Regulators
The regulatory environment, like the financial institutions clients need to finance projects, is geared to predictability and low risk. With the exception of office buildings and shopping centers, which face no impediments in regulations or financing, other project types are still regulated and financed as ‘unibody’ projects. Regulators and financial institutions need to learn how to separate the long-term part of large projects from the more frequently changing parts in all project types such as schools, healthcare facilities and multifamily housing – like office buildings.
Issues that Open Building Principles may present to Regulators
How can plans be made and steering instruments be devised that primarily address matters of FORM and less so of function (since functions change)?
If function is fleeting, what regulatory instruments and processes can help steer urban design zoning and building permitting processes?
Change of two kinds needs to be recognized: a) change within a given use - e.g. a residential building being converted from uniform small units to a mix of unit sizes and layouts; b) change of uses - e.g. converting an office building to an educational facility; or a healthcare clinic to residential use?