By-laws, regulations, codes and planning documents

Integrated and adapted planning instruments to vision and context of the communities, to lead toward sustainability. It includes

·         Regional, municipal, official, rural or community plans;

·         Secondary, neighbourhood or development schemes official documents to detail the intents of plans;

·         Implementation planning instruments such as: zoning, building, subdivision, or flood plain, controlled access, and other official instruments; and

·         Site or facilities plans for builders, communities or commissions.

Situational studies

Analysis of present situations with communities for builders or organizations that are facing low sales or taxation revenues. It includes

·         Study of operation and capital budgets of communities and organizations;

·         Study of developments densities; and

·         Recommendations and possible changes to improve the outcomes.

Risk Management 

Understanding of what are the causes of difficulties with policies and their links to capital and operational costs of projects and day-to-day operations. This work helps an organization to answer and meet the following:

·         Can the organization prioritize its work based on risk management?

·         What are the risks the organization is facing?

·         What are the risk ratings of operating tasks based on frequencies and impacts?

·         Can the organization find the balanced weighted average risks rate they have to face and determine the course of actions based on acceptable integrated risk management?

Brainstorming

People of small and medium size urban and rural areas often live in communities or work in organizations that are facing low or no investment, and depopulation. The SCD Approach helps regions and communities to

·         Determine the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) they are facing;

·         Group and prioritize their own actions; and

·         Proceed with a plan of actions that can attract immigration and investments in their region or local community.

Training

Communities that are interested to implement sustainable practices into their developments and day-to-day operations need to train their professionals and decision-makers to implement the practices that will allow them to attain a greater sustainability. We can provide training that will help our client to face the 21^st century challenges, and implement sustainability best management practices with all their developments.

The SCD Approach helps communities and regions to understand the trends in planning and developments of communities in order to implement the appropriate actions and reap the benefits of early innovators:

·         How can communities face the effects of climate change?

·         What are the effects of ‘business as usual’ vs. counteracting sprawl developments? How can a community implement the concept of ‘conservation subdivision?’

·         What are the development principles that make a project more sustainable? How can we facilitate neighbourhood integration and introduce the ‘smart community’ concepts?

·         How can we understand generations (ex. Gen X & Y) and take actions to position communities and developments to meet what people are looking for in regard to office & work environment, institutional retail activities, industrial and residential developments?

·         How can we bring at the forefront construction of affordable housing with all projects and still protect at least 50% of any property to develop?

·         How can we respond with appropriate developments’ design features and projects that will reduce crime and vandalism, and offer a living environment where obesity percentages among the population are being reduced significantly?

·         How can we incorporate the appropriate transportation design actions that will reduce commuting, take advantages of new trends such as driverless cars, car-sharing, walkability, ‘complete street’ and ‘road diets,’ reduction of VKT, TOD, and mobility utility vs. car ownership?

·         How can we adapt local and regional planning instruments (Ex. Municipal, official plan and zoning documents) to facilitate the implementation of more sustainable development and building practices?

And many more other important trends and actions that will position a developer, a builder, or a community to incorporate the sustainability principles into their development projects.

Implementation

Affordability of housing and effectiveness to respond appropriately to market niches such as seniors, students, and low income population is at the forefront of development projects in any community. The SCD Approach allows the developers, the builders and the communities to decide on the appropriate development projects that will meet sustainable community principles, and still provide amazing returns such as:

·         At least 4 times more sales revenues for developers or builders;

·         At least 4 times more tax revenues for municipalities;

·         At least the protection of the green infrastructure (i.e. at least 50% of any property of 5 acres (2 ha) or more to develop); and

·         Meeting practically all social and environmental goals to get higher sustainability with projects and in communities.

The SCD Approach is well suited for clients who want to …

·         Build senior and intergenerational cohousing projects;

·         Meet affordable housing targets;

·         Protect the natural environment and implement best management practices for stormwater management and alternative sewage treatment;

·         Meet targets for Climate change adaptation; and

·         Bring higher resiliency in communities and projects.