Sustainable Neighbourhood Elements Model (SNEs Model)

Sustainable Neighbourhood Elements Model (SNEs Model) Rozana Zakaria1,a, Vikneswaran Munikanan1,b, Mohd Ismid Mohd Said2,c, Muhd Zaimi Abd Majid2,d, Choo Kok Wah1,e, and Md Rajuna Ahmad Shakri1,f 1Construction

Technology and Management Centre, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 UTM Skudai, Johor, Malaysia

2Faculty

of Civil Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 UTM Skudai, Johor, Malaysia

In recent decade, the sustainability was emphasised to become the foundation of planning and design of building structures and infrastructures. Therefore, the land use development for neighbourhood construction should be protected from being overused and devastated. The main concern of this study is to introduce the Sustainable Neighbourhood Elements (SNEs) into the current practice of sustainable neighbourhood planning and design in Malaysia. The elements of sustainable neighbourhood were identified and analysed for them to be applied into the current planning and design system. Issues pertaining Malaysia’s sustainable neighbourhood were discussed. A preliminary set of decision making model and evaluation framework has been developed based on the SNEs which urban designers can manipulate to suit the current need. It must be stressed that the model are preliminary and their role is to act as a catalyst in adapting new ideas into the planning and urban design process.

1. SUSTAINABLE ELEMENTS

NEIGHBOURHOOD

In recent years, sustainable development has been expressed as an important measure to sustain the current environment from being devastated. It is defined as "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs"[1]. Sustainable development is the basic entity for all types of living styles. The symptoms of unsustainable development are starting to appear in many places and at various scales [2]. At a local scales the cities in the under developed nations were threaten by eroding infrastructure, congested highways, poor air quality and lack of access to freshwater. On a larger scale they were affected by climate change and weather-related natural disasters. Other than that, the combustion of fossil fuels is causing an enhanced greenhouse effect that will change climate patterns significantly in this century. Consequently the sustainable development was emphasised to

become the foundation of planning and design of building structures and infrastructures. The sustainable development can be developed in many forms and one of it is sustainable neighbourhood form. A sustainable neighbourhood is a mixed used area with a feeling of community; it is a place where people want to live and work, now and in the future. Sustainable neighbourhoods meet the 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 to all [3]. The sustainable neighbourhood can only be achieve when all the important elements of neighbourhood is strictly followed. As sustainable neighbourhood fall under the sustainable development roof, it can only be achieved through the equilibrium between economic and social development as well as environmental conservation. Here, all the stakeholders must involve in the development of sustainability strategies so that it can be achieved as planned by the government.

Sustainable neighbourhood design involves the development of communities with consideration to environmental, social and economic goals in a balanced perspective and also involve some specific objective such as minimizing external resource inputs and residual exports to and from the neighbourhood system, maintaining a non-toxic environment, sustaining a high quality of life and financing infrastructure in an equitable and efficient manner [4, 5 and 6 ] The interaction among engineers and specialist in sustainable neighbourhood design are an important aspect to create the local infrastructure system and the greater urban design [7]. The Malaysian Sustainability Assessment (SA) was created to achieve the Sustainability Objective in Sustainable Development in Malaysia. The SA helps to document and incorporate the Sustainable Development Indicators (SDIs) in Local Plans and Local Plan Monitoring as shown in Figure 1 [8].

Agency

ACTION AND SUSTAINABLE

PROGRAMME

Sustainable

ASSESSMENT

RECOMMENDATIO

Developme nt Officer

N POLICY AND LEGALISATION;

DECISION;

Federal, State & PROGRAMME

Agency

APPROVAL, IMPLIMENTATION Overall

Chief Agency Coordinating Committee

& MANAGEMENT

Information

Executing Committee

EXPERTISE ACTION

INPUT; Environment



PROJECT

Social



ACTIVITY

Economic

POLICY, INSTRUCTION, MONITORING GUIDELINES (New, Modification)

