202,839 research outputs found

    Impacts of planning rules, regulations, uncertainty and delay on residential property development

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    This paper proposes a framework for how houses could be developed, with a focus on how regulatory policies and practices affect decision making. The authors surveyed property developers in Auckland on how planning rules and regulations affect the cost of \u27affordable\u27 housing. Almost 90% of the developers surveyed had been affected by delays or uncertainties related to regulation. The typical cost range of regulations is estimated to be between 32,500and32,500 and 60,000 per dwelling in a subdivision and between 65,000and65,000 and 110,000 per apartment. Academic Abstract Dwelling prices are determined in the long run by the total costs of a development, where costs include regulatory costs, including costs of delay and uncertainty. We outline a conceptual framework for the development process and then develop a real options model of housing development that indicates more formally how regulatory policies and regulatory practices affect development decisions. We apply these insights to the design of a survey of property developers active in the Auckland market, with an emphasis on the ‘affordable’ part of the market. In surveying developers, we aim to elicit their views regarding the impacts that planning rules and regulations have on total development costs. We do not attempt to value the corresponding benefits of the planning rules and regulations, so this study is not a cost: benefit analysis of council planning approaches; rather it documents the costs of the rules and regulations – as perceived by developers – to provide a basis for benefits to be compared. Almost 90% of surveyed developers have been affected by delays or uncertainties related to regulation. Regulations that have had major effects on the actual building costs of apartments include: building height limits, balcony requirements, conforming to Council’s desired mix of apartment typologies and minimum floor to ceiling heights. Major cost effects on developing residential sections and standalone dwellings include: infrastructure contributions not related to the specific development, section size requirements, extended consent processes and urban design considerations stemming from Council’s urban designers. Reserve and development contributions and Watercare levies affect the costs of both types of development. Excluding the cost of Watercare and reserve and development contributions, the typical cost range of the total impact of regulations is estimated to vary between 32,500and32,500 and 60,000 per dwelling in a subdivision. In terms of affordable apartments, assuming the total internal floor area remains the same and no deck is built, the impact on total cost typically is estimated to range between 65,000and65,000 and 110,000 per apartment

    The legal framework for offshore wind farms: A critical analysis of the consents process

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    The impact of the legal framework for the consents process on the rate of development of offshore wind farms in England, and the achievement of targets for renewable electricity generation have been reviewed. From the literature and consulted stakeholders it was found that the complexity of the current consents process has adversely affected the rate of development and the achievement of renewable energy targets. Future projects will be subject to a different legal framework for consents, under the Planning Act 2008 and the Marine and Coastal Access Bill. From a comparison of process diagrams for the current and future consents processes, it is concluded that the future process should be an improvement. However, uncertainties remain about the detailed procedures and operation of the future consenting authorities. The capacity and capability of key stakeholders to meet their obligations have implications for the time frame for the processes of applying for, and the granting of, consents. Furthermore improved engagement from developers and clarity about the role of local authorities are essential if progress is to be made. The need for a holistic and strategic view of the industry, including associated development of the supply chain and the transmission grid, is also highlighted. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

    Why Modern Open Source Projects Fail

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    Open source is experiencing a renaissance period, due to the appearance of modern platforms and workflows for developing and maintaining public code. As a result, developers are creating open source software at speeds never seen before. Consequently, these projects are also facing unprecedented mortality rates. To better understand the reasons for the failure of modern open source projects, this paper describes the results of a survey with the maintainers of 104 popular GitHub systems that have been deprecated. We provide a set of nine reasons for the failure of these open source projects. We also show that some maintenance practices -- specifically the adoption of contributing guidelines and continuous integration -- have an important association with a project failure or success. Finally, we discuss and reveal the principal strategies developers have tried to overcome the failure of the studied projects.Comment: Paper accepted at 25th International Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering (FSE), pages 1-11, 201

    How Do You Feel, Developer? An Explanatory Theory of the Impact of Affects on Programming Performance

