The Economic Value of Residential Land in Historical Areas: An Application of the Residual Method to the Secondary Market

Land value bears significant weight in house prices in historical town centers. An essential aim for regulating the mortgage market, particularly in the financial and property crisis that countries such as Spain are undergoing, is to have at hand objective procedures for its valuation, whatever the conditions (location, construction, planning). Of all the factors contributing to house price make-up, the land is the only one whose value does not depend on acquisition cost, but rather on the location-time binomial. That is to say, the specific circumstances at that point and at the exact moment of valuation. For this reason, the most commonly applied procedure for land valuation in town centers is the use of the residual method: once the selling price of new housing in a district is known, the other necessary costs and expenses of development are deducted, including those of building and the developer’s profit. The value left is that of the land. To apply these procedures it is vital to have figures such as building costs, technical fees, tax costs, etc. But, above all, it is essential to obtain the selling price of the new housing. This is not always feasible, on account of the lack of newbuild development in this location. This shortage of information occurs in historical town cities, where urban renewal is slight due to the heritage-protection policies, and where, nevertheless there is substantial activity in the secondary market. In these circumstances, as an alternative for land valuation in consolidated urban areas, we have the adaptation of the residual method to the particular characteristics of the secondary market. To these ends, there is the proposal for the appreciation of the dwelling which follows, in a backwards direction, the application of traditional depreciation methods proposed by the various valuation manuals and guidelines. The reliability of the results obtained is analyzed by contrasting it with published figures for newly-built properties, according to different rules applied in administrative appraisals in Spain and the incidence of an eventual correction due to conservation state.

Environmental analysis of residential building facades through energy consumption, GHG emissions and costs

This paper provides some results on the potential to minimize environmental impacts in residential buildings life cycle, through façade design strategies, analyzing also their impact on costs from a lifecycle perspective. On one hand, it assesses the environmental damage produced by the materials of the building envelope, and on the other, the benefits they offer in terms of habitability and liveability in the use phase. The analysis includes several design parameters used both for rehabilitation of existing facades, as for new facades, trying to cover various determinants and proposing project alternatives. With this study we intended to contribute to address the energy challenges for the coming years, trying also to propose pathways for innovative solutions for the building envelope.

PV self-consumption optimization with storage and Active DSM for the residential sector

With the rising prices of the retail electricity and the decreasing cost of the PV technology, grid parity with commercial electricity will soon become a reality in Europe. This fact, together with less attractive PV feed-in-tariffs in the near future and incentives to promote self-consumption suggest, that new operation modes for the PV Distributed Generation should be explored; differently from the traditional approach which is only based on maximizing the exported electricity to the grid. The smart metering is experiencing a growth in Europe and the United States but the possibilities of its use are still uncertain, in our system we propose their use to manage the storage and to allow the user to know their electrical power and energy balances. The ADSM has many benefits studied previously but also it has important challenges, in this paper we can observe and ADSM implementation example where we propose a solution to these challenges. In this paper we study the effects of the Active Demand-Side Management (ADSM) and storage systems in the amount of consumed local electrical energy. It has been developed on a prototype of a self-sufficient solar house called “MagicBox” equipped with grid connection, PV generation, lead–acid batteries, controllable appliances and smart metering. We carried out simulations for long-time experiments (yearly studies) and real measures for short and mid-time experiments (daily and weekly studies). Results show the relationship between the electricity flows and the storage capacity, which is not linear and becomes an important design criterion.

Neural network controller for active demand side management with PV energy in the residential sector

In this paper, we describe the development of a control system for Demand-Side Management in the residential sector with Distributed Generation. The electrical system under study incorporates local PV energy generation, an electricity storage system, connection to the grid and a home automation system. The distributed control system is composed of two modules: a scheduler and a coordinator, both implemented with neural networks. The control system enhances the local energy performance, scheduling the tasks demanded by the user and maximizing the use of local generation.

Facade typologies as a tool for selecting refurbishment measures for the Spanish residential building stock

Today, the building sector alone accounts for 40% of the total energy consumption in the European Union (EU). In most EU member states, about 70–90% of the buildings were constructed at least 20 years ago. Due to this, these buildings have a worse energy efficiency behavior than the new ones that comply with current regulations. As a consequence, acting on the existing building stock is needed, developing special methods on assessment and advice in order to reduce the total energy consumption. This article addresses a procedure allowing the classification and characterization of existing buildings facades. It can help researchers to achieve in-depth knowledge of the facades construction and therefore knowing their thermal behavior. Once knowing that, the most appropriate upgrading strategies can be established with the purpose of reducing the energy demand. Furthermore, the classified facade typologies have been verified, complying with current and future Spanish regulations and according to the results obtained, a series of upgrading strategies based on the opaque part and those in the translucent part, have been proposed. As a conclusion, this procedure helps us to select the most appropriate improvement measures for each type of facade in order to comply with current and future Spanish regulations. This proposed method has been tested in a specific neighborhood of Madrid, in a selected period of time, between 1950 and 1980, but it could be applicable to any other city.

Residential self-selection and geographical scales in trip frequency.