Process &

outcome

Information & viewpoint input Process Flow Input Flow

Figure 1: Decision making process at federal/state agency level The SA indicator system help to assist in ‘problem-solving’, identify targets and monitor Local Plans performance [9]. But, it can be improve more if the real time examples can be identified on the ground and control them. This can be improved by applying the neighbourhood elements into the assessment such as open space, landscape, playground and other significant elements as discussed below. Sustainable Neighbourhood Elements (SNEs) were the main

findings of this study. The study found that the elements in urban neighbourhood were vital signs which can indicate the sustainable development practices. Under the sustainable development roof, the economic, social and environment factors play their major roles in creating the sustainability approach to the whole process. The sustainable neighbourhood lies under the sustainable living and sustainable urbanization where the area of concern stretches out from it. The SNEs were divided into two branches that are green space and grey space. The green space indicates all the natural and environmentally engineered elements which can create sustainability and healthy environment to the neighbourhood residents which researcher intend to develop in this research. The grey space can be identified as green infrastructures and structure which is built with green materials or environmental friendly materials [10].

The study has concentrated towards green space compared to grey space as it needs much emphasis especially in Malaysian neighbourhoods. Another important reason was to draw attention to the stakeholders whom involve in the residential development on the important of preserving and developing the green lung or green space in neighbourhood area. As a developing country Malaysia was transformed from agricultural base to industrial base country. So, Malaysia has to keep pace with sustainability principles for the community benefit and to sustain the present environment for the future generations. There were 21 elements found in this study. The elements found through municipality master plan review and questionnaire survey. The factor analysis was used to obtain the final set of elements. The elements were then rearranged according to their respective factors under economic, social and environment as tabulated in Table 1. Under the space allocation in neighbourhood development, the study suggested that the green space to be allocated more than 10% of overall space allocation or by overall build up area of each house. This will make the allocation of green space to be more than currently practiced now. So, there will be more green based elements in the neighbourhood area in the future. Sustainable Neighbourhood Elements (SNEs) were rearranged in Table 1 according to their respective factors as mentioned above and also by highest to lowest multipliers. Then the correlations between the factors were analysed which indicate the correlation between the elements associated in the study area. The correlations were showing that the factors and elements correlated to each other. These were proving that all the three factors were important to be considered in the elements implementation and become the vital sign in sustainable neighbourhood elements development. After the arrangement of the SNEs, the elements were then formulated to get the type of categories by its practices which can be applied in the planning proposal by the stakeholders. The multiplier and mean were used to get the element’s score and finally to get the maximum score for each categories in every practices. Figure 2 shows the performance level for sustainable urban neighbourhood practices which categorized to best practices, good practices, moderate practices and basic practices. In each practices the elements were selected to get the score categories

according to exemplary, proficient, apprentice and novice. Best practice signifies that the stakeholders intended to achieve the highest usage of elements in their planning proposals and from there they could get the highest score for elemental categories that they intend to incorporate in their planning proposals. The Good practice is the next selection that the stakeholders can choose if they want to practice above intermediate level. This could give them lower scores compared to Best practice. Next is Moderate practice which is the intermediate level of practice. This would be lower than the Good practice’s score. Finally is the basic practice which has the lowest usage of SNEs in the planning proposals. The study suggested this category to show the minimal usage of elements for the planning proposals. But the stakeholders were not encouraged to use this as it contains very minimal elements application. All the above practices may give implication on their financial planning and the development planning proposals. So, the stakeholders shall select their practices according to the budget allocated and the current requirement in their respective residential area.

