REHABILITATION OF URBINO 2 SLUM 2 CRITERIA TO UPGRADE THE SAFETY LEVEL IN BUILDINGS DESIGN

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1 REHABILITATION OF URBINO 2 SLUM 2 CRITERIA TO UPGRADE THE SAFETY LEVEL IN BUILDINGS DESIGN Romualdo MONTAGNA *, Ettore PANDOLFI **, Giorgio AGARBATI ***, * Full Professor, Department of Ingegneria Civile Edile e Architettura (DICEA) at Polytechnic University of Marche, Italy (r.montagna@univpm.it) ** Chief Engineer, Ente Regionale per l Abitazione Pubblica (ERAP) Marche, territorial office of Pesaro-Urbino (ettopand@libero.it) *** PhD Student, Department of Ingegneria Civile Edile e Architettura (DICEA) at Polytechnic University of Marche, Italy (g.agarbati@univpm.it) Keywords: slums rehabilitation; quality of life; crime prevention; urban and city planning; design strategies and tools Field of Interest: Urban and City Planning; Topic of Interest: Applied social sciences in architecture and urbanism. Main paper focus: Specific Topic; Paper Content Classification: Experimental. Abstract The Urbino 2 district is located about 15 km from the town (and University) of Urbino, and was originated from planning mistakes by public administrations and private builders. As a consequence, the only people who could rent the apartments for very cheap prices were those who came from the outside of European Community, whom commonly live in greater number than allowed into the apartment or, even, they rent part of it to other poorer people. So the value of the building went down, putting the owners in the condition of being unable to pay for maintenance, or, perhaps, no longer willing to do it. From a recent survey on a population of 600 persons only 10 are Italians. The district has become a real slum, where the different populations follow the rules and customs of their original countries, giving rise to brawls, violence, aggressions and so on. Finally the municipality has come to the decision to plan a complete rehabilitation of the district. Unfortunately, the project has been carried out only by architects, without any cooperation of criminologists, or CPTED experts, so the result is a design that does not reach the assigned goal. We aim to explain what and how to modify the proposed design, applying the risk evaluation method developed at Polytechnic University of Marche following the incoming CEE rules (Cen ).

2 1.: Foreword The Urbino 2 district is a typical example of the so called Incorrectly born districts [1]. In the specific case there was an error by the Municipality of Urbino that planned a new district 15 km from the town, without providing any urban service, from bus to social and commercial services. The initial goal was to create a district for students. With this perspective there were builders aiming to earn a lot of money by build small apartments (one or two rooms and WC) in a cheap lots area. The mistake was due to the lack of services in situ and lack of public transport. Students have never inhabited the district which has quickly lost its value on the market. The consequences are briefly explained in the abstract. Fig 1: The original planning of Urbino 2 district around the year 1990 The district itself and also the external parts of the houses or the common parts of the apartment buildings, have become foreign and dangerous places where people walks through quickly without stopping (as said at Urbino 2, common people do not dare to enter). Relationships have become rarefied, and the district limited to groups of the same origin: north Africa Muslims, central Africa negroes, eastern Europe people, and so on. The way of life has become individualist and introvert. Everywhere we can attend a particular phenomenon: people take care of the inside of the houses (according to their concept) but the outdoor part of the houses and the common parts in apartments buildings are totally neglected. To give an idea of the actual level of life in the district we point out that a recent police action (100 policemen, drug dogs, an helicopter!) found out some illegal immigrants and discovered that on a population of 600 persons (compared to an authorized number of 120) only 10 were Italians. The district has become a real slum, where different populations follow the rules and habits of their original countries, giving rise to brawls, violence, aggressions and so on.

3 2.: The intervention programs In the last years the Province of Pesaro-Urbino has been trying to carry on a rehabilitation program, but they worked only at urbanistic level without the advice of any criminologist. As a second step, the planning of the intervention was entrusted to the ERAP (public housing institute). A first idea of intervention was simply to destroy the actual buildings, rebuilding a fully new district with different characters. The idea was immediately impracticable because several apartments were private property of strangers who didn t have any other solution to live. Neither they could be legally forced to sell out their property. Moreover, destruction the district would have as an immediate consequence to find an accommodation for about 600 persons, some of which minors without a family. A second negative factor came from a market enquiry that showed a very little request for new buildings in this area, putting this type of intervention out of the market. The solution was found out by the ERAP, asking to the actual residents if anyone wanted to sell or was interested to an upgrade. The institute was able to buy (at very affordable prices) most of the apartments, and then as a major owner, to legally oblige the residual owners to participate in an upgrading program. In the few cases in which the actual owner has not been able to participate economically, the ERAP offered the possibility to swap the apartment in Urbino 2 with an equivalent one, property of the Institute, elsewhere. On this basis, the public housing institute planned the upgrade of the buildings and, in the meanwhile, the Municipality planned an intervention on external common areas. Goal of this paper is to evaluate the efficacy of both the plans in order to achieve a good CPTED level. 3.: CPTED efficiency of the different options of intervention on the buildings The upgrading process was reached through different planning options: in a first step the Province territorial office pursued the goal of integration with the surrounding buildings of the industrial area of a nearby municipality (Petriano); in a second step, as said, a total rebuilding of the district was valued. Finally the solution adopted was to upgrade the existing buildings. Fig 2: The plan of integration with the surrounding buildings of the industrial area of the nearby municipality of Petriano

