Integrating Sustainability Assessment into Project-Level Urban Development Planning to Support Regenerative Urban Outcomes

Abstract

This thesis examines how project-level urban development planning and alternatives analysis can more systematically integrate Sustainability Assessment to support regenerative urban outcomes. It develops and applies a 15-dimensional Context-Adaptive Sustainability Assessment Framework grounded in Gibson’s sustainability requirements and informed by systems thinking, regenerative sustainability, post-normal science, pluriversal governance, antifragility, and sustainable project management. The study uses an exploratory qualitative multiple-case study design focused on five urban development projects in Waterloo Region, Ontario: evolv1, Ahrens Street West, One Hundred Victoria Street South, Northfield Station Area Development, and Breithaupt Block. The framework is applied retrospectively through document analysis, narrative-based assessment, semi-quantitative ordinal rating, integration mapping, and researcher-constructed Document-Derived Causal Mapping with Feedback Loop Analysis. The reconstructed maps represent directed, positive or negative influence relationships among factors and are developed from coded literature and project documents rather than direct participant input; they are therefore used as interpretive models rather than as validated proof of causality. This approach enables structured comparison across diverse project types while remaining responsive to governance conditions, planning maturity, stakeholder engagement, and the availability of evidence. Findings show that sustainability integration across the five projects was uneven and dimension-specific. Environmental, technological, spatial, and selected economic dimensions were generally more visible, particularly where technical standards, policy alignment, or measurable performance criteria supported implementation. In contrast, equity, affordability, cultural inclusion, ethical deliberation, life-cycle learning, and adaptive governance remained consistently underdeveloped. The reconstructed document-derived causal maps further suggested that the documented project logics were predominantly linear, with no closed feedback pathways identified in the five project-specific maps and limited documentary evidence of mechanisms for ongoing learning. The thesis offers a flexible, governance-aware, and learning-oriented framework intended to strengthen the early integration of sustainability considerations into urban development planning. It reframes Sustainability Assessment as a diagnostic and decision-support process that begins at project conception rather than functioning as a late-stage compliance mechanism.