Boligkvalitet og kommunal planlegging - Husbanken

13The first task was to look at the social housing plans frommunicipalities in one particular county to see whether housingquality criteria were included on a routine basis. We then assessedsocial housing plans from two of the municipalities that we knewhad adopted quality criteria to see how they fared as planningprogressed.Secondly, we assessed the three pilot municipalities and studiedtheir planning documents. The output from this assessments waswritten together, for each municipality, and sent back to them asbackground material to form the basis for in-depth interviews.Thirdly, we studied Stavanger City Council’s preferred model ofintegrating the housing qualities of choice. The city councilprovided information on their use of technical regulations andadministrative procedures in quality assurance work, informationthat was supplemented with interviews.FindingsWe studied eight plans from municipalities in Østfold County butfound little mention of housing quality. Most expressed acommitment to purpose-built housing for disabled anddisadvantaged people, and to adapting existing housing to theseresidents’ needs. Adaptations tend to address the needs of elderlyresidents. Municipalities take advantage moreover of the StateHousing Bank’s housing grants for this purpose. Insofar as theØstfold municipalities are concerned about universal design, itappears to be limited to making municipal housing moreacceptable to residents in terms of location, floor space andquality.Zoning plans and manualsWe studied two municipalities which had included qualityassurance mechanisms in their social housing action plans. One ofthe municipalities made sure that the housing quality standardswere included in the preparatory work for the new master plan. Aprovision was also included in zoning plans, instructing developersand builders to take universal design as a starting point for thedesign of developments and the common outdoor areas. Here,however, work seems to come to a halt, possibly because universaldesign is an unclear concept from which to derive definite criteria,requirements and standards etc. Its vagueness also makes itNIBR-rapport: 2009:8