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There are substantial
differences in urban planning in the various European cities. However,
differences exist among the quality of the physical environment in these cities
too. Even though the awareness for the need to improve urban planning and
improvements in the physical environment is growing in our cities, there is still only a limited number of cities that have managed
to develop a long term strategic vision.
Although the European
Commission does not have any formal spatial planning competence, EU legislation
and programmes can have a profound effect on planning and the build-up
environment. In particular, the EU can directly influence land use policies
through environmental legislation and structural interventions. Also national
and regional institutional systems are setting the framework in which to
operate. But in the end it is the almost exclusive competence of local
authorities to undertake the urban planning process and develop the city's
physical environment.
Whereas a strategic
urban plan aiming to improve the city's physical environment would need a
long-term time horizon of a minimum of 10 years, these processes could be
improved in the medium term (2-5 years) by aiming at the following objectives:
implementing and monitoring the EU-legislation with respect to different
environmental aspects, such as on air quality, air emissions, waste recycling;
implement a system of the Peers Review project to evaluate the state of the
physical environment in our cities; intensify the exchange of best practices
building on some of the earlier work on strategic planning; promote a stronger
focus on Brownfield developments in order to avoid uncontrolled urban sprawl
and urban wastelands arising; use urban planning practices to improve the
quality of life in the cities, starting by improving the quality of public
space.
Relevant policy
areas and their inter-linkage
The linkage with other
policy areas is considered to be essential. There are clear links with
transport, housing and economic development. Where are the housing areas to be
planned, where the business locations and which areas are most suited for mixed
use, and how should these areas be linked in within the existing infrastructure
in the city are key questions to consider.
Practical actions to
achieve
In order to realise the
strategic objectives in this field, the following actions can be implemented in
the long term:
·
Contribute actively to
the development and improvement of environmental legislation and the
development of Thematic strategies of the 6th Environmental Action Programme,
in particular on the themes of urban environment, soil and air quality;
·
Implement plans and
programmes by the end of 2004 on air quality following the Air Quality
Directive 1999/30/EC;
·
Contribute to the
waste reduction and recycling targets set by the EU by aiming at a fixed
average waste disposal of X kg per year and per household, Y% of overall
recycling of listed products, and Z% of energy recovery by 2010;
·
Adopting noise and
risk maps in 2004;
·
Set up a horizontal
working group on strategic urban planning in 2004 in which members from Access,
Edurc and the Environment work together in preparing
best practice case studies;
·
Develop a code of
conduct on the prioritisation of Brownfield development over Greenfield use in urban planning, and promote Brownfield under the
wider membership and possibly non-members as well and
·
Stimulate the exchange
of experiences on how to plan for quality in the urban environment and develop
a toolkit for urban planners.
Monitoring specifics
The system of the Peers
review project (PRESUD) is considered to be a good monitoring system in this
field. At the same time however, it is suggested to monitor some commonly
accepted key indicators that could give an 'objective and more quantitative'
picture and therefore would also support the Peers review process. Preferably
these indicators should fit in the statistical framework of the city. At the
European level they could be monitored and processed by an observatory or small
working group.
European Commission’s work
The Commission has four
major goals in the area of land use development policies and plans:
·
To devise methods and
environmental tools to analyse the impact of proposed development, the Directive
on Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) for projects and the Directive on Strategic
Environmental Assessment (SEA) for plans and programmes are the two main
tools used in this task. These set up a procedure ensuring that the
environmental implications of decisions are taken into account before the
decisions are made. Commission's Guidance on the implementation of Directive
2001/42/EC is available on http://europa.eu.int/comm/environment/eia/home.htm.
·
To improve the
information flow between policy-makers and citizens about land use issues. Two
Commission initiatives – INSPIRE (Infrastructure for Spatial InfoRmation in Europe) and GMES (Global Monitoring for Environment and Security)
– will help to make information on the environment more accessible to citizens.
·
To develop and
implement a European Urban Environment Strategy. The challenge for
policy-makers is to come up with a sustainable and integrated approach to urban
development and management that works in harmony with natural systems rather
than against them. To assist in meeting this challenge the Community's Sixth
Environmental Action Programme calls the Commission to develop a new Thematic
Strategy on the Urban Environment to help promote a more integrated approach
and support action at local level. Within this Thematic Strategy which will be
finalised in 2005, four priority themes having a concrete impact on land use
and air quality are being analysed.
·
To improve the
planning, management and use of Europe’s coastal zones – often the most vulnerable area. The EU
is working to introduce a coordinated policy for the Union’s
coastal zone regions. The Commission's 4 year Demonstration programme
(1996-2000) has shown that an approach known as Integrated Coastal Zone
Management (ICZM) offers the best prospects for Europe's
coastal zones. The main instrument to promote this approach is the 2002 EU
Recommendation that urges Member States to put in place national strategies for
ICZM. ICZM promotes an integrated territorial approach that would also be
beneficial for other areas such as mountains, wetlands and other sensitive
areas. Besides continued research and project support for coastal zones, the
Commission started in 2002 a major Europe-wide project on coastal erosion
“EROSION” (http://europa.eu.int/comm/environment/iczm/eurosionleaflet.pdf).
