including
Building Regulations
• A labour market strategy, including training
The Way Forward (5)
• Consumer acceptance needs to be turned
into consumer pressure
• Energy certification may influence markets
at the margin
• Sweden - idea of linking environmental
performance of buildings to the annual
property tax; this would feed through to the
market
Cautious optimism
• There is potential for urban planners and
developers to work together on the
sustainability agenda, but..
• We need to think outside the box of current
systems and ways of doing urban planning
and development.
Thank you!
[email protected]
Background on the SD concept
Two ways of understanding the concept
1. “meeting people’s needs today and in the
future”; i.e. looking towards future
generations and the world they will inherit
2. Combining the economic, social and
environmental; i.e. delivering on all three
fronts at the same time if possible
Problems with the SD concept
• It is waffle; it can mean everything and
nothing
• It is too easy to buy into; like “motherhood
and apple pie”
• It pretends that win-win-win scenarios* are
always possible
* economic + environmental + social wins
How to handle the SD concept
• Search for win-win outcomes; don’t let the best
be the enemy of the good
• Be honest on what is being prioritised and how
trade-offs are occurring; “we gave up this
environmental benefit for this reason”
• Think at least medium or even long term; find the
long term economic benefits of social and
environmental outcomes