Sustainable neighbourhood development principles: a comparison between Sudanese planning and building regulations with LEED-ND

Abstract EN

Neighborhoods have great potential in terms of their contribution towards sustainable development.

Planning and building regulations, as compulsory legal and administrative framework, are one of the most influential aspects in achieving neighborhood sustainability.

Challenges of attaining sustainable neighborhood in Khartoum raised the question of this research “Can the current planning and building regulations achieve sustainable neighborhood development? To address this question, the research objective was to identify the potential of local planning and building regulations to achieve international sustainable neighborhood principles.

The adopted method was critical literature review to identify key sustainable neighborhood design principles that might be included in planning and building regulations, also promote sustainability.

Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design for Neighborhood Development (LEED-ND), was chosen as a benchmark.

It is a pioneering institution in sustainable neighborhood design and is applied worldwide.

The content of current Sudanese planning and building regulations were examined against LEED-ND criteria.

The results indicate that local planning and building regulations did not integrate all LEED-ND prerequisites; however, they did meet many credit requirements.

So, the paper recommended re-writing of planning and building regulations in Khartoum to promote and introduce sustainability principles in them.

In addition, it is important to note that, local planning and building regulations should continue to evolve and improve over time regardless of the expected difficulties via inter-stakeholder collaboration and ongoing modifications.