Park life

The greening of the planning process has gathered tremendous pace - every week, there appear to be new initiatives, guidelines and targets for developers, consultants and planners. As a result, the definition of environment-friendly development is expanding. What began as a move to incorporate technologies such as photovoltaic panels now encompasses a range of environmental, social and economic measures that make up the term sustainability.

The government describes sustainable communities as "places where people want to live and work, now and in the future. They meet diverse needs of existing and future residents, are sensitive to their environment and contribute to a high quality of life. They are safe and inclusive, well planned, built and run and offer equality of opportunity and good services for all."

Educational facilities are now being seen as keynote drivers of regeneration. A better educated workforce will be attractive to entrepreneurial employers and the ability to live and work locally will mean that the spending power will be retained within the community. A cornerstone of the sustainable community is the delivery of homes in "staircase" price brackets, that allow individuals and families to trade up the home-owning ladder, without having to move out of the community.

Which path will you choose?

In order for those homes, schools and other amenities to fit together in a sustainable way, they have to be developed as places ratherthan as standalone developments. Green placemaking can involve addressing a host of considerations, including:

• How do we make the most of each site's natural assets?
• How do we overcome site constraints such as contamination, flooding or major services infrastructures?
• Are design codes fundamental to all developments?
• Should we seek quantity or quality of public realm spaces?
• Should public spaces be hard landscaped or soft landscaped and who will pay to maintain these spaces in the future?
• What are the most sustainable forms of construction?
• Should buildings be high rise or low rise?
• Can we sell residential units at premium rates without car parking?
• Should developments be mixed use?
• Are investors ready for new initiatives such as multi-use buildings with renewable energy or centralised plant facilities?

As in all sectors, placemaking has its market leaders - organisations that have dared to drive the sustainability agenda in their own way. Some companies, such as housebuilder Crest Nicholson, follow the Environmental Management System model ISO 14001. It has also created its own sustainable development policy, which covers land buying, planning, design, procurement and construction. Other companies, such as Igloo Regeneration and Isis Waterside Regeneration, have created project sustainability plans that consider themes such as regeneration, environmental sustainability and urban design.

Site use and layout

In today's climate, all aspects of a proposal must be tested against affordability criteria, whether that means initial cost, cost of ownership or the cost of not adhering to latest initiatives and regulations. This article considers affordability criteria as they would relate to a major residential-led masterplanning proposal, taking into account five key issues:

Plot density and character zones 

An increasing number of masterplanning/urban regeneration schemes are being equipped with design codes, with characterisation of different zones through plot densities. This blend of different densities and zone characteristics drives the placemaking agenda, be it landscaped urban squares, the green linear park or the local neighbourhood parks.

The chart (below) shows that the income stream from high-density employment zone development can deliver a much greater surplus to fund public placemaking than, say, low-density neighbourhood edge development. This simply demonstrates that good masterplanning must be a balance of the many different character zones.

Viability of creating open spaces 

Another part of the equation of green placemaking is the physical relationship between site coverage and building height. To create public amenity spaces, it is often necessary to build at height and to incorporate different uses within the same building block, most often represented in mixed-use development made up of ground- and first-floor retail with residential above.

The drive for larger public amenity spaces triggers two cost premiums for the developer: build costs and reduction in net to gross area efficiencies, meaning less income-generating space within any given gross building area (see table: "The impact of building tall")..

This reduction in viability is, however, countered in part by the incremental increase in disposal values for homes built at height that have commanding views of the surroundings.

When different uses are incorporated into the same building, the same rationale exists. Build costs increase by about 2% to deal with transfer slabs/different grids, servicing arrangements and acoustics; and there is a reduction of 2-3% in net to gross efficiency because of residential access cores travelling through the retail levels.

EcoHomes premiums 

The EcoHomes environmental rating system developed by BRE has now been in operation for about two years and EcoHomes 2006 has just been launched. About 20% of the points relate to site locational factors, so the same building will get a very different rating depending on whether it is placed on a greenfield site with no access to public transport or on an urban brownfield site with good public transport links.

National housebuilders' standard specifications have been benchmarked against the EcoHomes 2005 rating and most achieve a pass rating, without consideration of locational factors.

However, more detailed analysis shows that there are varying levels of expenditure to secure the same number of EcoHomes points and that it costs slightly more to achieve the same outputs within apartment buildings than in houses.

The indices (see table: "How EcoHomes 2005 affects building costs") can only be used as a guide and effectively convert into a sum of, say, £1500 for a family unit with a very good rating under EcoHomes 2005.

