Evaluating the impact of environmental improvements

Abstract

There is a need for methods to evalu­ate relatively small-scale potential public sector environmental improve­ment schemes. The traditional plan evaluation techniques are not suitable for this role because, inter alia they are too laborious and costly to be used for small and medium sized projects. This paper describes and evaluates an ex­perimental urban design project un­dertaken by the Johannesburg City Council Planning Department in a high density residential area. The pro­ject was evaluated three years after im­plementation using a technique based on a value engineering approah. The paper concludes that the project was worthwhile and that the technique is appropriate for evaluating this kind of scheme, both at the planning stage and after implementation.