Abstract
How far do current assessment methods allow the thorough evaluation of sustainable urban regeneration? Would it be useful, to approach the evaluation of the environmental and social impacts of housing regeneration schemes, by making both hidden pitfalls and potentials explicit, and budgeting costs and benefits in the stakeholders’ perspective? The paper aims at answering these questions, by focusing on a case study located in the Manchester area, the City West Housing Trust, a nonprofit housing association. Drawing from extensive fieldwork and including several interviews with key experts from this housing association, the paper first attempts to monetize the environmental and social value of two extant projects – a high-rise housing estate and an environmentally-led program. It then discusses whether and how a stakeholder-oriented approach would allow more engagement of both current and potential funders in the projects at hand. Findings from both the literature and the empirical data that was gathered show how in current housing regeneration processes, room for significant improvements in terms of assessment methods still exist. Findings additionally show that the environmental and social spillovers are largely disregarded because of a gap in the evaluation tools. This may also hinder the potential contributions of further funders in the achievements of higher impacts in terms of sustainability.
Highlights
Following the economic crash of 2008, it became increasingly difficult for housing associations to comply with their mission
This paper aims at filling this gap, by exploring how far a more comprehensive assessment methodology, namely the Sustainable Return On Investment (: Sustainable Return on Investment (SuROI)) approach, can be useful in uncovering those hidden benefits in the specific case of the social-housing sector
This paper discusses the specific application of SuROI to the housing sector and suggests the potential applicability of SuROI in mapping benefits and costs across the stakeholders’ community, allowing decision makers in the housing sector to negotiate the potential contributions of positively impacted beneficiaries
Summary
Following the economic crash of 2008, it became increasingly difficult for housing associations to comply with their mission. This paper discusses the specific application of SuROI to the housing sector and suggests the potential applicability of SuROI in mapping benefits and costs across the stakeholders’ community, allowing decision makers in the housing sector to negotiate the potential contributions of positively impacted beneficiaries To do that, it first discusses the limitations of the most applied assessment methods and introduces the basic principles of SuROI in order to pave the way for the calculation of the overall benefits of two case studies, both approached with two alternative methods, showing how SuROI allows the unveiling of benefits which are hidden in the traditional approach. A reduction of welfare support will impact on the ability of tenants to pay their rent, whilst the cutting of rent paid by tenants by 1 percent for at least the couple of years has added to the challenges faced To cap it all, the right-to-buy scheme can force associations to sell at huge discounts. It is consistently stated within the evaluation document that further research is required in the area of valuation for regeneration activities for which market-based information is not available
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