Housing in a Water-Rich Environment Riverstone Project (2008)

(2) Duo-housing: a house with two apartments, where you choose your –

neighbor yourself

(5) Extra care village: community of about 200 flats and bungalows around –

an activity center with its own clubs and pub, adjacent to an existing neigh-borhood with shopping and leisure facilities (British concept)

(6) Senior city: new town with 2,000 or more houses exclusively for senior –

citizens with its own shops and leisure facilities (American concept)

The six concepts were visualized in such a way that concepts 2, 5, and 6, of which there are not yet examples in the Netherlands, would not be disadvantaged in comparison with concepts 1, 3, and 4, of which existing practices can be shown.

A mixture of standardized informative drawings and associative photos was used.

Figure 7.2 shows the smallest and the largest profiles as portrayed in the images.

Since this project was explorative, a random selection of 24 respondents between 60–80 years with middle incomes was selected. In half an hour, each respondent selected the six images based on whether they would like to live there. Aside from this task, respondents were asked why they selected the images as they did.

How important is the postulated preference for “community” in the Netherlands?

Interestingly enough most of the respondents had negative feelings about all the community-type options. Most of them selected only concept no 1 (individual housing in a lifetime environment). Presumably, all other communities are rejected because in general homogeneity by age and social control is not the preferred option for the elderly in the Netherlands. However, the age group 70 and older rejected fewer options than the younger elderly. We postulate that the age group 70 and older anticipates on their reducing health and social networks (family, friends, and colleagues), and are more open to new types of houses and living environ-ments. This research has been very informative for those involved in planning and project development. “Real” offers from abroad cannot be imported into another social context without the risk of a lack of demand.

7.3.2 Housing in a Water-Rich Environment Riverstone Project (2008)

Based on consumer research, other studies, as well as Dutch and foreign examples, the SEV took a further step in understanding the potential for water-enriched hous-ing. Real designs were offered to the potential buyers in a real pilot project:

Riverstone, east of Arnhem on the IJssel River (Boogaard and Sievers 2009).

We designed nine types based on a selection of attributes that were found to be important in previous research, which will be discussed later. The nine types do not form an exhaustive set of all alternatives that can be derived from the attributes (Singelenberg 2008). An extra attribute was included: detached (grouped) dwell-ings versus semidetached houses and apartments. Furthermore, we divided the

Fig. 7.2 Three senior communities (Source: de Graaff et al. 2007)

design according to modernized versions of currently existing locations versus renewed locations. For instance, the wharf and poles already existed in the early Middle Ages and are well-known techniques elsewhere in the world. A new form is the floating home as a modern version of the houseboat. The nine types are defined below. We see immediately that an exhaustive set of alternatives would result in more than nine types: three types (detached, semidetached, apartments) times five techniques (dyke, boat, wharf, poles, floating house) times three designs (existing, modern, neo). Figure 7.3 shows additional attributes like price, parking, mooring place, and garden/yard. In short, only a selection of the vast amount of alternatives was chosen.

Finally, every design has five extra verbal attributes. These were also revealed in the earlier conjoint research as important: price, physical connection, parking, out-door space, and levee.

Nine different types of water-related housing were proposed and translated into residential images by Defacto architects. Some pictures for the residential images were chosen from a collection of existing examples in the Netherlands; others were constructed using Photoshop to create a possible but not yet existing combination of housing type (Fig. 7.3).

The potential buyers were present inhabitants of the housing market region Arnhem with an income of at least 1.5 times the modal income (€45,000 per year excluding tax). The income level was mainly based on prior information on housing consumption and the idea of the developer of Riverstone. A random sample resulted in 5,100 households. We used an Internet survey to reduce costs and accepted a low response rate since reminders were too costly.

Fig. 7.3 Five water-enriched designs (Source: Boogaard and Sievers 2009)

The Internet questionnaire consisted of a number of blocks like the introduction of Riverstone; questions related to the social-economic and social-cultural back-grounds and of course the main part: the residential images. The part for the resi-dential images consisted of three blocks:

The evaluation task implied looking at each of the nine residential images and

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evaluating the attributes of quality, price, parking, mooring, and outdoor space.

The evaluation scores were positive (+), negative (−), and neutral (0). Finally, the images had to be ranked from 1 to 9 according to preference. This approach dif-fers from the elimination-by-aspects, where the selection itself is part of the observation.

Next, respondents had to answer whether they were willing and able to move to

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an alternative within 2 years. The reason for this period is that the dwellings were not yet constructed. An alternative could have been “do you accept this?”

The answers were “yes,” “no,” “maybe, because ….”

Finally, people were asked to explain the reasoning behind their decision,

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including the qualities of the offer, price, intervening opportunities, and personal circumstances.

Table 7.2 shows the mean and median scores for the nine types. Each type is characterized firstly by the type and secondly by the construction technology/

design such as dykes, wharfs, poles and floating. The results are rather surprising and in contrast to other findings. The highest ranking has the apartment instead of the usually more highly valued detached house. It turns out that this ranking is not an effect of the specific segment of housing searchers, but an effect of the price levels. The price levels for the detached and semidetached alternatives are too high.

Since budget restrictions are important, respondents have valued the lower-priced apartments more highly. As we said earlier, a design must be a real option. The construction technique is important as well, but is also linked to the type.

Respondents do not value apartments on poles, whereas both this technique and floating score pretty well for (semi)detached alternatives.

The respondents also had generic preferences with respect to the neighborhood.

Access to the shops was vital to add value to projects. Other amenities like leisure, health care, restaurants/pubs, and culture were less important. The preferences for a type of neighborhood suggested that a homogeneous composition is not popular.

However, even though a neighborhood collective was not valued highly, a pleasant chat in the street was valued highest. This is the same result as for the elderly neigh-borhoods we discussed previously.

7.3.3 Housing in a Water-Rich Environment Conjoint