Social infrastructure requirements 

As part of green placemaking, developers are being encouraged to assess from the outset the social infrastructure requirements, not simply through the Section 106 process and payment contributions, but also in respect of the land take necessary to deliver these uses.

Social infrastructure requirements include:

• Primary and secondary schools
• Health and social care facilities
• Leisure and recreation facilities
• Community facilities
• Open space, such as playing fields, children's play space and allotments.

By far the largest potential land take is for open space, particularly if National Playing Fields Association standards are applied to urban settings.

In more densely occupied urban locations, applying the standard criteria without negotiation and viability testing with the planners may result in about 20-25% of the site area being reserved for social infrastructure requirements. In turn, this drives the need for greater density around core areas with resulting cost premiums, simply to achieve a viable solution.

Renewable energy

The Building Regulations are setting targets for carbon reductions through the use of renewable energy technologies. Innovative public bodies such as Medway council, in association with Rochester Riverside Renaissance, are setting targets that are 10% more exacting than the regulations.

There are different renewable solutions for different building types, each with different percentage carbon savings and different cost premiums. For example, in apartment developments, biomass boilers can save about 55% of carbon; solar thermal and photovoltaics can save 16%; wind and photovoltaics 25% and ground source heat pumps 20%.

Typical costs for domestic-sized renewable solutions are detailed in the chart (see table: "Costs for domestic-sized renewable energy systems"). However, due to the modular nature of some of these installations, blocks of a minimum of 10 units will be necessary.

It is envisaged that mixed-use masterplans will be set an overall target for carbon reduction, which is a balance of the quantum of different building uses.

In the chart overleaf, securing a renewable energy target of 11% will add between 0.45% and 2.60% to the overall build costs of apartments. In a major masterplan costing £200m, an overall 12.5% carbon reduction achieved through renewable energy sources would add between 1% and 3%.

Creating environmental value

Once the green placemaking opportunity has been generated through the commercial mix and the ability of public space to add value has been recognised, two questions arise: how best do we deliver the scheme and can we afford to keep it in the long term? The character and value of a place is largely determined by the quality of public spaces, particularly in cities.

There are three key points to consider when assessing the balance of quality and quantity:

Affordability of quality standards 

There appears to be a renewed enthusiasm for making parks the centrepiece of regeneration. Examples include EDAW's linear park for the Kidbrooke estate renewal in south London and Hengrove Park, Bristol, where the South West of England Regional Development Agency is working to transform a disused airfield and open space into a parkland of "sub-regional significance". The park is funded in part by commercial activities around its edges, including residential, leisure/retail, a new sports centre and a hospital.

Similarly, hard landscaped areas along seafronts at Southend, Rochester and Blackpool are primary examples of placemaking, as are more urban schemes such as Derby Cityscape's proposals. Typical budget rates for placemaking spaces are given in the chart (see table: "Typical costs for public space").

The cost of ownership 

The appetite for more public amenity space, be it hard or soft landscape areas, appears to have abated somewhat as the life cycle and maintenance costs have become more apparent. These spaces could become major drains on the public purse if they are handed over to the council. Prudently, site management companies have been established to ensure that the value of the property portfolio is enhanced and these external spaces are maintained to high standards. However, this regime adds to the cost of the development in two ways:

• There may be a need for a one-off dowry payment to sustain the long-term maintenance or replacement of key pieces of infrastructure
• There is a periodic cost for maintenance of grassed areas and paved areas/roadways. These costs will be passed to owners and occupiers in the form of service charge payments.

A typical £300m masterplan development - with 2000 residential units plus sports pitches, pavilions, roads, pavements, landscape zones and public realm spaces - generates an annual life-cycle and maintenance cost of about £175/unit. This cost is typically split 55% for hard landscape areas and 45% for soft.

Once these costs have been subjected to management company overheads and other estate costs, they can amount to about £30 a month per residential unit, or about £1000 a year for each apartment, including communal area cleaning and a building sink fund. This additional hidden financial burden may in the future deter potential purchasers and slow the process of regeneration.

Enhancement of and re-investment in existing facilities 

As an alternative to more formal urban parkland, underused and underfunded facilities may be brought back into use and then maintained to a high standard.

In creating land use budgets for large-scale green placemaking, the chart (see table "The mix of green spaces") gives a reasonable benchmark for the mix of green uses, particularly where existing parkland is to be enhanced thanks to peripheral development.

Under these circumstances, the capital investment for green placemaking is considerably lower, say a weighted average of £10/m², which is artificially depressed because of the large proportion of natural grassland, woodland and meadow. The corresponding annualised life cycle and maintenance budget equates to about £0.50/m² a year, which is considerably less than its urban equivalent.