Monday, 19 December 2011

17.1 Integrated Master Planning for Destination Development - Part 1 – Why the Need for a Methodology?

Why the Need for a Methodology? 
Before I get to answer this critical question, I think other important questions firstly need to be answered.  What is destination development? And what is a master plan?


Let’s start with the question, What is Destination Development?


I like to think of Development as the improvement or intervention of the physical environment for the benefit of people. Also including the policies and organizational structures that are put together to manage the physical intervention and life using the place.
Destination Development would be the same for an entire Destination or let’s say vicinity.  Destination should have enough scale and critical mass the Destination should be something that can carry a greater name but still have sub parts with their own individual product names without confusion.

And what is a Master Plan?
This is another question that has been raised throughout my career.  The common conception is that of a drawing that covers a relatively large area of land to be developed and showing the way the land will be used.  Not wrong, but in my opinion, this is only one part. 


In a brief summary, it is the “road map” or “guide” describing the vision of a place and how to achieve that vision.  It includes plans and maps, it also must include all the supporting analysis that influenced the development of the maps and plans and it includes the economics and management or governance that will be required to enable the vision to become reality.  


Now back to the main question.  What is the purpose to have a methodology of development? 
Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) are manuals quite common in operating businesses, especially in the service industry and civil defense such as police and fire departments.  It sets codes of conduct and procedures to follow in the process of carrying out work.  By doing this, its purpose is to develop more consistency in the response and service delivered. 

A number of years ago ISO 9001 became quite popular with business, but somehow I don’t hear much about it anymore.  For professional practices, we seldom hear of SOP’s, but I am sure the best professional practices have something internally they follow, maybe without much publicity. 

Integrated Master Planning for Destination Development, I feel it is essential to have an established methodology for the following reasons:

1.   The scope is wide and the process can cover a long period of time.
2.  There are so many professional of various disciplines involved and from various styles of working so it is important to have some way to organize them.
3.  The Orchestrator and Shareholders / Investors probably are not the same persons, so it is essential the Shareholders / Investors have a “road map” of where they are going, how they are going to get there and what points along the way they have already passed.  For large investments of this nature which also require a long process, we know the end result is the ultimate proof of success, but because of the risk of substantial money and time, Shareholders / Investors need to be kept up to date of how progress is proceeding.

4.  And finally a methodology that is logical and comprehendible should give comfort to Shareholders / Investors that their Development Orchestrator knows what they are doing and can carry out the job.  

This is the first of a 10 part series on Integrated Master Planning for Destination Development.  The objective is to be concise and give an overview of the process developed by Jiwa Studio over a period of 25 years in the development profession.  The series will be released daily over a 2 week period covering the topics as shown and following the flow diagram. 


Link to other parts once published:

Part 1 – Need for a Methodology?
Part 2 – Environmental / Site Analysis
Part 3 – Market Analysis
Part 4 – Product Development
Part 5 -  Physical Planning / Design
Part 6 -  Cost Plan
Part 7 -  Business Master Plan
Part 8 -  Site Execution
Part 9 – Operations Management
Part 10 - Review and Revise

Jiwa Studio
Singapore, December 2011
http://jiwastudioweb.blogspot.com/

6 comments:

  1. Thank you so much for this refresher. I had a conversation earlier today with a local government official who said that she doesn't quite understand their City's Master Plan. I lack the level of specificity to be of much use to her.

    Dwain G. Welcome
    (from Linkedin Urban Planning Group discussion)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Dwain, having worked for a developer on a large greenfield site for 12 years, I understand how "master plans" can be very unspecific and lack execution value. Later in the series I discuss the "Business Master Plan" which is the execution document. This is developed from my experience knowing if someone comes in and whats to develop "X" in a location, we need to be able to refer to a document and understand the implications. Especially for us, a private developer, we have to invest in infrastructure in phases. Hope you enjoy the rest of the series over the next 2 weeks.

    (from Linkedin Urban Planning Group discussion)

    ReplyDelete
  3. I think you need to have an idea about the character sense of place that you want to create before working on the fundamental framework of the masterplan. You need to know what density of build out in people per square kilometer and a sense of special uses and approach to the marketplace position you want the plan to have as compared to the competition. Rigorous site analysis is needed to capture any special local geographic attributes.

    Craig Purcel
    (from Linkedin Urban Design Network group discussion)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Craig
    I certainly agree with you, that is why the front end analysis as you have mentioned and we have outlined in the process is so important and more importantly "processing" this before the creative aspects proceed. Feel free to add more comments as the various parts of the series are published.

    (from Linkedin Urban Design Network group discussion)

    ReplyDelete
  5. This process is seem so complicated than it's currents in practice
    Can you please have more detail how to integrate this project into real estate project development
    I found out there were a lot of services that need to be included into with other consultant
    That will be cost and take longer in process
    thanks
    truongnamthuan

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Truongnamthuan

      Thanks for your question. The process is intended to make everything systematic and simple. You are right there are a lot of "professionals" recommended for developing large "destinations", remember you are talking about developing upwards of a hundred hectres and beyond. The scale of investment for such developments is significant as is the potential return or loss! It is essential to have a proper professional team to undertake such an investment.

      For smaller projects or individual projects it is the same methodology, but you can say lots of it is done "in house" or it is multi tasked by your team. For instance a simple development, you probably do your own market research or alaready know the market. Your Architect does the site analysis and maybe jointly you and the Architect write the design brief and you do your own feasiblity.

      At the end of the day the methodology is the same and still applicable. Hope this helps.

      Delete

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