224 research outputs found

    Stagnation in Brownfield redevelopment

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    Purpose of this paper is two-folded. At first it explains the major problems that are causing stagnation in brownfield redevelopment. In addition, these problems given the context of the present multi-actor built environment are becoming more complex to observe. Therefore, this paper suggests also a prospective decisionmaking approach that is the most appropriate to observe and react on the given stagnation problems. Such an approach should be regarded as prescriptive-interactive decision-making approach, a barely established branch. This approach should offer models that have prescriptive as well as an interactive component enabling them to successfully cope with the multi-actor environment. Overall, this paper provides up-to-date insight on the brownfield stagnation by gradually introducing the nowadays major problems and offers a prospective decision-making approach how these problems could be tackled

    Environmental Law at Maryland, no. 5, fall 1996

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    Citizens’ Perspectives of Access to the Decision Making Process and Community Improvement as Determinants of Brownfields Redevelopment Success

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    Brownfields redevelopment is acclaimed as a successful program that has revitalized struggling urban communities and returned unproductive, underutilized, and abandoned industrial and commercial properties to municipalities’ tax rolls. Despite a major brownfields\u27 redevelopment goal being to improve the communities and their citizens\u27 quality of life, to date, the program has not been evaluated from the mainstreams\u27 perspective as to its impact on their neighborhoods and their quality of life. A survey of 129 citizens from urban, suburban and exsuburban municipalities in Passaic County New Jersey sought to evaluate the social outcomes of three redeveloped projects from the affected mainstreams\u27 perspective. Additionally, the research sought citizens’ perspectives about access to the brownfields redevelopment decision-making processes for the purpose of participation. This access would be for them to express their concerns and values about these community projects in public decision making even to the extent of having these concerns reflected in the projects\u27 outcomes. The research explored relationships between citizens\u27 access to the decision making process and acceptance of the redeveloped projects. Also, it explored relationships between the impacts of neighborhood changes ascribed to the redevelopment and their acceptance. Results reveal that the municipalities differ in their response to the projects\u27 outcome and towards the decision-making processes. Overall, there is a neutral to a fairly positive response toward the redevelopments. When citizens felt more empowered in the decision-making processes they are more likely to be accepting of the social outcomes of the redeveloped projects. Additionally, they are more favorable of these projects as the number of positive changes increase. Citizens’ values for redevelopment success such as public and environmental health, job creation, social cohesion, closely align with brownfields redevelopment goals for sustainable communities. This indicates that their values for improved quality of life and expectations for their communities are not discordant with those of local officials. However, emphasis is placed on different priorities. There is need for heightened awareness and sensitivity to each parties’ values, concerns, challenges and priorities and how to prioritize and streamline these issues for the communities overall well-being. Institutionalization of community participation programs within the municipalities is needed

    Assessment of Neglected Areas in Vilnius City Using MCDM and COPRAS Methods

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    AbstractBased on the research carried out by foreign scientists, it has been established, that the so-called brown spots represent one of the key factors investors take into account in deciding upon their plans to pursue urban development. The focus of research on the subject of brown spots lies on the uncertainty as regards the indicators, based on which neglected areas shall be assessed. The presence of neglected urban space areas is a negative phenomenon, however, nowadays it is being successfully dealt with. Despite this, the number of newly emerging neglected areas exceeds the number of those that have been revived. The methods of reviving neglected areas, however, are targeted at dealing with problem consequences rather than at eliminating the problem itself. The social and economic context, under which countries have developed and now exist, differs, therefore, a single and universally accepted system of neglected area early indicators, that could be applicable to any country or city/town, does not exist. The authors of the present article discuss the questions of what should be avoided in order to prevent urban areas from becoming neglected during their life cycle, how to identify them in due time and how to avoid negative effects thereof. The authors have attempted to apply the idea of early indicators that has recently appeared in the scientific literature to the Lithuanian context, in this particular case to Vilnius city. Taking into account the outcomes of the previous research studies and the established hierarchy of indicators according to their significance within urban environment clusters, the authors have selected 15 most significant early indicators of neglected areas. Hence formed system of indicators may serve in practice as a basis for monitoring indicator data and tracking their changes. This system was applied for assessing Vilnius city elderates, collecting previously established early indicators of neglected areas and their numeric values and for using the attributive information contained in GIS databases of the Statistics Department of the Republic of Lithuania. The authors of the article applied MCDM method to determine the elderate of Vilnius city, wherein the future formation of neglected areas was most expected. The result thereof has been confirmed by the experts’ inquest and COPRAS method

