BHCP:
Seeing the Decisions Behind the Development
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What can the
choices
behind the development
tell us about
the system producing it?
1) What happened?
2) Who made the decisions?
3) What objectives were stated?
a) The project explicitly included a “land use equivalency program” allowing uses to be exchanged within the development envelope in order to “accommodate market demands.”
b) Later, the document says that because development would occur over roughly five years, the location and orientation of future buildings would respond to market conditions at the time each building was constructed.
c) And the conceptual plan itself is described as only one possible implementation because the project was deliberately designed to respond to future market conditions.
4) It means flexibility wasn't incidental. Option value was designed into the project.
5) What choices were made?
6) What alternatives existed?
7) What constraints existed?
8) What did the decision-makers know at the time?
9) What tradeoffs do the choices reveal?
10) What competing explanations fit the evidence?
11) What utility function best explains the evidence?
Sources & Documentation
Documented fact: The proposed Land Use Equivalency Program was intended to provide flexibility in responding to changing community needs and market conditions during the project's build-out. Source: City of Los Angeles, Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza Master Plan Project — Project Description, January 2016, pp. II-54–II-55, SCH No. 2008101017.
What objective function best explains the owner's observed choices?
Notes on
Methodology
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