4 Fig 3: The three different building designs on which the crime risk level was evaluated through the UNIVPM method

5 Now we will try to demonstrate that the CPTED level attainable with the mentioned solutions is very similar; but, at the same time, we will discover that the intervention on the outdoor common areas gives a greater increase on the safety level. To do this, we employ an evaluation method developed at Polytechnic University of Marche and already published for the buildings [2], but new for outdoor common areas. The algorithm is applied to: the existing buildings; the proposed new building type; the upgraded buildings (final solution adopted). As you can see from the tables, with both the new and the upgraded building, the risk level decreases but not enough to let us say it is an efficient solution. A greater relevance on reducing the crime risk level is obtained from the design of the outdoor common areas. The graphics and tables that we have elaborated in this research using the UNIVPM method, prove it. 3.1: The evaluation method of CPTED efficiency developed at UNIVPM As already published [3], the global risk level comes from the algorithm : LGR = Σ(Ri) γ δ [1] where Ri is the risk level under a specific point of view (level of floor f.i.), γ and δ are coefficients that take into account the weight of that point of view. The following example will clarify the calculation procedure. Table 1: Tables A & B show the standard values for the specific building Tab A Area in the town Suburbs 5 pt Semi-peripheral 3 pt Central 1 pt Typology of street One way 5 pt Double way secondary street 3 pt Double way main street 1 pt Level of floor Lower floor (1-2) 5 pt Intermediate (2 to 6) 3 pt Higher ( over 6 ) 1 pt Tab B γ δ village 0,7 Well lighted area 0,5 Middle town 1 Commonly lighted 1 city 1,2 Poorly lighted area 1,3 Both Tabs A and B can be built up with a greater number of levels and with different values for the single items, anyway the above algorithm is tried and tested and will show a numeric value that leads to the scale of risks provided by CEN codes. The final operation is to compare the scale of numeric values to the five steps of the UNI CEN/TS ; in the case of the example above, this it follows: very low - low - medium - high - very high in the case of a window (f.e.) at the 4th floor of a block of flats in a middle town, in a well lighted main street (Σ Ri) γ δ = 4,9: that means a very low risk level. A window of the same building and level, but facing one way poorly lighted street, will get (Σ Ri) γ δ =10,8: that means a medium risk level. After defining the risk level, the protection level required follows as a natural consequence (at a low risk follows low protection, at a very high risk follows a very high protection) and requirements of the components follow as well.

6 3.2 : The evaluation method of CPTED efficiency applied to the three situations For the three different designs of Fig. 3, we evaluated the global risk of facades and the global risk of the entire building using the following algorithms: 1 Facade Global Risk FGR LGR Number of elements 1 Building Global Risk BGR FGR facades Number of facades Table 2: Calculated values of risk level for the three situations [2] [3] EXISTING BUILDING zone street floor sum town light total window 1/2p ,7 1,3 15,47 door 1/ ,7 1,3 15,47 window upper ,7 1,3 13,65 door MAN ,7 1,3 13,65 Fgr facade FGR tot elem. alfa FGR fac front 755, ,10 back 978, ,05 facade sx 44, ,86 facade dx 58, ,56 FULLY NEW BUILDING zone street floor sum town light total window 1/2p ,7 1,3 15,47 door 1/ ,7 1,3 15,47 window upper ,7 1,3 13,65 door MAN ,7 1,3 13,65 Fgr facade FGR tot elem. alfa FGR fac front 706, ,71 back 651, ,81 facade sx 29, ,56 facade dx 29, ,56 UPGRADED BUILDING zone street floor sum town light total window 1/2p ,7 1,3 15,47 door 1/ ,7 1,3 15,47 window upper ,7 1,3 13,65 door MAN ,7 1,3 13,65 Fgr facade FGR tot elem. alfa FGR fac front 894, ,16 back 1167, ,78 facade sx 44, ,86 facade dx 44, ,86 Building BGR tot elem. BETA BGR building Risk level actual 59, ,89483 HIGH new 58, ,65996 HIGH upgraded 59, ,91676 HIGH

