RICERCA ITALIANA     

INTEGRATED EVALUATION AND MONITORING IN LARGE DISTRESSED AREAS DEVELOPMENT PROCESSES

Università degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza"

Abstract

The large majority of European cities contain vast urban areas that present serious problems from an environmental, social and economic point of view. The phenomenon, certainly not new, is assuming dimensions and characteristics that require a particular level of attention from the European Union and local and national governments. It is possible to state that the presence of large urban distressed areas is modifying the organisation of urban space, not only in terms of location, external economics, the use of the historical city and the capital, but also in terms of the behaviour of businesses, the community, the market and institutions. These are the areas in which the indicators denounce situations of stress, high levels of immigration, of mobility and, simultaneously, accumulations of obsolete and decaying buildings, high levels of unemployment, etc.
The entire research programme is to last 24 months and is to be composed of three general operative phases. The singular operative units may be subdivided, based on specific requirements, into further sub-phases. The research programme will give full autonomy to the local units, who will remain in continuous communication through periodic study seminars and exchanges of information via internet. This will allow the different units to interact in a synergetic manner using complementary contributions and the examinations of the individual contributions as a base for the critical analysis of the entire research team.
The first phase of the research programme will be fundamentally investigative and aimed at the collection of data and information or the identification of situations, elements and environments which are the objective of the study. This phase will also include the first analysis and classification of the phenomena investigated relative to: the patrimony of State property and goods; the scientific reference points indicated; case studies of real experiences; and the applicable regulations. The conclusion of this phase is aimed at the creation, by the local units, of written reports detailing the state of advancement of the research.
The second phase of the research will be ‘proposal based' in that it aims at creating the first formalisation of the research results. The various theoretical and methodological tools will be scientifically defined and the results of the analyses and of the investigations undertaken on the phenomenon which are the object of the research will be organised. The second phase of research will also conclude with an updated report on the development of the research completed by the different local units.
The third phase of the research programme will be used to experiment with the products of the research and to interpret the results of the verifications undertaken. The objective is to make the appropriate and necessary modifications which will consent the definitive proposition of the research results. The third phase foresees the highest number of encounters between the different research units with the aim of undertaking, even simultaneously, a critical reading of the experimental activities and the identification of the corrections which must be made. These meetings will seek to involve the various figures from the public institutions selected for the administration of public goods and the various public and private figures involved with this activity.
In more specific terms, the Research Programmes of the single Units will deal with the following themes:
- Instruments for the Preventative Evaluation and Monitoring of Strategic Investments in Large Urban Distressed Areas;
- Integrated Evaluation of Territorial and Environmental Units in Large Urban Distressed Areas;
- Evaluation and Monitoring of the Requalification of Large Urban Distressed Areas;
- Territorial Management and the Role of Evaluation;
Application of International Standards to Processes of Real Estate Estimation. <<<

Principal Investigator

Saverio Antonio MICCOLI Università degli Studi di ROMA "La Sapienza"

Research Objectives

The general objective of the research is the definition and experimentation with procedures of evaluation and monitoring useful for structuring suitable strategies of intervention for the re-design of large distressed areas. Integrated evaluations and monitoring of these areas represent obligatory steps in order to respond to the insufficiency of participation in decision-making, the lack of entrepreneurial activity and responsibility, the lack of initiatives from the financial sector relative to the support of proposed interventions, the limited capacity to delineate new scenarios and the high percentage of unsuccessful projects.
The research will investigate the criteria used in defining the technical and operative characteristics for the evaluation and monitoring of "typical cases" of strategic investment and, in particular, those used to control the efficiency and effectiveness of policies for territorial government. During the last ten years, even in Italy, urban transformations have been characterised by new and more frequent forms of interaction between public and private subjects.
The regeneration of abandoned industrial sites has assumed an ever-greater dimension in the former production areas created in the principal Italian cities during the 1950's, 60's and 70's. Production was interrupted not only for questions of an economic nature, but also for environmental reasons, as part of the growing attention of national and international legislation to control the causes which have led to phenomenon of abandonment and decay.
However, the difficulty of financing and developing projects for former industrial areas and decommissioned production facilities is not only a result of technical problems that must be resolved, but also because the financial sector has problems confronting the complexity of these sites whose future is both difficult to forecast and highly subject to instability. The solution to the problem lies in the collaboration with a multiplicity of partners who work together to promote and manage key projects, even if the future of the strategic project – by its very nature "complex" – is difficult to predict. As a result, the contribution of the necessary public investments may play a relevant role; on the other hand, the local government is seen by private investors as a partner with whom to share risks and reduce factors of uncertainty.
The research into brownfield sites defines a series of steps for the reclamation and regeneration of these contaminated sites found within the city. The attention is focused primarily on the analysis of the economic benefits derived from the re-use of the land. The precise elements that favour requalification include:
- the scarce availability of new lots in urban zones for the realisation of services;
- the inability to sustain the continuous occupation of the ground plane;
- the necessity of recovering abandoned areas, even for the valorisation of the neighbouring areas, constructing synergies between polices of requalification;
- the possibility of locating new economic activities in less developed areas.
The different experiences matured within the field of operations conducted in the public sector have clearly demonstrated the relevance of large-scale real estate operations for the future of urban scenarios.
The impossibility of generating reliable forecasts has led to an elevated level of conflict, often independent of whether the project in question is public or private. Furthermore, these issues have revealed the lack or limits of evaluation procedures that accompany the proposals. As part of the methodological approach and elaboration of new protocols for evaluation it is thus necessary to consider the scale of public and private financing, the social-institutional-environmental dimension and all other relative implications and interactions, with the intention of structuring and implementing integrated processes of requalification.
The research programme will be focused on verifying the efficiency and effectiveness of territorial management policies with the aim of improving the economic conditions and improving the quality of life. The research will identify the levels of visibility and ability to control the decision-making process, in addition to the level – even monetary – of the local consensus derived from the forecasts generated by public interest. The public advantages will be evaluated in terms of the handover of infrastructures, environmental requalification, etc. and relative to the recognition of a "plus value" resulting from the more satisfactory urban use of private property.
These verifications are easily made in the absence of specific regulations. This absence favours the reconstruction, through procedures of evaluation, of the financial-economic equilibrium of the intervention. This effectively guarantees a level of transparency that is capable of rendering the conventional instruments used with private subjects suitable for public use.
It is necessary to hope for the introduction of evolved evaluation models capable of contributing to the affirmation of the principle of indifference of urban planning regulations (zoning and/or the location of public work projects) that concern the various real estate complexes held by the private sector. It is necessary to favour forms that are suitable to the compensation of all property owners involved in processes of urban transformation. This is a passage that is considered to be essential for overcoming the most critical element of the Italian system with respect to a balanced and correct model of territorial management. The use of monetary value as an indicator of the degree of interest in evaluation procedures may represent an effective instrument for assisting the subjects involved to verify the decisions being made. The measurement of the values attributed by a community to a given piece of property or its hypothetical transformation through the use of monetary terms assumes an important role in the evaluation of complex goods that are often without a market.
In the absence of trustworthy evaluations, real estate markets are not capable of functioning in an efficient manner. The globalisation of the investment markets, the evolution of the real estate market and the harmonising of international accounting principles have led to the necessity of unifying evaluation procedures and the professional practice of cost estimating. <<<

