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Newsletter 3 Planning and regulation experiences from five Class 1 municipalities in EU countries Available on the Class 1 web site (deliverable 8)
Municipalities as promoters of energy efficient settlements Through five specific case studies of municipal efforts in Romania, Estonia, Italy, France and Denmark, the report outlines important promoters and inhibitors for planning and regulating for energy efficient settlements in European municipalities. A key element of the Class 1 project is to look into prevailing planning and regulation means in five municipalities in Europe in order to discuss promoters and inhibitors of energy efficient settlements, seen from a municipal perspective The planning, regulation and implementation process in the Stenløse South project is an example of how to promote energy sufficient building projects on ordinary market terms in spite of deadlocks within the construction industry and the housing market – and to a certain extent in spite of lacking means at hand within planning and regulation. Viewing itself as ‘the missing link’ within the market for energy efficient new building projects, the work of the technical administration of Egedal municipality is an example of how to promote this development through concrete practice of planning. In concordance with the Danish planning regulation, the technical administration has included overarching sustainable strategies in key planning documents like the municipal plan. But wanting to promote energy efficiency even more, and backed by years of experience in local agenda 21 work, the administration endeavoured in developing a more proactive planning practice. This entailed not only emphasis on sustainability in the compulsory planning documents such as Local Agenda 21 Strategy and the Planning Strategy, but also efforts towards convincing local politicians about the advantages of an extra effort for sustainable development. The vision of a sustainable urban expansion in Stenløse South is the result of the boosted political will. In the decentralised Danish planning system, the municipalities have a strong authority in regulating development. While the national and regional plans act as frames, the municipal and especially the local plans (the latter concerned with detailed questions of use, density, infrastructure and lay out of concrete urban development projects) carry out the concrete planning and regulation in compliance with these. Being the sole
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legally binding planning instrument, the local plans are thus considered as the foundation of the Danish planning system. But in relation to formulating guidelines for energy efficiency, there is no legal authority. Thus, it might lead to a dispute between contractors and the municipality, should the municipality opt to regulate this point through a local plan. Consequently, the municipality sought alternative means of regulation, finding a strong measure in the extensive Danish rights of private property. By acquiring the lots in Stenløse South, the municipality was able to enact easements regarding energy efficiency on each of the lots. Since then (in 2006) and inspired by Egedal, legally binding regulations has been possible in local plans. Other means of regulation has been guided by the compulsory environmental assessment of the development. Especially the estimates concerning the increase in energy consumption in the conversion from farming to housing has meant the implementation of local minimum energy requirements in the new buildings, in line with the approach determined in the European Commission. Through a so-called function requirement, the developers and contractors can combine different initiatives in order to comply. The municipality has afforded considerable resources in subsidizing and technical and informational facilitation of developers and contractors as well as the end users of the new buildings, the main argument towards the latter being that the increased building investment is evened out by saving in energy consumption.
The proactive planning and regulation process in Stenlose The planning, regulation and implementation process in the Stenløse South project is an example of how to promote energy sufficient building projects on ordinary market terms in spite of deadlocks within the construction industry and the housing market – and to a certain extent in spite of lacking means at hand within planning and regulation. Viewing itself as ‘the missing link’ within the market for energy efficient new building projects, the work of the technical administration of Egedal municipality is an example of how to promote this development through concrete practice of planning. In concordance with the Danish planning regulation, the technical administration has included overarching sustainable strategies in key planning documents like the municipal plan. But wanting to promote energy efficiency even more, and backed by years of experience in local agenda 21 work, the administration endeavoured in developing a more proactive planning practice. This entailed not only emphasis on sustainability in the compulsory planning documents such as Local Agenda 21 Strategy and the Planning Strategy, but also efforts towards convincing local politicians about the advantages of an extra effort for sustainable development. The vision of a sustainable urban expansion in Stenløse South is the result of the boosted political will. In the decentralised Danish planning system, the municipalities have a strong authority in regulating development. While the national and regional plans act as frames, the municipal and especially the local plans (the latter concerned with detailed questions of use, density, infrastructure and lay out of concrete urban development projects) carry out the concrete planning and regulation in compliance with these. Being the sole legally binding planning instrument, the local plans are thus considered as the foundation of the Danish planning system. But in relation to formulating guidelines for energy efficiency, there is no legal authority. Thus, it might lead to a dispute between contractors and the municipality, should the municipality opt to regulate this point through a local plan. Consequently, the municipality sought alternative means of regulation, finding a strong measure in the extensive Danish rights of private property. By acquiring the lots in Stenløse South, the municipality was able to enact easements regarding energy efficiency on each of the lots. Since then (in 2006) and inspired by Egedal, legally binding regulations has been possible in local plans. Other means of regulation has been guided by the compulsory environmental assessment of the development. Especially the estimates concerning the increase in energy consumption in the conversion from farming to housing has meant the implementation of local minimum energy requirements in the new buildings, in line with the approach determined in the European Commission. Through a so-called function requirement, the developers and contractors can combine different initiatives in order to comply. The municipality has afforded considerable resources in subsidizing and technical and informational facilitation of developers and
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contractors as well as the end users of the new buildings, the main argument towards the latter being that the increased building investment is evened out by saving in energy consumption.