Neighbourhood representation and scale used to measure the built environment have been treated in many ways. However, it is anything but clear what representation of neighbourhood is the most feasible in the existing literature. This paper presents an exhaustive analysis of built environment attributes through three spatial scales. For this purpose multiple data sources are integrated, and a set of 943 observations is analysed. This paper simultaneously analyses the influence of two methodological issues in the study of the relationship between built environment and travel behaviour: (1) detailed representation of neighbourhood by testing different spatial scales; (2) the influence of unobserved individual sensitivity to built environment attributes. The results show that different spatial scales of built environment attributes produce different results. Hence, it is important to produce local and regional transport measures, according to geographical scale. Additionally, the results show significant sensitivity to built environment attributes depending on place of residence. This effect, called residential sorting, acquires different magnitudes depending on the geographical scale used to measure the built environment attributes. Spatial scales risk to the stability of model results. Hence, transportation modellers and planners must take into account both effects of self-selection and spatial scales.

Energy and economic survey of the renovation of a residential building wall in Madrid

La edificación es un sector de enorme influencia en la evolución del consumo de energía y las emisiones de CO2. Teniendo en cuenta que en estos momentos hay 3,5 millones de viviendas vacías y que los próximos años no va a haber un aumento en la demanda de vivienda nueva, la rehabilitación sostenible del parque residencial existente es una tarea prioritaria y sobre la que hay que prestar especial interés. Dado que aún queda mucho donde actuar, es necesario hacer una reflexión sobre cómo se está rehabilitando para poder mejorar en el futuro. Por ello, el objetivo del presente trabajo es analizar algunas estrategias adoptadas hasta ahora en el parque inmobiliario y su aplicación en un caso de estudio, mediante la mejora de la fachada de un edificio de viviendas situado en Madrid.

Social Indicators in the Sustainable Refurbishment: Calculating Quality of Life Indicator in a Residential Building in Málaga

How can we measure ‘quality of life’? The sustainable refurbishment goes beyond strictly energy aspects. Sustainability indicators are needed to facilitate data collection and to provide information which does not require too time-consuming calculations. Thus, you can offer an idea of the extent and quality of the rehabilitation before starting the project and, also, the obtained results can be evaluated in an agile way after the refurbishment. From a list of social indicators gathered from different methods, sustainability assessment tools and International and European standards, three social indicators are proposed: Users Satisfaction, Participation Agreement and Quality of Life. This paper shows the development of Quality of Life social indicator, the more closely related to the main objectives of Researchand Development Project “Sustainable Refurbishment”: improving energy efficiency and wellbeing of users in existing residential buildings. Finally, this social indicator is applied to a real case study in Málaga (Spain).

Cross Ventilation CFD Modeling: Characterization and Study of Different Façade Openings Configurations at the Refurbishment of a Residential Building in Málaga (Spain)

The opening of new windows on the façade is proposed as a refurbishment strategy in an existing building in Málaga to facilitate cross ventilation of dwellings. The building is a residential block of 140 public housing units for rent for people with low income in Málaga (Spain), property of the City Council. By modeling with Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), eleven configurations of openings are studied in two different areas of the main housing type of the building. The quantity of introduced/extracted air into/from the room and the generated airflow patterns are obtained. The modeling allows comparing the different openings configurations to determine the most appropriate ventilation option for every room.

Sustainability assessment of energy saving measures: A multi-criteria approach for residential buildings retrofitting—A case study of the Spanish housing stock

The building sector is well known to be one of the key energy consumers worldwide. The renovation of existing buildings provides excellent opportunities for an effective reduction of energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions but it is essential to identify the optimal strategies. In this paper a multi-criteria methodology is proposed for the comparative analysis of retrofitting solutions. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Life Cycle Cost (LCC) are combined by expressing environmental impacts in monetary values. A Pareto optimization is used to select the preferred strategies. The methodology is exemplified by a case study: the renovation of a representative housing block from the 1960s located in Madrid. Eight scenarios have been proposed, from the Business as Usual scenario (BAU), through Spanish Building Regulation requirements (for new buildings) up to the Passive House standard. Results show how current renovation strategies that are being applied in Madrid are far from being optimal solutions. The required additional investment, which is needed to obtain an overall performance improvement of the envelope compared with the common practice to date, is relatively low (8%) considering the obtained life cycle environmental and financial savings (43% and 45%, respectively).

Plausible self-reported dietary intakes in a residential facility are not necessarily reliable

Acknowledgements The original study, from which the current data were taken, was funded by the Food Standards Agency, UK.

International residential tourism in north east Brazil: a stakeholder analysis

This paper analyses the system of actors involved in the development of residential tourism on the north east coast of Brazil. The study observes the socio-political effects of the 2001-2008 real estate boom, focused on the promotion of second homes in closed residential areas. Stakeholder Analysis (SA) is used to identify the various actors’ roles and positions within a particular social space in a tourist setting which is exposed to transnational and real estate interests. The method reveals an unequal and conflict-ridden social reality. The results show that residential tourism shapes the local socio-political configuration, strengthening some actors (urban developers, real estate companies) whilst positioning others in a situation of dependence (local communities, cities).

How Does Intimate Partner Violence Differ Depending on Level of Rurality of Residential Area in Spain?

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is recognized as a worldwide public health problem. Most theories ascribe IPV to individual, family, or cultural factors. Authors analyzed different residential areas in Spain in terms of IPV frequency as well as its impact on health and the use of services. A standardized self-administered cross-sectional survey was administered to ever-partnered adult women ages 18 to 70 years receiving care at primary health care centers (N = 10,322). Logistic regression analyzed the association between the level of rurality and health indicators, IPV, and use of services. The lowest frequency of IPV among women is reflected in higher rurality. Women of medium and low rurality presented a poorer self-perceived health and more physical health problems. Women from medium and low rurality areas declared seeking health services more frequently. These results show the importance of the environment in health and indicate the need for research on urban–rural differences in health problems to develop specific public health programs for each country.