    Public Participation in Brownfields Cleanup and Redevelopment: The Role of Community Organizations.

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    This study explores the role of community organizations in the planning process, using the Seattle, Washington, brownfields program as the focus of study. Applying scholarly literature from planning, social work, and environmental studies, this research focuses specifically on the effect that community organizations have on promoting public participation, influencing project outcomes, and mediating between neighborhood residents and government at three brownfield sites in Seattle. I apply multiple qualitative research methods in this study, including case studies, semi-structured interviews, and archival research, to identify conditions if and where community organizations have been integral to public involvement and influential to project outcomes. My descriptions, questions, and analyses are based upon existing brownfield studies, participation and community organization literature, and the communicative planning debates. This research shows a notable lack of meaningful participation by individuals in brownfields projects despite the presence of several active community organizations in each case and assumptions in the literature of organizations’ promotion of public participation. Government officials and developers in this study implemented ‘public participation’ but often produced little more than an outreach/advertising effort that lacked any real path for input, reflecting the rationalization of participation requirements by those in power. For their part, community organizations played a mediating role but the role was as much for the benefit of city officials and developers as it was for neighborhood residents. Organizations in these cases assisted government officials in gauging local concerns and added valuable support to developers seeking city approvals yet rarely provided increased access to the planning process or facilitated activism, often due to the political context of these developments. Despite the appearance of minimal opportunities for meaningful participation, however, residents appeared mostly satisfied by the planning processes and showed little concern for contamination highlighting Seattle’s neighborhood planning efforts of the previous decade and emphasizing the importance of trust, long-standing relationships, and “local” status. Calls for increased public participation in the literature and in practice may not be necessary (or at least not necessary in all phases of a project) as long as planners and politicians strengthen efforts to build relationships and trust between stakeholders.Ph.D.Urban & Regional PlanningUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/60850/1/dspiess_1.pd

    Two Octopuses Making Love: An Analysis of Institutional Management Behaviors Across Four Brownfield Remediation and Redevelopment Project Networks in Rochester and Buffalo, NY

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    With intensifying pressure to not only solve public problems by collaborating with actors situated outside the confines of city hall but also to address complex, long-term challenges like climate change adaptation and sustainability, local government public managers find themselves working in increasingly difficult public management environments. Currently, public management theory fails to fully prescribe management strategies and behaviors that enable managers to best achieve their goals in these situations. This dissertation addresses this gap between theory and practice by tracing the public management processes that lead to outcomes in a set of municipality-led brownfield remediation and redevelopment projects. Utilizing an integration of public management, policy tool, and network theories, this research compares four project-level case studies in Rochester and Buffalo, New York, to address two primary questions. First, in what ways do brownfield projects function as public management networks? Second, to what extent do network management behaviors by city-level public managers impact project outcomes? Contrary to prior research, my findings revealed that neither relationship management nor policy tool strategies alone sufficiently explained project outcomes. Instead, effective public management occurred when high levels of political legitimacy were coupled with an integration of policy tool and relationship management strategies, either through network-centric public managers themselves or through the actions of political champions operating in partnership with them. These findings imply that public management researchers focusing solely upon relationship management or policy tool explanations separate from political influences are not fully capturing the true public management story

