The plight of the land developer is tough right now, given the housing bubble and the long-lasting impact of available credit due to the global recession. This downturn has had it’s Darwinian moments though, because the developers that took a more irresponsible tact with cheaper and more homes as fast as they could be built have taken the hardest hits, and in many cases are no longer in business.
The demand for new housing will not go away anytime soon. However, new development plans are under increasing scrutiny regarding the value that they bring to communities, and the impacts that they’ll have on quality of life. This growing sentiment of more reasoned development plays neatly into the hands of evolving design and planning approaches as well as supporting geospatial technologies.
Cumulative Intelligence About the Land
There are a broad number of disciplines that are involved in the design of new developments. These steps are currently very disjointed, with such foundational elements as the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) being delivered in static reports that are only done because they’re mandated, and are immediately filed away, having met the requirement. The coming evolution of this work will use the EIS and its knowledge of the land as a template for development, and a base map for an intelligent land model, much the same way that topology is a foundational feature about the land.
The idea of intelligence within the land model means that each subsequent discipline adds to the intelligence, with more details about the land, the web of infrastructure that connects each structure, the details about each structure and property, and key operational and maintenance tasks for ongoing work after the last structure is built.
The amount of intelligence that’s encapsulated in the model will depend upon the complexity of the site. The development of new land won’t require the same sort of details that will be contained in a complex urban environment where land is being redeveloped. But all models should live on for the lifecycle of the site.
Collective Field Work
The idea of land design on site in a collaborative manner with a team of diverse professionals was on display recently at the GeoDesign Summit through the work of Dennis Williams with the Civil Design Team. William uses CAD and ArcPad to take his design out into the field for on-site design sessions with planners, the land owner and other stakeholders. The site work is a collaborative endeavor where multiple participants are walking the land and visualizing its future, along with a collection of inputs and measurements that form the baseline for the discussion.
The interactive, real-time and collaborative approach has proved to be greatly efficient in the work that William has done planning 1,000 to 5,000-acre developments in South and North Carolina. The in-context questions help resolve issues before they become problems, and the collaborative work approach means that all concerns are addressed and resolved early in the process, alleviating costly changes that tend to happen later in the design and planning process.
Consensus Planning
The advent of crowd-sourced and Internet-enabled planning methodologies, along with a movement to greater government transparency, has given rise to more citizen involvement in the planning process. An inclusive approach is aided by technology to gather opinions and drive consensus in a much quicker timeline than previous approaches.
While the developer can expect much greater feedback and scrutiny in the design and planning process, the end result is an engaged and satisfied customer base that will be ready and willing to support it. With each well-planned development that takes into account the community and the environment, we make our collective home a better place.
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Good post highlighting some practical implications/applications of emerging web-based tools (geo and otherwise).
On a somewhat related note, next Thursday we’ll be launching several updates to the interactive map we’ve developed for the Long Island Index (http://www.longislandindexmaps.org), which we had discussed in our SpatialSustain interview last year. The enhancements will focus on new mapped information about redevelopment opportunities across Long Island’s historically neglected downtowns and rail station centers. These areas have great latent potential for increased density and vibrant commercial/residential/cultural/recreation land uses, and the latest LI Index report analyzes the opportunities in these areas on an islandwide basis. The interactive map will give community groups, developers, the media, and public officials new web-based tools to to visualize these opportunities and access information about them to help plan for their revitalization.
Tying this back into your piece, the challenge will be for developers and these other constituencies to work together in using this new information & these new tools to leverage redevelopment in sensible ways. The LI Index team will also be announcing some incentives next week to help move in this direction. We’ll keep you posted!
Wow, this is an excellent example of proactive redevelopment with a means of involving the community!
Matt,
This post–and your entire site–is right in line with some of my undergraduate studies at Arizona State University. I am studying Civil Engineering with a focus in Sustainable Land Development and a minor in GIS. I am currently writing a paper that addresses many of these issues that you write about here. I appreciate this website and the valuable information that you have put up.
Some of the key points of a paper I am writing are the necessity of transparency, accountability and continual feedback between stakeholders in Land Development Projects. It is also critical to be aware of current trends in technology and society in order to accomplish sustainable design. “Smart” infrastructure and increasing Information and Communication Technologies are an important part of the technology aspect.
I look forward to implementing these concepts in the real world and hopefully continuing my education in this area. If you are interested I can send you a copy of the paper when I complete it in the next month. Again thanks for the website.
P.S. I tried to subscribe to the V1 newsletter and was not permitted. Can you help me out with that?
Talmage, thanks for the nice note. We’re definitely interested in the work that you’re doing, and would love to see your paper when you’re done. I’ve just made certain that you’re added to the V1 Newsletter list.