Page 122 - Beyond Decommissioning

Relevant factors for redevelopment 103

5.4 Ownership, sponsors, and stewardship

A mind, like a home, is furnished by its owner, so if one’s life is cold and bare he can
blame none but himself.
Louis L’Amour (1908–1988), Bendigo Shafter

Two essential factors in evaluating the adaptive reuse potential of an obsolete facil-
ity are the current ownership and the driving forces supporting reuse. In many cases a
power plant is owned by an electric utility even during the decommissioning phase.
The owner may want to convert a facility into an internal use such as corporate offices
or warehouses. Or else, the owner may be interested in selling the redundant property
(at a price which is typically less than the cost they paid for the initial investment and
sometimes less than the market value of a similar, but virgin, site).
A more difficult case is multiple ownership. Where a site is not in single ownership,
site assembly may be required. Where site assembly cannot be negotiated by agree-
ment, voluntary or compulsory purchase may need to be considered. Local authorities
can unlock the development potential by using mandatory purchase powers (British
Property Federation, 2013).
A due diligence process should be adopted to ensure that there are no title clauses or
covenants restricting the ability to use the site in the manner proposed.
External forces (stakeholders) that could be interested in an obsolete facility
include economic development parties, museum committees, businesses, municipal-
ities, and other external officials. A detail description of decommissioning and reuse
stakeholders is given in International Atomic Energy Agency (2009a). In fact, multi-
stakeholder involvement is key to successful reuse regardless of who is directing or
funding the project. The city, private developers, neighborhood organizations, and
residents should all be involved in the planning process. These partnerships are nec-
essary to gain social, political, or financial support (or more often than not, all these
three forms of support may be needed for success).
In this regard, the role of local administration should not be belittled. Bureau-
cracy tends to be a burden to all redevelopment projects. Planning for an extension
of Manchester’s tram system to Central Park, a 160-ha scheme viewed as UK’s first
large-scale urban business park, was surely complex. But more critical was the lack
of funding (to be provided by the local administration) which impeded the tram
extension concurrently with construction work at the site. Commitment by local
politicians to regeneration may be insufficient in lack of cooperation by other
stakeholders.
The experience of Turin’s Lingotto underlines how local planning rules can be
another barrier to success in regeneration schemes. Lingotto, once a factory producing
Fiat cars, now houses a concert hall, conference center, shopping mall, hotel, univer-
sity, and an art gallery. The city authorities and two public banks were shareholders in
the company responsible for Lingotto’s transformation. Still the project was held back
by the city authorities’ reluctance to allow residential accommodation and by the strict
limits placed on commercial space (Economist, 2005).