    Strategic decision modeling in Brownfield redevelopment

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    De ruimtelijke planning en het herstructureringsproces van bedrijventerreinen zijn onlangs aan enkele belangrijke veranderingen onderhevig geweest. Ten eerste is de omvang van de ruimtelijke herstructureringsprojecten toegenomen. Ten tweede zijn de traditionele lineaire planningsprocessen vervangen door publiek-private samenwerkingen waarbinnen de rollen en de onderlinge afhankelijkheid van ontwikkelaars en overheidsorganen gewijzigd zijn. Binnen deze nieuwe kaders is de herstructurering van brownfields veelal problematisch; er treden veel conflicten op tijdens planprocessen. In dit onderzoek wordt beargumenteerd dat het gebrek aan consensus onder betrokken stakeholders een belangrijke oorzaak is van de optredende stagnatie binnen brownfield herstructureringsprocessen. Het uiteindelijke doel van dit onderzoek is het voorspellen en analyseren van het optreden van conflicten in herstructureringsprocessen, alsmede het doen van aanbevelingen over optimale publiek-private samenwerkingsovereenkomsten voor de herstructurering van brownfields. Om dit doel te verwezenlijken is er een onderzoekskader opgesteld, welke is gericht op het specificeren en analyseren van: (1) de attributen van een brownfield; (2) de voorkeuren van de groepen van actoren; en (3) de kenmerken in het onderhandelingsproces tussen de twee groepen van actoren. Voor het verzamelen van noodzakelijke data zijn er twee online enquêtes gehouden. In beide gevallen waren de geënquêteerden experts binnen een specifieke tak van gebiedsontwikkeling. Voor dit onderzoek zijn verschillende methoden gebruikt. Ten eerste is de Fuzzy Delphi methode gebruikt om brownfield attributen te structureren en te prioriteren. Stated Choice experimenten verschaffen vervolgens het inzicht in de individuele voorkeuren van verschillende actor-groepen. Deze resulterende nutsfuncties zijn uiteindelijk gebruikt als de input voor de analyse van multi-actor besluitvorming, waarvoor de methode Game Theory is gebruikt. De resultaten van het besluitvormingsproces hangen niet alleen af van een individuele keuze maar ze bevatten ook de invloed van de keuzes van een tegenspeler. Het vinden van mogelijke consensusrijke strategieën in de onderhandelingen over de herstructurering van brownfields is het doel van deze laatste stap. Tot op heden is er weinig onderzoek verricht naar de ontwikkeling van besluitvormingsmodellen waarin systematisch de kenmerken van de brownfieldterreinen en de herstructureringsplannen verbonden wordt met het gedrag van de betrokken actoren; een dergelijke verbinding kan inzicht geven in mogelijke bronnen van conflicten. Dit onderzoek draagt bij aan de ontwikkeling van modellen waarin de interactie tussen verschillende actoren binnen een complex probleemgebied wordt geanalyseerd. De resultaten van dit onderzoek ondersteunen besluitvormers en procesmanagers bij het vinden van een optimale overeenkomst in de publiek-private onderhandelingen omtrent de herstructurering van brownfields

    Corporate social responsibility communication and interaction processes within stakeholders relationships : case studies of active mines and mine brownfield rehabilitation in the portuguese sector of the Iberian Pyrite Belt

