Though we in the research group agree that greenfield development is the least sustainable residential development alternative, we acknowledge the fact, though grudgingly, that this development will continue in the short to medium term. It is our hope that, while attempting to curb the desire to build them in the first place, our group and others like us will convince prospective homeowners, planners and developers that there is a more sustainable alternative to the land-eating monotony that pervades North American existence. This trend is evident in the nearly 400 communities built in the New Urbanism (also called Neo-Traditional) style across North America. These communities adopt the ideals of sustainability, and are a step in the right direction.

Cameron Churchill's Master of Engineering work in this research group resulted in the construction of a prototype decision support system for the design of a more sustainable greenfield development, along the lines of New Urbanist thinking. Below is the abstract from the journal paper that is the published outcome of his work (the complete reference follows the abstract):

A review of literature pertaining to community development revealed a number of shortcomings associated with conventional subdivision design. These include environmental, social and economic issues that affect not only the residents of the development, but everyone within the surrounding urban area. Alternative forms of development have been proposed by many professionals to circumvent the deficiencies of conventional designs. These alternative developments have many common elements, including:

• a grid street network;
• narrower right-of-ways;
• a mixed-use core;
• higher urban densities; and,
• a variety of housing types.

New developments that incorporate all of these elements, with the objective of creating a healthy living environment, are known as sustainable communities.

There are a number of sustainable community projects throughout North America that are in various stages of construction or awaiting approval, but only a handful of completed projects. A general lack of design guidelines, funding and successful mainstream projects are keeping the concept of sustainability on the drawing board, instead of in the field. These three problems are inter-related, and all stem from the fact that sustainable community development is a new concept that will require time before a critical mass of people endorse its value.

To help facilitate this process, computer tools could be used to guide planners, developers and interested parties through the design of sustainable communities. Decisions support systems could be developed to interface with the user and create a number of development scenarios quickly and easily, through the use of data inputs and internal design rules.

Through an extensive literature review, a number of design rules for sustainable communities were determined and a design methodology was constructed. A prototype decision support system has been developed, based upon this methodology, to design sustainable "green field" communities. This prototype computer tool (called SustDes) was written in C++, and is used in conjunction with a second program called SCAPE, to create three-dimensional community plans drawn to scale in AutoCAD. SustDes contains separate components which are used for the graphical interface, input control, data manipulation, design of the road network and the placement of structures throughout the proposed community. The flexibility of the system rests in the hands of the user in the form of input variables that can be used to quickly change the entire layout of the development. The input is guided by the system in a passive sense through the supply of default values and suggested inputs that reflect the characteristics of a sustainable community. It is hoped that the use of SustDes will lead to the consideration of a wider range of alternatives for urban fringe development, and ultimately to the construction of increasingly sustainable community developments.

For more details, please see the complete journal article at the following reference:

Churchill, C.J. and B.W. Baetz. "Development of Decision Support System for Sustainable Community Design", Journal of Urban Planning and Development, March, 1999, p17-35.

NEW!
Since the writing of this abstract, a new "back end" to SustDes has been created. Replacing the SCAPE and AutoCAD unit, 3DRender converts the SustDes output to a 3D scene in VRML, and is fully described on the 3DRender page.

Go to the downloads page to download SustDes.