Development Control
In general, development
control can be used to guide the location and form of development to encourage
more sustainable travel patterns and less car use. Mode-specific forms of
development control would include zoning regulations relating to permitted uses
next to public transport stops (section 2.6) or relating to car-free status of
development (section 2.7).
Conventional town
planning has made extensive use of the idea of a separation of land uses into
discrete, mono-use zones. Nowadays, mixed use development may be encouraged
with the intention that allowing homes, shops and workplaces to be mixed in
together can promote choice and minimise travel distances.
Planning regulations
can influence the number of loading and unloading bays available in buildings;
require the provision of off- street delivery bays in new buildings of
commercial and industrial activities; or require a plan for service and
distribution traffic when a building permit for a new site is being sought.
Relocating logistics or industrial activities away from residential areas can
resolve conflicts between environmental amenity and transport operations. Urban
logistics and distribution centres (or zones) which are open to any logistics
company are already operative or being planned in several partner countries.
The location of supermarkets and hypermarkets within a city has notable impacts
especially on the demand for goods transported by the customers in their
personal cars. Since markets located on the outskirts of the city generate more
traffic in total, some countries and cities have taken steps to limit the
establishment of new such markets (Henry, 2003).
Development control can
encourage mixing of uses and hence reduced travel distances. It has been found
that mono uses developments generate more travel, where housing located on its
own creates car-based (long-distance) travel patterns (Banister, 1999).
According to Stead et al. (2000), characteristics such as the mixing of land
uses appear to explain variations in both travel distance and mode. Other land-
use characteristics, such as the provision of local facilities, explain variation
in travel distance but do not explain variations in travel mode.
Stead and Marshall (2001) suggest that the level of mixed use may contribute
to travel demand, particularly through the decentralisation of less specialised
employment. Van and Senior conclude that mixed land uses encourage walking and
cycling, and deter car use, for light food shopping trips. However, they cast
doubt on the strength, and even the existence, of the impacts of land use
diversity on travel behaviour in general (2000, 141). Generally, their data
suggest that mixed land uses may have partial effects on car ownership, mode
choice and trip frequency. However, they find not even the remotest evidence
that mixed uses influence commuting behaviour (Van and Senior 2000, 145). The PROSPECTS
project found little evidence that users do in practice travel to the jobs and
leisure facilities which are nearer to their homes (May and Matthews, 2001),
reporting on findings from a Dutch study (Snellen,
2000).
Mixed use development
can in principle have the potential of reducing travel distances. However, this
depends on people behaving in a particular way - for example, using their local
shop rather than driving to a larger supermarket further away in the pursuit of
greater choice. People will not necessarily choose to live close to their work,
or work close to where they live. Research from United States and Australia suggests an optimal commute time not of zero but of about
15 minutes (Mokhtarian and Salomon, 1999). If this commute is done by car, then a
substantial distance is implied. For multi-worker households, it will be
particularly difficult to have everyone working close to home. Therefore, a
mixed use policy will not necessarily result in everyone taking advantage of
the potential to work and shop close to home. But without the chance of short
distances or trip-chaining (e.g. shopping near workplaces) trip distances are
likely to be greater.
Urban Design
In principle the design
of development can make a locality more ‘people-friendly’ in general and more
‘pedestrian-friendly’ in particular, and can promote walking. A variety of
urban design features can be employed, from the placement and design of
buildings in different spatial relationships – such as in streets and squares –
to ‘streetscape’ and street furniture features including provision of trees,
shelter, textures and surfaces, public art, seating, and so on, that can all
contribute to a pedestrian- friendly environment. Advocacy for various forms of
neo-traditional urbanism, that blend together features such as compact cities,
urban villages and public transport oriented development in an overall urban
design package, aims explicitly to use urban design related measures to assist
in promoting more sustainable patterns of travel (see for example Aldous, 1992; Calthorpe, 1993;
Ryan and McNally, 1995; Urban Task Force, 1999). The most prominent
Neo-traditional urbanism movement is New Urbanism, which also combines with
other land use and regional planning philosophies in the work of the Congress
for the New Urbanism (see for example Marshall, ed. 2003). An associated group is the Council for
European Urbanism (Thompson-Fawcett, 2003).
A particular built form
does not necessarily mean behaviour will alter in a simple, deterministic way.
Replicating the form of traditional neighbourhoods associated with low car use
does not necessarily mean that low car use will follow. (As with car free
development, this relates also to the location of the development and the
availability of alternative modes as well as to the nature of the development
itself). The influence of design on
travel has been debated in particular with respect to New Urbanist
development in the United States (see for example, Berman, 1996; Boarnet
and Crane, 2001). United States evidence suggests that the influence of neighbourhood
design on travel is particularly problematic to evaluate (TRB 1996:22). That
said, people-friendly urban design is seen as a prerequisite to encouraging
walking and supporting public transport (where environmental quality can
encourage or deter walking and waiting) (Ewing, 1996).
Crane and Schweitzer (2003) suggest that the benefits of good urban design in
promoting walking and cycling may be more certain of being realised than those
or regional public transport-based planning policies.
As far as can be ascertained from
empirical evidence, there are associations between ‘people-friendly’ and
‘people-sensitive’ urban design and the propensity to walk. As with other
cases, it is difficult to isolate the effects of specific factors, but a
combination is likely to influence the overall outcome. |