An energy retrofitting of apartment block in Odobeşti (Romania) ,,Thermic rehabilitation of no. B3 block, Pictor Grigorescu street, Odobeşti city, Vrancea county” by the City Hall of Odobeşti city The project belongs to the Programme of thermal rehabilitation of blocks of flats – condominiums, in accordance with Government Emergency Ordinance no. 1366/20.07.2006 and no. 1722/22.09.2006. Existing situation: The building is 2 floors building, built in 1970. It has 23 apartments with 2 or 3 rooms. The block has a length of 33, 00 meters and a width of 10, 00 meters. It belongs to owners and one apartament belongs to the City Hall from Odobesti. According to recent studies, the heat losses of these building are mainly due to: - Poor insulation of windows and doors (around 10%); - Lack of thermal insulation of roofs (around 20%). Need and opportunity of the investment: In the context of the above, the municipality of Odobesti city wants to carry out partial thermal rehabilitation of the buildings (roof, external windows of apartments, common staircases and entrances of the blocks), in order to achieve the following objectives: - reduce the heat consumption of apartments; - raise comfort levels for householders ; - decrease the costs of invoices. As a subsidiary objective, the municipality will help raise the quality and value of the built environment in Odobesti. Energy rehabilitation/modernization of buildings and their related installations have become an integrated part of the state energy policy and are carried out by means of technical solutions and measures, leading to: • Improvement of indoor climate environment (thermal comfort). • Diminishing of energy consumption of the installation within the existing buildings, at the same time with the reducing of the operating costs. • Reduction of polluting emissions resulting from energy generation, transmission and consumption. The solution that the municipality wishes to apply is one of partial thermal rehabilitation of the apartment building. It is foreseen that through the implementation of these measures the energy consumption of these blocks will decrease by 25-40%. The energy certificate for no. B3 block, Pictor Grigorescu street, Odobeşti city, Vrancea county is „H”class and has a value of 660,10 kwh/m2 for annual consumption of hot water and heating. The ”H” mark is so low because of the high consumption, no efficiency for heating the apartment because most of the construction elements of the building doesn’t fulfill the thermo insulation conditions. The walls of the apartments are from concrete and without insulation. The roof is flat roof type on the ceiling of the last floor. On the flat roof the owners improvise a partial roof by sheet iron that it is in an advanced degradation The heating of the apartments is with fireplace with solid combustion (woods) one for each apartment. The cold water is supplied by the distribution network of Odobeşti city and it is measured at most of the apartments. Hot water is prepared from cold water by using the cooker or very rare by using electrical boiler. The building has sanitary installations and also installations for sewerage system and for rain.
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no. B3 block, Pictor Grigorescu street, Odobeşti city, Vrancea county Extern finishing: Extern windows from wood, iron sheet lintel. The glass from the window has 3 mm width Simple concrete pavement 40x25 cm in front of the building for protection The flat roof on the ceiling of the last floor. Is the place where the owners improvise a partial roof by sheet iron that it is in an advanced degradation The façade is finished with extern normal plaster
Intern finishing: Thin plasters Cement floor on entrance halls, toilets, and kitchens. PVC carpet in the living room and bedrooms.
An energy efficient reconstruction of public kindergarten, Estonia In the municipality of Valga, a local demonstration project of energy efficient reconstruction of a public kindergarten has been initiated. This represents a means for the municipality to profile the region as a competence centre for energy efficient buildings; boosting knowledge and initiative in the local area. The awareness regarding improvement in the energy performance of buildings is radically changing in Estonia. In the past, it has been perceived as rather pointless to carry out energy conservation, which is explained by the historical legacy of Estonia and its long-term belonging to the Soviet Union with minimal prices of energy. The municipality believes that in order to actually increase the number of energy conservation projects in the region it is necessary to make the local stakeholders experience (in the sense of seeing and touching) energy efficient technologies and solutions, rather than preaching about it in theory. The advantage of a pilot energy conservation project is that it can demonstrate that improvement in the energy performance of buildings is both realisable and beneficial. Even though the municipality did have the possibility to strongly regulate the energy performance of energy efficient buildings, such regulations may be difficult for local stakeholders to comply with. In the demonstration project, the municipality especially succeeded in coping with the economic barriers, since the project has received a grant 1.08 M EUR from European Regional Development Fund. The provided grant covers a great deal of the total costs of the project, which is estimated to be 1.45 M EUR, including technical design, assessments, construction, supervision and supply of equipment and furniture.