Neighbourhood Development Plan

Elemental Stage

Eco Elements

Soc Elements

Best Practi ce

Good Practi ce

Exempl ary

Proficie nt

Env Elements

Mode rate Practi ce

Basic Practi ce

Assessme nt Stage

Apprent ice

Novice

Elements Assessment N o O K Sustainable Neighbourhood Planning Approval

Fa il

Approval Stage Start Development

Figure 2: Sustainable Neighbourhood Elements (SNEs) Model

Decision making model To include the above discussed SNEs in the current planning system a decision making model were introduced to evaluate the SNEs. These were established to indicate the practice of sustainability in Malaysian neighbourhood. But to adopt a proper practice to the suggestion plans, a neighbourhood development plan need to under go an element assessment as stated in the SNEs Model in Figure 2. The elements then will be categorized into four types of practices either in best practice, good practice, moderate practice or basic practice which will be applied to the development plan. After the selection of the type of practice, the elements will be assessed based on the categorization of exemplary, proficient, apprentice or novice. The assessment was conducted as indicated in Figure 2. At this stage the score of each category will appear to give them identification of their selected practice. After the above process, if the proposed plan fulfils the requirement of the development need and the required score, then the plan can be extended for the approval of local authorities. If not, the plan can be revised again to fulfil the requirement. The above requirements were shown to the municipal/city council’s officers to get their feedbacks on the elements found in this study. The pilot scale study shows that the SNEs could be the foundation of the planning and design of the current system. This may become the basic approach for current planning and design in the local authorities. The application of the SNEs in the local plans will be helpful to develop the green space to be part of the planning and design stage. The SNEs model was injected in decision making process at federal/state level agency Figure 1. The federal and state level agency can determine which level of practice that they wanted to apply from the above figure and table. This again will make sustainable assessment more transparent in terms of sustainable neighbourhood elements application in the current planning process. This study has proposed to introduce SNEs model into the current Sustainability Assessment tools. This may help to view the currents system of looking at the local plans to be more viable and fulfil the need of sustainability. More over it may help to improve the current planning and design system to be more efficient and ecological friendly. The study also has made contribution on the current status of awareness on sustainability among the residents in urban areas. Other than that, the study also has identified the current planning and design tools that need to be improved with the current demand to have sustainable neighbourhood criteria as part of the planning and design system.

Table 1: Multipliers and mean according to factors

F2 – Social

F1 – Economic

Factor

F3 – Environmental

Green Space > 10% (Retain Green identity)

Type of Space

Elements

Mean

Multipliers

1 2

Greenery can give aesthetic value to neighbourhood Green area important in neighbourhood area

4.48

0.886

4.52

0.769

3 4

Sound buffer, air filtration and reduce CO2 Sustainable living concept used as a tool for neighbourhood

4.44

0.742

4.21

0.616

5

Greenery should be increased from current allocation

4.25

0.573

6

Natural heritage preserved during housing construction

4.38

0.470

7

4.06

0.372

8

Environmental friendly design neighbourhood construction Away from heavy traffic

4.25

0.349

1 2 3

Design of neighbourhood Design of house Green recreational facilities

3.83 3.75 3.98

0.801 0.793 0.631

4 5

House price give satisfaction Noise problem controlled by green buffer area

3.98

0.575

3.43

0.404

6 7 1 2 3 4 5

Commuting time reduced Dust, smog and soot controlled with green area Natural ponds Wetlands Playgrounds Gardens Tall trees

3.99 3.65 3.54 3.12 4.2 4.26 3.94

0.397 0.338

6

Designed by preserving existing green area

3.75

References 1. US EPA (2008). What is sustainability? U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Retrieved on 10 Oct 2008 from http://www.epa.gov/Sustainability/ 2. Putte, I. V. D. (2007). Project Sustainability Management – Beyond the Greening of Building. Paper submitted for Conference on Sustainable Building South East Asia. 5-7 November 2007. Malaysia. 3. Bristol Accord (2005). Conclusions of Ministerial Informal on Sustainable Communities in Europe. Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. UK Presidency. 4. Churchill, C. J., and Baetz, B.W. (1999). Development of decision support system for sustainable community design. ASCE Journal of Urban Planning and Development. 125, 17-35. 5. Hellstorm, D., Jeppsson, U. and Karrman, E. (2000). A framework for systems analysis of sustainable urban water management. Environmental Impact Assessment Review. 20, 311-321. 6. Heaney, J.P., Pitt, R. and Field, R. (1999). Innovative wet-weather flow management systems. EPA 600/R-99/029. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Cincinnati, Ohio. 7. Engel-Yan, C., Kennedy, S., Saiz, S. and Pressnail, K. (2005). Towards Sustainable neighbourhood: the need to consider infrastructure interaction. Can. J. Civ. Eng., 32, 45-57.

and

material

used

for

0.778 0.687 0.633 0.621 0.504 0.316

8. Selangor Gov. (2003). Selangor’s Commitment to Sustainable Development. Town and Country Planning Department (JPBD) of Selangor and Institute of Environment and Development (LESTARI), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. 9. JPBD Semenanjung Malaysia (2006). National Urbanization Policy. Federal Department of Town and Country Planning Peninsular Malaysia, Ministry of Housing and Local Government, Malaysia. http://www.townplan.gov.my/dpn/ 10. Al-Hagla, K. (2008). Towards a sustainable neighbourhood: The role of open space. Arcnet-IJAR, 2(2), 162-177.