Lessons learned from eco-district pilot projects : the importance of stakeholder relations

As climate change becomes more and more a reality that cities around the world face, global and local environmental threats to cities highlight the need for a new paradigm in built environment disciplines, a new paradigm as much in terms of design and planning processes as built outcomes. In order to help answer this call for more sustainable and resilient urban development, over the past decade or so, a rapidly increasing number of neighbourhood sustainability frameworks have emerged. While several studies have aimed at understanding the content, form and structure of neighbourhood sustainability frameworks, important knowledge gaps exist concerning the ‘hows’ of these frameworks: How are neighbourhood sustainability frameworks leading to better practice? How are these frameworks being implemented, and what can be learned from this? How are they contributing to breaking down professional silos to foster integrated and collaborative thinking? This dissertation aims at explaining how neighbourhood sustainability frameworks are used in practice and to what extent they are contributing to the shift towards a more regenerative and resilient paradigm for the built environment. This qualitative research project is based on three in-depth case studies of ecodistrict pilot projects that have experimented with neighbourhood sustainability frameworks: first, the EcoDistricts pilot projects in Portland, Oregon; second, the BREEAM-Communities Masthusen pilot project in Malmö, Sweden; and third, the superblock pilot project and the Ecological Urbanism framework in the Sant Martí district of Barcelona, Spain. The research project uses a qualitative, exploratory approach in which semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders involved in the pilot projects helped to construct an analytical framework – the ‘process-based approach.’ The results show the number of ways in which the neighbourhood sustainability frameworks impact practice, specifically in terms of four dimensions: collaboration, community participation, stakeholder relations and visual communication. The case study results also shed light on the gaps between the expectations of the frameworks and the reality of how they are implemented. Indeed, external and internal barriers are identified in the case studies, which serve to explain why the frameworks are making only modest progress in the shift to a new paradigm. The results serve as a reminder that neighbourhood sustainability frameworks cannot be understood in a vacuum. On the contrary, how and when they are used, and how they are framed are equally important. The successful application of these frameworks depends on a variety of conditions that can lead to better collaboration, community participation, stakeholders relations and visual communication. These include for instance, the alignment of stakeholder assets, actions and expectations; fostering internal attributes in the planning teams; having conflict resolution mechanisms in place; and ensuring that community participation be not only deep but also early on enough to impact decisionmaking. Based on these results, the project proposes a “stakeholder support framework” for third generation neighbourhood sustainability frameworks. At a macrolevel, it proposes three guiding principles for neighbourhood sustainability frameworks. At a finer-grain scale, it provides a series of concepts and toolkits to help eco-district leaders develop more regenerative, resilient, and just processes.

Keyphrases: eco-districts, neighbourhood sustainability frameworks, regenerative sustainability, resilience, collaboration, participation, stakeholder management, qualitative research, EcoDistricts, BREEAM Communities, superblock, Ecological Urbanism