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The reconstruction of the kindergarten Kaseke is the first of its kind, since the kindergarten is the first highly energy efficient building in Estonia. This public building was built in 1966 and accommodates about 142 users. The building has a closed net area of 901.4 m² and a computational heated floor area of 1.040 m2. The heated floor area is planned to be 1280.4 m2 after reconstruction works.
Views of the building before
and after the reconstruction
A reconstruction of the kindergarten Kaseke was chosen based on a full survey, carried out in spring 2002, that showed that he building structure is in satisfactory shape, but that technological equipments and systems are partly amortized and do not correspond to the needs and valid norms. As developer, the municipality chose to specify the specific energy performance target of reaching passive house standard for the reconstruction. The challenge regarding energy assessment was thus to identify technical initiatives that would bring the previous amount of primary energy used in the building (250 kWh/m2a) down to 15-17 kWh/m2a after reconstruction. The technical design of the reconstruction project was compiled using the principles of energy efficiency criteria and best possible indoor climate. The technical design to comply with passive house standards involved a number of steps: • improvement of insulation in the roof, basement and walls; • installation of new ventilation systems designed with a heat recovery unit with an efficiency of 92%; • use of solar-panels and accumulation tanks; • installation of floor heating in washrooms.
A passive – house new building in Bègles (France) A new exhibition building is developed in close cooperation between the municipality and the non profit association ‘Océan‘, which has been involved in environmental education since 1995. This association runs a number of exhibition and training locations in the region, and welcomed in 2007 more than 23,000 persons (students at different levels, teachers, recreational clubs, elderly, etc.). The 400 m2 building will be situated in a strategic and busy centre-line, on the banks of the Garonne River. This area is currently undergoing a tremendous transformation, with increasing numbers of visitors, since the area has recently been categorised as a nature reserve, and is strategically coupled to economic activities related to the harbour,
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The passive house building project.
rehabilitation of a nearby hangar and different minor transformation projects planned for the area. The building will contain exhibit halls, rooms for conferences, teaching studios and offices. The expected number of users should be 35 000 / year. The municipality of Bègles has a broad perspective on sustainable development, since energy efficiency represent just one out of several factors affecting the environment. This broad perspective is also reflected in the development of the new exhibition building, where other environmental factors are considered important. The assessment of environmental factors to consider in the new exhibition building have been determined on the basis of the HQE® approach, which rely upon a prioritisation of the targets addressed in the approach decided for this project. As shown in the following table, the energy efficiency of the building, water consumption, harmonic relation to the local environment and choice of integrated processes and building products have been highly rated in the building project.
The usual HQE® approach and the targets chosen in the building project. Levels of performance
Targets 1 – Harmonic relation with surrounding environment
TP
2 – Choice of integrated processes and building products
TP
3 – Construction site with low pollution
P
4 – Energy consumption
TP
5 – Water consumption
TP
6 – Waste management activities
P
7 – Maintenance
R
8 – Hygrothermal comfort
P
9 – Acustic comfort
TP
10 – Visuel comfort
P
11 – Olfactory comfort
R
12 – Sanitary conditions
R
13 – Air quality
R
14 – Water quality
P
TP = Very Performant
P = Performant
R = Regulation
Specific energy performance requirements have been set up in the building project, since the building should comply with passive house standards. This entails that the building should have an annual demand of heating less than 15 kWh/m2 per year and that the annual global demand of energy (heating, hot water and electric household appliances) should not exceed 120 kWh/m2 per year. In order to assess how to comply with these requirements in terms of technical systems, the basic approach from the passive house concept has been applied. It has been necessary to adjust these methods, since the new exhibition building represents a commercial building, and not a typical one-family house for which the methodology has been developed. The technical choices have emphasised on optimising exchanges with the natural environment (sun, wind, earth through orientation, providing shade and design) and supply networks made available by the community, limiting the levy on these networks. These principles reflect priority to choice of healthy materials and of technologies and installations that are sustainable and based on renewable resources and to creation of a good indoor climate. An overall goal, during the assessment process, has been to assure that the design operation of the building project may be repeated in similar projects. This implies that the building project should demonstrate the feasibility in terms of economic effectiveness. For this reason, the costs of the project should be close to the budget of standard equivalent constructions. So the building project should be able to transfer competences, methods, architectural design principles and technical energy efficiency features to similar projects.