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    Affects---emotions and moods---have an impact on cognitive activities and the working performance of individuals. Development tasks are undertaken through cognitive processes, yet software engineering research lacks theory on affects and their impact on software development activities. In this paper, we report on an interpretive study aimed at broadening our understanding of the psychology of programming in terms of the experience of affects while programming, and the impact of affects on programming performance. We conducted a qualitative interpretive study based on: face-to-face open-ended interviews, in-field observations, and e-mail exchanges. This enabled us to construct a novel explanatory theory of the impact of affects on development performance. The theory is explicated using an established taxonomy framework. The proposed theory builds upon the concepts of events, affects, attractors, focus, goals, and performance. Theoretical and practical implications are given.Comment: 24 pages, 2 figures. Postprin

    Report on the Third Workshop on Sustainable Software for Science: Practice and Experiences (WSSSPE3)

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    This report records and discusses the Third Workshop on Sustainable Software for Science: Practice and Experiences (WSSSPE3). The report includes a description of the keynote presentation of the workshop, which served as an overview of sustainable scientific software. It also summarizes a set of lightning talks in which speakers highlighted to-the-point lessons and challenges pertaining to sustaining scientific software. The final and main contribution of the report is a summary of the discussions, future steps, and future organization for a set of self-organized working groups on topics including developing pathways to funding scientific software; constructing useful common metrics for crediting software stakeholders; identifying principles for sustainable software engineering design; reaching out to research software organizations around the world; and building communities for software sustainability. For each group, we include a point of contact and a landing page that can be used by those who want to join that group's future activities. The main challenge left by the workshop is to see if the groups will execute these activities that they have scheduled, and how the WSSSPE community can encourage this to happen

    Examining the Development Effects of Modern-Era Streetcars: An Assessment of Portland and Seattle

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    Most U.S. cities pursuing streetcars are doing so primarily for their purported development effects, as opposed to for their transportation role, yet there is little evidence about the nature or magnitude of these development effects due to a scarcity of rigorous, empirical research. Most available work simply presents descriptive information about development outcomes (typically measured as changes in population, employment, land values, or permit activity) within streetcar corridors as indicators of the streetcar’s development effects. Alternate factors which may have influenced such results are often not considered, placing into question the validity of such measures.This study examines the development effects of streetcar investments in two U.S. cities that implemented streetcar service between 2000 and 2010: Portland, Oregon, and Seattle, Washington. The authors explore the development outcomes (here measured as the number of permits issued) through a combination of statistical analysis of development activity in the streetcar corridor and interviews with key streetcar stakeholders. The statistical results indicate that areas around Portland’s initial streetcar line experienced higher levels of development activity (more permits issued) than areas not served by the streetcar, although the differences in activity between served and not served areas since the opening of the second line have been insignificant. In Seattle, the areas around the streetcar line in the South Lake Union neighborhood experienced greater commercial development activity (commercial permits issued) but less residential activity than nearby unserved areas. The interviews provide important local context for the interpretation of the empirical results and highlight the continued importance of development as a rationale for streetcar investments, as well as to the limitations of the streetcar as a transportation service

    The implications of alternative developer decision-making strategies on land-use and land-cover in an agent-based land market model

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    Land developers play a key role in land-use and land cover change, as\ud they directly make land development decisions and bridge the land and housing\ud markets. Developers choose and purchase land from rural land owners, develop\ud and subdivide land into parcel lots, build structures on lots, and sell houses to residential households. Developers determine the initial landscaping states of developed parcels, affecting the state and future trajectories of residential land cover, as well as land market activity. Despite their importance, developers are underrepresented in land use change models due to paucity of data and knowledge regarding their decision-making. Drawing on economic theories and empirical literature, we have developed a generalized model of land development decision-making within a broader agent-based model of land-use change via land markets. Developer’s strategies combine their specialty in developing of particular subdivision types, their perception of and attitude towards market uncertainty, and their learning and adaptation strategies based on the dynamics of the simulated land and housing markets. We present a new agent-based land market model that includes these elements. The model will be used to experiment with these different development decision-making methods and compare their impacts on model outputs, particularly on the quantity and spatial pattern of resultant land use changes. Coupling between the land market and a carbon sequestration model, developed for the larger SLUCE2 project, will allow us, in future work, to examine how different developer’s strategies will affect the carbon balance in residential\ud landscape
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