Assessment of rural renewal plan from the perspective of sustainable and desirable rural housing criteria

Assessment is a systematic method of collecting, analyzing and using measurement results to improve the development plans and its timing. Initiated in 2005, the special plan for the improvement and renewal of rural housing to provide resilient housing in line with rural needs annually renovates 200,000 rural residential units according to the Islamic Revolution's Housing Foundation. Despite the relative success of the Rural Improvement and Renewal plan, two main factors necessitated the assessment studies for rooting, pathology and corrective suggestions: observing the paradox between the implementation and some process/content goals outlined in the Special Plan and the developments and complexities resulting from changes in construction technologies and spatial needs of rural applicants. Accordingly, our aim is to assess the realization and implications of special plan in the framework of the evaluative research methodology using theoretical assessment and impact assessment through randomized social survey in three provinces of Gilan, Hamedan and Sistan Baluchestan with three different levels of development, permeability and realization. Sampling was carried out in three stages: (1) selecting provinces based on human-physical indicators(showing the development level among the factors influencing the successful implementation), provincial institutional features including administrative, legal, and financial characteristics as well as realization and permeability coefficients as two variables indicating the status of the special plan’s permeation and realization in rural units. The main objectives of this study included: identifying theoretical and content constraints of the Special Plan, two research missions for desirability assessment and theoretical efficiency and assessing the realization of the improvement and renewal of rural housing in the three main axes: (1) the procedural axes, (2) the aesthetic/native-oriented quality axis, (3) the contextual axis such as resistance, satisfaction and mental well-being, etc. which are measurable using quantity criteria. Considering the research limitations, this study only deals with the third axis results. In the framework of the selected conceptual model of research based on the review of criteria of sustainable and decent rural housing, the theoretical adequacy assessment tools and realization of sustainable and decent rural housing measures in the targeted villages include a few criteria the validated through theoretical foundations and concordance with the actors of the special including population stability and sustainability of development, accountability and adaptation to needs, subjective well-being and satisfaction, economic continuity and ability of residents, compliance with the requirements of ambitious plans, resilience and safety, social security and the quality of cases. The results indicated that the plan was relatively successful regarding population stability and sustainability of development, economic continuity, affordability and economic capacity, well-being and mental satisfaction of residents. However, the plan partly failed to meet the criteria of accountability and adaptation to the needs of applicants with paradoxes such as failure to meet certain livelihood needs, as well as resilience and safety. Finally, participatory design policies, flexible mapping and updating of predetermined plans for meeting the livelihood needs and prioritizing the rural-community empowerment approach, intensified monitoring by supervisors, and post-implementation map changes have been proposed to promote documents and mechanisms of this plan.