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The vegetable market in Bologna (Italy) The Former Fruit and Vegetable Market area is of strategic importance for the city of Bologna. Close to the railway station and in particular to the area that will soon house the high speed terminal, the Market area in the Bolognina neighbourhood was developed in the 1920s and is separated from the city historic centre only by the railway line. The first project for the market area, which covers over 321,000 m², dates back to 1996: The first joint urban plan, the DUC, provided for an area of 186,149 m² available for construction. Another project was drawn up in 1999 and a third in 2002 which, after numerous modifications, was adopted in 2004. Along the way there was a progressive reduction in the area of usable space, due also to a series of conflicts that the transformation process in this area had opened up. However, the residents and district associations were interested not only in protesting against these planning choices but also in putting forward their own proposals, through questionnaires, observations and written submissions.
Figura 2 The approved project plan
Figure 1 The former vegetable market
The Market workshop1 was set up by a resolution of Bologna City Council which established the project workshop with public participation but imposed some limitations. The city authority declared that it regarded the workshop to be a useful instrument, and asked it to examine various aspects of the plan which were the subject of disagreement. This was an important event because it gave institutional importance to the workshop: it was created not only out of the wishes of the local inhabitants but those of the Administration itself. Following the launch of the workshop there was a remarkable response: indeed hundreds of citizens, as well as experts, commissions and 15 district associations, took part. THE PROGRAMME AND RESULTS In November 2005, eight/nine months after the beginning of the workshop, a new project (from the office of Scagliarini Architect, Bologna) had been validated. Compared with the initial inputs, it radically modified the previous plan, which had to be readopted and was finally approved in July 2006. the project planners Then workshop continued thanks also to the funds obtained through the European project Grow-Relemcom, which has recognised the quality of the process and of the project.
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details can be found on the web site http://www.comune.bologna.it/laboratoriomercato
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THE PROJECT ENERGY CHOICES The district, which will provide accommodation for around 7,000 people, will include a large residential area with around 1,200 housing units, as well as businesses and services, public buildings and green spaces to alleviate a chronic lack of services in the Navile district. The plan makes “energy choices” that are capable of achieving high environmental standards. The research into energy questions, which will be applied for the first time in specific Energy Implementation Regulations in the plan, has looked into the question of the economic feasibility of choices made, seeking to find the right balance between obligatory requirements and recommendations, taking into consideration the public financial resources and the construction firms that will carry out the new development. By reason of its size and the questions examined, this constitutes a pilot project for urban regeneration and development policies in all cities. In general terms, the plan adopts the following technical and engineering requisites: - Co-generation plant, fed by methane gas, serving the whole development and distribution of services by way of underground technological service channels. The size of the plant will be based on the requirements of the area, net of energy saving obtained through the energy regulations in the plan; Energy certification of the buildings on the basis of Casaclima criteria, already adopted by the Autonomous Province of Bolzano. In particular, all private buildings must be Class C (70kWh/m²/year), all public buildings must be Class B (50kWh/m²/year) except for schools which must be Class A (30kWh/m²/year); - Use of passive sunlight, by way of the correct positioning of buildings and identification of the “warm sides” on which to situate the daytime areas; Covering of surfaces and green areas of all buildings in order to reduce the re-radiation of heat into the atmosphere and to increase the thermal inertia of the buildings; . Production of hot water by way of solar panels on all buildings; - Provision of photovoltaic equipment on all buildings, in order to encourage the private sector to install equipment that will enable it to sell energy, as well as to consume it; - Provision of a dual network of water collection in order to encourage collection and recycling of water, thanks to 2 underground accumulation tanks for irrigation purposes and a lamination basin which overflows into the Navile Canal; - Provision of a permeable land surface (both public and private) of around 35% of the surface area and a semi-permeable surface (30% permeability) of around 25%; The overall effect of all of these factors, some obligatory and others recommended, will carry the urban system towards an energy requirement of around 60% less than traditional buildings. The total sum of such factors is capable of producing an energy saving of around 60% compared with traditional buildings. Research on energy themes has also looked at the question of environmental sustainability and economic feasibility: the choices made seek to find a correct balance between those requisites that are obligatory and advisable, taking into consideration public financial resources and the construction market that will carry out the new development. Then the main compulsory energy requirements to the project plan could be resume as following: - Yearly heating demand not exceeding 30 kWh/m2 for the new school (4.000 m2) and the new social cultural centre building (2.500 m2). - Yearly heating demand not exceeding 50 kWh/ m2 for about 22.000 m2 (40% for social housing ) - Yearly heating demand not exceeding 70 kWh/m2 for all other building (about 100.000 m2) - Solar domestic hot water on all the building to feed at least the 50% of hot water - Photovoltaic plant to produce 1 kWp by PV for each dwelling or 0,5 kWp for 100 m2 of not residential building - Local district heating CHP system - Illumination plant with special requirement of energy saving
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