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    Doutoramento em Sociologia Económica e das OrganizaçõesThis thesis deals with the relationships between mining companies and their key stakeholders, under the realm of Corporate Social Responsibility. The overall purpose has been to understand the interaction processes involved in the relationships between corporations and their stakeholders within corporate social responsibility communication, to contribute to the development of stakeholder management that promotes sustainability grounded on lasting relationships. A new interdisciplinary approach is put forward, by bringing together social organizational and marketing and economic theories. Based on literature review, it is demonstrated that Corporate Social Responsibility Communication and the Industrial Marketing Purchase Approach can jointly analyse stakeholder relationships. A theoretical framework has been developed via conceptual analysis, using the existing literature and a preliminary knowledge of the context. Further, the constructs have been conceptualized in each of the dimensions of the framework at early stages. Multiple case studies have been conducted. Selection of cases was determined by the context – active metal underground mines in the Iberian Pyrite Belt and relevant mine brownfield redevelopment, also in the Iberian Pyrite Belt. On each case the key stakeholders have been identified, based on company information, either from interviews or from company reports. Cases analysis has been done applying within and cross case analysis. Qualitative research made it possible to cope with a complex context, to contact with participants in their setting, to gather data on their perception and to seek for causal associations. The development of a framework appropriate for the understanding of the development of long-term relationships in the mining sector and a new theoretical approach tested, are important theoretical contributions. The “real world” can take advantage of it by applying this approach to similar environments.Esta dissertação tem como foco as relações entre as empresas mineiras e o relacionamento com os seus stakeholders principais, no âmbito da Responsabilidade Social Empresarial. O objetivo geral foi compreender os processos de interação envolvidos nas relações entre as empresas e seus stakeholders, no âmbito da comunicação de responsabilidade social corporativa, que contribuem para o desenvolvimento de uma gestão de stakeholders que promova a sustentabilidade alicerçada em relacionamentos duradouros. Uma nova abordagem interdisciplinar é apresentada, reunindo teorias das ciências sociais e do marketing e da economia. Com base na revisão da literatura, é demonstrado que a Comunicação no âmbito da Responsabilidade Social Empresarial e a abordagem Industrial Marketing Purchase podem analisar conjuntamente os relacionamentos com os stakeholders. Foi desenvolvido um modelo teórico baseado em análise conceptual, utilizando a literatura existente e um conhecimento preliminar do contexto do sector mineiro. Além disso, os constructos foram definidos em cada uma das dimensões da estrutura na fase inicial. Vários estudos de caso foram realizados. A seleção dos casos foi determinada pelo contexto - minas subterrâneas ativas na Faixa Piritosa Ibérica e reabilitação de minas abandonadas, também na Faixa Piritosa Ibérica. Em cada caso, foram identificados os principais stakeholders, com base em informações da empresa, através de entrevistas e em relatórios da empresa. O estudo dos casos foi realizado através dos métodos de análise within-case e cross-case. A análise qualitativa permitiu lidar com um contexto complexo, ter interações com os participantes no seu ambiente, reunir dados sobre sua perceção e procurar associações causais. O desenvolvimento de um modelo adequado para a compreensão do desenvolvimento de relacionamentos de longo prazo no sector mineiro e a testagem de uma nova abordagem teórica, são contributos teóricos importantes. O “mundo real” pode tirar vantagem disso aplicando essa abordagem em contextos similaresinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

    Attitudes and Coalitions in Brownfield Redevelopment and Environmental Management

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    Conflict analysis tools are applied to brownfield negotiations in order to investigate the impacts of coalition formation and a decision maker’s (DM’s) attitudes upon the successful resolution of brownfield disputes. The concepts of attitudes within the Graph Model for Conflict Resolution (GMCR) is defined and subsequently are used, along with coalition analysis methods, to examine the redevelopment of the Kaufman Lofts property and the resolution of a post-development dispute involving Eaton’s Lofts, both located in downtown Kitchener, Ontario, Canada. Within the model of the Kaufman Lofts redevelopment, the project is broken down into three connected project conflicts: property acquisition, remediation selection and redevelopment; with the graph model applied to all three conflict nodes. The application of attitudes shows the impact of cooperation between local governments and private developers in the formation of a coalition that mutually benefits all parties. Coalition analysis, applied to the redevelopment selection conflict between Heritage Kitchener and the private developer in the Kaufman Lofts project, illustrates the importance of close collaboration between the local government and the developer. Systems methodologies implemented here for the examination of brownfield redevelopments are examined and contrasted with the economic and environmental tools commonly used in the redevelopment industry. Furthermore, coalition formation within GMCR is used to examine the negotiation of the Kyoto Protocol, to demonstrate that formal conflict resolution methods can be utilized in other areas of environmental management
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