Urban planning in Cracow and location of sustainable office buildings

Abstract

Social, economic, and environmental benefits of sustainable buildings result in increasing demand and supply of green office space and governments adopt green buildings requirements as policy instruments. Effect of public (local, state) policies on construction and diffusion of sustainable buildings have been analyzed in few research (e.g. (Choi 2010a), (R. Simons, Choi, and Simons 2009)), demand for sustainable offices (e.g. (Zieba, Belniak, and Gluszak 2013), motivations for investing (Fuerst and McAllister 2009)(Popescu et al. 2012) were the subject of research but the impact of public policies and tools used by local governments, in the form of development plans and zoning maps, on the location decisions of investors realizing green buildings still requires more insight. The objective of this paper is to verify whether local development plans (zoning maps) facilitate location of sustainable office buildings on sites that are best-choice using the criteria of green buildings’ certification and most beneficial from the point of view of sustainable urban development. Authors assume that local governments would support choice of best sustainable location by investors, as it’s beneficial for local community, economy and environment. Also, we state that real estate developers’ choice of location is the function of firm’s own criteria, zoning map restrictions, availability of land for new developments. This paper proposes a methodology to identify the best areas to locate sustainable offices in Cracow district Zabłocie, using spatial data analysis. Zablocie was selected because the zoning map exists for the whole district and the area - postindustrial district, still provides many sites for new developments and it’s featured by high concentration of sustainable office buildings. The evaluation criteria was based on BREEAM (BRE Environmental Assessment Method) green building certification categories. The data was collected and processed in ArcGIS. The locations, identified in spatial analysis process, were compared with locations available in Zablocie for commercial (office) developments as indicated by local development plan.