A novel multicriteria methodology for evaluating urban development proposals

Abstract Urban development planning is the process of developing long-range policies for the future of a region, taking into consideration technical, political, social and environmental aspects. The need to incorporate the prementioned aspects, resulted in the increasing use of multicriteria approaches. One of the most common problems of urban development planning is to choose among various alternative projects. Motivated by the sustainable utilization of Athens’ Hellinikon airport, this paper proposes a methodology for the selection of the best solution for the development of the urban site under certain preconditions. The main purpose of this multicriteria methodology is to assess five alternative investment proposals for the development of the urban site. Since local policy makers are considered to be the stakeholders, the implemented evaluation method includes several criteria that are based on three main categories: economy, environment and society. The selected criteria represent relevant, controllable and measurable elements and could be used as sustainable development indicators. A questionnaire is designed to gather information from stakeholders to evaluate the degree of influence of each indicator on the selection of the proposals. A sensitivity analysis has been carried out giving different preferences from the stakeholders. This paper offers an evaluation framework based on a blend of three types of approaches, the additive value model, the Electre III and the Promethee II. The three methods have been developed in the past, however, this paper tries to offer a cohesive framework, which can be used for the evaluation of urban development proposals in the light of economic, environmental and social criteria. The results obtained by the multicriteria evaluation method showed that the alternative proposals including the exploitation of the examined region in all land uses, marked the best performances in almost all the criteria.

[1]  Ralph L. Keeney,et al.  Decisions with multiple objectives: preferences and value tradeoffs , 1976 .

[2]  Jiangjiang Wang,et al.  Review on multi-criteria decision analysis aid in sustainable energy decision-making , 2009 .

[3]  Agis M. Papadopoulos,et al.  Application of the multi-criteria analysis method Electre III for the optimisation of decentralised energy systems , 2008 .

[4]  Konstantinos Aravossis,et al.  Decision making in renewable energy investments: A review , 2016 .

[5]  R. L. Keeney,et al.  Decisions with Multiple Objectives: Preferences and Value Trade-Offs , 1977, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics.

[6]  John Psarras,et al.  Energy Policy Making: An Old Concept or a Modern Challenge? , 2008 .

[7]  G. Livanos,et al.  A Novel Multicriteria Evaluation of Small-Scale LNG Supply Alternatives: The Case of Greece , 2018 .

[8]  Spiro N. Pollalis,et al.  Infrastructure Sustainability and Design , 2013 .

[9]  J. Brans.  The space of freedom of the decision maker modelling the human brain , 1996 .

[10]  Zachary Douglas.  The International Law of Investment Claims , 2009 .

[11]  Denis Bouyssou,et al.  Conjoint measurement tools for MCDM, A brief introduction , 2004 .

[12]  Sevastianos Mirasgedis,et al.  Empirical assessment of the Hellenic non-residential building stock, energy consumption, emissions and potential energy savings , 2007 .

[13]  B. W. Ang,et al.  Decision analysis in energy and environmental modeling , 1995 .

[14]  J. Siskos.  Assessing a set of additive utility functions for multicriteria decision-making , 1982 .

[15]  Peter Nijkamp,et al.  Towards sustainable city policy: an economy-environment technology nexus , 1998 .

[16]  Patrick T. Hester,et al.  An Analysis of Multi-Criteria Decision Making Methods , 2013 .

[17]  Ralph L. Keeney,et al.  Structuring Objectives for Problems of Public Interest , 1988, Oper. Res..

[18]  B. Roy.  Méthodologie multicritère d'aide à la décision , 1985 .

[19]  Sevastianos Mirasgedis,et al.  European residential buildings and empirical assessment of the Hellenic building stock, energy consumption, emissions and potential energy savings , 2007 .

[20]  John Psarras,et al.  “Greening” the Hellenic Corporate Energy Policy: An Integrated Decision Support Framework , 2012 .

[21]  Jean Pierre Brans,et al.  HOW TO SELECT AND HOW TO RANK PROJECTS: THE PROMETHEE METHOD , 1986 .

[22]  Carlos A. Bana e Costa,et al.  On the mathematical foundations of MACBETH , 2016 .

[23]  Dimitris Askounis,et al.  Multicriteria decision support for global e-government evaluation , 2014 .

[24]  R. Kleiman,et al.  CURRENT CAPITAL INVESTMENT PRACTICES , 1999 .

[25]  Niki Frantzeskaki,et al.  Sustainable energy planning by using multi-criteria analysis application in the island of Crete , 2009 .

[26]  Peter Nijkamp,et al.  Sustainability assessment of development scenarios: methodology and application to Thailand , 2000 .

[27]  T. Saaty.  How to Make a Decision: The Analytic Hierarchy Process , 1990 .

[28]  Dagmar Haase,et al.  Multi-criteria assessment of socio-environmental aspects in shrinking cities. Experiences from eastern Germany , 2008 .