Why should we care about social value in master planning?

In England, the drive to deliver up to 300,000 homes each year has often emphasised numbers of output, which is not always reflected in the quality of the end product.

What's needed is a house building agenda based on quality developments, that stand the test of time, not only in terms of 'raw' performance numbers but also in terms of the ability to build strong quality communities that have access to the social amenities for a good life. This extra benefit an investment can have on the surrounding area can be referred to as the 'social value'. 

In the current climate, a focus on social value can become a selling point for developers, as buyers look for a better quality of life, walkable neighbourhoods, and access to local amenities. Follow a number of distinct benefits for developers who follow an agenda of quality based on social value, through things such as commitment to early engagement and regular, systematic reviews:

How can you incorporate social value throughout the planning process?

There are a essential things to do to embed social value in master-planned schemes at different times of the construction value cycle. 

At its heart, social value is about the process as well as the outcomes. 

Process

At PlaceChangers, we know that the social value of a development is strengthened with the level of engagement by design teams with local requirements. 

What kind of housing is lacking? What kinds of social amenities are underprovided? Ideally, there's a clear link between developer contributions and the lack of provision in supporting infrastructure locally. The best way to evidence this is through early engagement. 

We see the following two options as useful consultation ideas: 

A development has multiple benefits, certainly for the developer in terms of sales, but also in terms of the new offering provided in terms of house choices and wider developer contributions to the local environment. 

Establish a clear organisational commitment towards early community engagement in your master planning work for the design process. Members of the public generally accept that there are natural limits on what influence they can have on development, so a blank paper discussion is not expected. However, it helps build opportunities early on to shape the development based on simple options.

Outcomes

A review of practice by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) found that only 10% of its chartered practices offer post-occupancy evaluations. And a 2020 survey found that only 4 per cent of AJ100 practices always perform them, and 48 per cent never evaluate the performance of their projects ‘occasionally’. These figures demonstrate the substantial missed opportunity to capture lessons from previous projects to improve and shape future projects. 

While a wide range of methods exists to judge the performance of buildings, such as in terms of energy efficiency and conformance to the required building standards. When it comes to project completion, project owners may prefer to focus on the level of snagging requests as a measure of quality; sales conversions, average unit price, etc. As time goes on, developers hand homes to buyers and attention shifts to the next project. Perhaps a feedback form is used upon completion. 

The new occupants’ satisfaction with their new neighbourhood in the longer term is rarely surveyed partly due to a mismatch of interests and lack of funds for post-occupancy reviews. With reduced ability to consider the links between design and its desired outcomes, such as health, well-being and positive emotions towards one home, plans end up as bland estates rather than the kinds of places people want to live?

Flora Samuel, the vice-chair for research at RIBA, developed the Social Value toolkit in 2017. The framework dimensions give an overview of the aspects to consider that can constitute the success of a project beyond its paper value. To identify the soft benefits a development project has had, post-occupancy evaluation can look into the following aspects:

Building back better through a robust design process

Early engagement is more powerful if it is baked into an organisation's default approach to project delivery. And indeed, if the organisation consistently captures lessons learned from previous projects and incorporates them as feeder in the early-engagement stages, it has an excellent appeal to participants and residents.

To incorporate a learning process into a development portfolio, developers need to create a consistent policy for delivering post-occupancy reviews on a larger share of their projects and develop a capacity to engage early on for new sites. A consistent process for community engagement and follow-up has the potential to capture robust insights into the success of development at the design stage and beyond.

It is essential to determine the suitable formats and timing of engagement in retrospect. On the high level, the choices are between bespoke, personal-intensive reviews of a scheme or a more standardised method of reviewing their new surroundings with occupants via digital survey tools. 

There is no doubt that detailed qualitative post-occupancy evaluations with buyers are an excellent method to gather in-depth insights and capture lessons learned on various levels, from the internal aspects of the accommodation to broader urban design-related questions. Often there's a benefit to considering other stakeholders that were key to the delivery. 

Digital and online methods can present a lower-cost and convenient approach for occupants to feedback on specific aspects of their new environment. Digital tools also stand the most excellent chance to become part and parcel of your design and development approach, which can become a crucial part of marketing new projects to future buyers. Easy-to-use online tools help to embed community feedback at critical stages of the design process and automate the opportunity to learn from designs that worked well later on. 

Get in touch with us to learn how to embed a consistent approach to follow-up for your development projects.