Measuring, Evaluating, and Predicting the Shelter Capacity and Economic Potential of Land

 The text referenced by the attached Table of Contents explains the classification concepts and mathematical tools needed to improve the analytical abilities of all public and private sector interests attempting to evaluate, regulate, or predict the development capacity of land and its revenue potential. Development capacity in this context means the gross building area that can be accommodated by a given buildable land area. It is a function of the design specification values and floor quantity options entered in a forecast model related to a given building design category.

When gross building area is divided by the buildable acres occupied, the result is the shelter capacity per acre produced by the design category and specification values chosen. This shelter capacity value makes the development capacity results produced by any set of design specification values comparable. Shelter capacity also has intensity, intrusion, and dominance implications that can be measured, compared, and related to their impact on the surrounding area when shelter capacity can be predicted or measured.

The combination of capacity and intensity measurement combines with activity revenue per sq. foot of gross building area capacity to indicate a project’s contribution to a city’s total average cost per acre to operate, maintain, and improve its benefit to the community. A project may provide more or less than the municipal average required, but the objective is not to target individual contributions. It is to determine the scope of total future contributions needed to improve the city average produced per year. This will take a combined public / private effort that cannot be pursued without a common set of comparable analytical tools. These are listed in the Table of Contents I’m attaching.

The tools are only as good as the specification values used by a building design category master equation. These values require research, measurement, and knowledge formation since they currently depend on individual experience and opinion for selection.

The Table of Contents I’m attaching lists the forecast models I’ve mentioned. They offer the opportunity to improve our leadership ability with the measurement, evaluation, and knowledge formation they enable.

Walter M. Hosack: January, 2024