SUMMARY
Spatial Planning considerations are crucial in the development of housing policies. They assure positive impacts by providing suitable, tuned to context, and sustainable solutions for the housing problem. Residential projects are perhaps the most tangible product of housing policies; they are meant to be the scenario where people develop their life. The physical aspects of these projects influence the functionality of the living atmospheres they create, and in that way they determine the quality of life of their residents.
Nevertheless the decisive influence that residential projects have in providing quality of life, and the high investments of resources they demand for their construction, the majority of these projects only account with their own physical implementation as the only model available for measurement. Consequently, when this measure takes place, it is far too late to prevent excessive costs or negative effects that could be predicted.
This research proposes an Assessment Tool to provide housing policy implementers with a preimplementation tool to guide the planning and designing processes of residential projects. The tool assures the application of policy guidance while it creates pro-active discussions during the planning stage of the projects. In this way, the tool allows selecting the more convenient physical measures to apply, based on a deep consideration of their possible effects. Subsequently, the investments made will have the expected results, and quality of life will be offer through tuned to context housing projects.
A complex and multi sector aspect such as housing, does not allow providing determinant advice toward the implementation of certain physical measurements. Therefore, the contribution of the tool consists in assuring a deep reflection before implementing these measures. Consequently, passive attitudes in the process of formulating housing projects and the reliance in habitual nonappropriated measures will be avoided.
The formulation of the tool was based in the Netherlands experience toward implementing policies focused in a qualitative approach; offering an ideal scenario for the research that revealed a variety of physical considerations, and consisted of a basis to develop the tool. Nevertheless, the tool is meant to be applicable in other contexts, as long as the residential projects have a qualitative focus, and adjustments are done to the tool. Besides that, the only approach to achieve the purpose of the tool is that its users should have an impartial and objective participation.