Timescale

24 months

National and international background

The theme of the urban transformations is widely documented. In particular it is interesting to look at the example of abandoned urban areas, above all for the complexity and the interweaving of questions of evaluation relative to these situations.
These sites, often located in areas that lack urban infrastructures and services, have come to represent the image of pollution, environmental risk and the lack of urban quality. In many cases they become the focal point of processes of urban decline. In terms of scale, they present themselves as vast territories that often exceed the dimensions of a single neighbourhood. Normally their impact is not limited to their specific site, but extends across the entire urban area. In this sense they play a strategic role in the functional structure of urban realities. Large abandoned areas are characterised by the unpredictability of their future development: as a result, any improvement must consider a series of problems that are tied to this situation of uncertainty.
While the benefits of the most important changes are systematically underestimated, the costs of requalifying abandoned areas tend to be overestimated. For example, during the initial phase of the process, the costs (in terms of effort, risks, quantities of money, etc.) must be immediately supported while the benefits are barely identifiable.
Local residents have very little influence in decision-making processes, while the decision makers play a very important role. The result is that all local strategies aimed at using both real estate investments and public works projects aimed at the development of these areas must consider a system of cooperative and integrated decision-making.
It should be noted that a large obstacle to the development of these strategies is represented by the difficulty with which local administrations and private investors come together to deal with processes of analysis, awareness and innovation that are capable of stimulating private investments. Local administrations are thus inclined to divide this complex situation into many different sector-based problems, according to the traditional model of evaluation and control based on partial diagnosis, fragmentary solutions and hierarchical decision-making processes. Vice versa, the characteristics of large areas (their structural dimension, lengthy time periods, multiplicities of functions, the plurality of actors, the unique nature of the situations) require decision-making processes that are oriented towards global and coordinated solutions.
These considerations lead to the identification of large abandoned areas as being less than attractive, both in a strictly urban sense as well as form an exclusively economic point of view. On the other hand, it must be the quantity and continuity of the investments that activate urban development in these same areas as within the rest of the city. Public-private investments, therefore, require an approach that is different form that which is traditionally used and aimed exclusively at urban recovery. Within these operations the medium and long-term effects are very important, in particular with regards to environmental impact, the effects of image and the role of the social stakeholders.
This is followed by the fact that the traditional models of evaluation are insufficient for considering the comprehensive effects and the multiple interests involved. This leads to the necessity of making recourse to the instruments of flexible evaluation, held to be better suited to confronting turbulent and unpredictable decision-making processes. In a parallel manner the procedures of verification and monitoring developed ex ante, ex post and in itinere are unavoidable in maintaining acceptable decision-making processes as well as for systematically adapting the decisions made to the new perspectives of development.

References of the art's condition of the Search to international level.
Recently, and on many occasions, the European Commission has highlighted the significant importance of sustainable requalification as much as the development of de-qualified urban areas based on the awareness acquired and the results obtained with the instruments of URBAN 1 and URBAN 2.
The Green Paper on Urban Development describes this problem as a question of European importance.
For the European Expert Group on Urban Environment, urban rehabilitation is a problem of the quality of life in these areas.
The Sixth Community Environment Action Programme from 2002, the Thematic Strategy on the Urban Environment from 2004, as well as the Aalbotg+10 – Inspiring Futures from 2004, all emphasise the strategic and central role of questions of urban research, planning and urban policies for arriving at and proceeding with the definition of sustainable development.
The recent proposals made by the European Parliament and the European Regional Development Fund's Council highlight the necessity of participative and integrative strategies in order to confront the high concentration of economic, social and environmental problems that affect urban agglomerations as much as they suggest the re-launching of initiatives such as URBAN.
Finally, the European Union has recently financed a research project entitled "LUDA- Improving the Quality of Life in Large Urban Distressed Areas, Research Project of Key Action 4 "City of Tomorrow and Cultural Heritage", which is witness to the participation of 18 large cities and 12 research centres from the European Union, focused on the study of large urban distressed areas. The LUDA has prepared the Salzburg Map (2004) in order to present the necessity of further investigating the research made in this type of area. <<<