7 The result is that both the actual building and the two proposed alterations reach an high risk level: the reason is that the two new designs were developed only by architects without the help of any criminologist or CPTED expert. In order to become crime safe, both the designs must be reconsidered and modified. 3.3: An evaluation method of CPTED efficiency applied to the external areas Employing very similar algorithms, we tried an evaluation of the external areas that are planned to be modified together with the building s upgrading. In this case, the numeric values referring to the five ranges of CE norms are: very low - low - medium - high - very high But the concept is exactly the same: once you have found your minimum and maximum value, you divide the interval into five parts in order to transfer any numeric value within the five levels of European scale. ( Ri) External Areas Risk level =EAR = K 1 [4] k Where: Ri is the single risk level of each component of the area (play areas, green, paths, covered paths etc.) and µ is a coefficient that takes into account of how many individual components reach a value above or below average. n Table 3: The values employed for each external component of risk Light level None = 20 Low = 17 Medium=10 High = 2 Light homogeneity Full= 0 Spot =15 None =20 Type of trees Evergreen thick=20 Evergreen sparse=10 Deciduous thick=16 Deciduous sparse=3 Surveillance Full video 0 Partial video=10 Night police=6 None =0 Path regularity Yes =5 No =15 View from buildings Very good =0 Fair = 10 Poor =18 Bus stop 200 m Less =7 More= 13 Play/rest areas Yes = 5 No =1 None=0 The values of µ are defined as follows: 1 if all the areas reach a total value if all the areas reach a total value > 102 1,1 if only one area reaches a total value > 102 1,15 if several areas reach a total value > 102 With this method we could elaborate a set of tables which give a numeric value of the risk level for: pedestrian paths, green areas, loggias paths. Unfortunately we don t have space to show this here. Anyway the global risk level comes from the algorithm: External global Risk = EAR(tot) = LGR ( A) LGR( P) LGR( PP) [5] k Where: ρ is a coefficient that considers territorial and physical characters of the area; σ is a coefficient that considers the % surfaces of the different areas; τ is a coefficient that considers the quality of the design.

8 The final result of the new external areas compared with previous ones, in the case of Urbino 2, is: Table 4: The values found for external areas of Urbino 2 EAR tot ρ σ τ TOT Risk Level EAR old ,2 120 HIGH EAR new VERY LOW 4: Conclusions We can now affirm that the actions proposed for the reconstruction and the redevelopment, they have not obtained the goal of increasing the crime prevention level of Urbino 2 district. This has a logical reason since in the design process nor criminologists or CPTED experts were involved. A modification of the proposed design is still possible, aiming to reach a lower level of crime risk. From our work, it is also evident that the intervention on outdoor areas, although planned only by architects with no cooperation of experts, leads a decreasing risk level. This consideration can mean that it is easier to plan well an external area than a building, from the point of view of crime prevention. It can also mean that money spent on external areas is more effective of that spent on a non specialized building. As a final consideration, the support of experts is a clear need to avoid spending money with poor or none effect on the topic proposed to increase the quality of life and to reduce the fear of crime in the district. 5: List of References [1] R. Montagna, R.M. Barboni, E. Montagna Street crimes and quality of life in the neighborhoods, proceedings of IAHS XXXVIII World Congress on Housing, Istanbul (2012). [2] R. M. Barboni, R. Montagna, E Pandolfi Crime prevention in building design, proceedings of 31 IAHS World Congress, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada (2003). R. M. Barboni, R. Montagna Designing buildings for a crime prevention strategy, proceedings of CIB Congress, Helsinki (2005). R. M. Barboni, R. Montagna Man-made hazards: a way to reduce the criminal risks in new housing, proceedings of international Conference on Vulnerability of 20th century cultural heritage to hazards and prevention measures, Leros, Greece (2009). R. M. Barboni, R. Montagna, E.Pandolfi Alteration of crime risk levels and formal aspect of typical low-cost housing design due to site conditions and building codes, in: Journal of Civil Engineering and Architecture vol.5 n.11 (serial n.46 ), David Publishing Company, USA (2011). [3] R. M. Barboni, R. Montagna Glass in buildings as a crime prevention strategy proceedings of the Congress Glass in buildings University of Bath, England (2005).