Beacon

Neighbourhood Sustainability Framework and Assessment Kit

The Neighbourhood Sustainability Framework and Assessment Kit brings together the Neighbourhood Sustainability Framework and its assessment tools. It provides a means to measure and independently assess the sustainability of New Zealand neighbourhoods in order to inform neighbourhood-level decision making.

The goal is to show how to design, construct and manage neighbourhoods which:

are adaptive
are resilient
allow people to create rich and satisfying lives
respect the limitations of the environment

Who is the Kit useful for?

The Neighbourhood Sustainability Framework and Assessment Kit is useful for councils wanting to improve the sustainability of neighbourhoods in their cities. It provides information to assist users to identify and prioritise changes to improve the sustainability of the neighbourhood and provides a common framework for discussion between all parties. It is particularly useful for:

developers
local authority planners, engineers, policy makers or community developers
designers
planners
neighbourhood managers, for example, with Housing New Zealand Corporation or a housing trust

How councils could use the Kit

Who would use it?	What would you use it for?
Councils - planners Developers	Use the Observational Tool as a triage tool to fast track desirable neighbourhood developments. Having a mechanism to identify a development as ‘desirable’ at drafting stage could mean that sustainable developments could be fast tracked and/or the developer could be given certainty of processing times.
Councils Developers	Apply the Observational Tool to planned developments to assess for reductions in development contributions.
Councils Developers	Use the Observational Tool to assess all new neighbourhood developments and potentially to set a minimum threshold for new developments to meet.
Councils Community groups	Assessing existing neighbourhoods with both the Observational Tool and Resident Self-Report Tool to guide resourcing decisions. The Kit provides a framework to assess and prioritise resourcing and community funding related to neighbourhoods.
Councils and other neighbourhood managers Community groups	Assessing existing neighbourhoods with both the Observational Tool and Resident Self-Report Tool to draw out the critical issues for neighbourhood improvement and planning.
Councils Central government Community groups	Using the tools to guide the rebuilding of neighbourhoods during natural disaster recovery. A key learning from the Christchurch earthquakes was the importance of the neighbourhood for resilience and the desire of people to stay in their communities. The tools provide a robust framework for moving forward, allowing discussion and input between all parties on remediation and new development of neighbourhoods post-disaster.