Bausteine - Referate - Jana Milosovicova - Urban Design English

Sustainable neighborhood rating systems: An international comparison
Die Bewertungsmatrix
There are notable differences between the two
systems: from former is a large-scale effort by
three major nonprofit organizations with 238
pilot projects while the latter is a small-scale
university project. The systems were developed
within the context of their respective countries’
rules, regulations and standard practices. Yet despite
the differences in scale and context, both
systems have parallel goals and evaluate similar
criteria focused primarily on environmental sustainability.
The comparison of LEED-ND and the
Assessment Matrix in this paper identifies universal
principles of sustainable neighborhoods,
differing country- or region-specific problems
and best practices for evaluation standards.
Ii. Rating system context and overview
The Assessment Matrix and LEED-ND both
address the city-related climate change issues
– buildings, vehicle travel and land use change –
by trying to lesson sprawl. Yet the differences in
the planning and development context of Germany
and the U.S. results in differing goals and
standards.
The Context
Even though European cities have are considered
more sustainable than their American counterparts,
they also face the challenge of sprawl.
A European Union report, Urban Sprawl and
Europe, noted that low density suburban development
in the periphery has become the
norm over the past 20 years in Europe. Sprawl
continues over the available land remaining,
using large amounts of resources for relatively
few people and leading to a loss of biodiversity
(EU, 2006).
In Germany, the character of sprawl may be a
solely residential area near the edge of town
that is located just too far to walk or bicycle to
the town center and with neighborhood commercial
limited to an Aldi at the edge of town.
This picture is still quainter than the image of
the American suburb with large vinyl McMansions
on cul-de-sacs that are located a 20 minute
drive along 8-lane arterials away from a
paradise of big box retail. The former is only
moderately automobile dependant; the latter is
completely automobile dependant and consumes
more land per person.
Planning History
Germany and the U.S. share a history using
zoning; indeed Germans invented the concept
of dividing the city into residential and industrial
zones which influenced American planners.
German planners originally focused more
on the control of noxious industry, relief from
crowding and the protection of countryside;
U.S. planners shared these goals to some extent
but also concentrated on the protection
of single-family housing. The resulting German
regulations mainly considered bulk and density
and the U.S. primarily evaluated land use incompatibility
(Hirt, 2007). Bernhard Weyrauch, the
main author of the Assessment Matrix, described
the current German planning and cultural
attitude as accepting of some conflict. People
are willing to tolerate some noise in exchange
for the benefit of increased proximity to everything
one needs. Mixed-use neighborhoods are
in the norm in Germany.
However, in the U.S., mixed-use is a recent innovation.
As David Godschalk describes, “The
big news in American city planning is that urban
design has replaced lawyerly limit-setting as
the major reason for regulating development…
major new tools for shaping cityscapes [include]
traditional neighborhood development, mixeduse
districts, and form-based zoning.” (Godschalk,
2007) While mixed-use development is
certainly an increasing trend, it still remains a
small part (5-7 percent) of a typical zoning map
(Hirt, 2007).
Zoning Regulations
Germany has a national building law that regulates
the planning and development process.
This national law defines the standards and process
for land use plans, zoning districts and the
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