<b>Motorization and Pedestrianization Issues based on Design Standards </b><b>in Planned Neighborhoods in Jeddah City, Saudi Arabia </b>

Abstract

One of the most traditional and growing major cities in Saudi Arabia, Jeddah City established building design standards for villas and apartments in 1960. These design standards have changed several times in response to population increases. However, these standards have had adverse effects on streets: 1) motorization has created pressure on planned neighborhood streets, which resulted in an unsafe environment for pedestrians who must share the road with vehicles. 2) Because of the lack of availability apartments in mixed land-use neighborhoods, the municipality has allowed apartments to be built in desirable villa neighborhoods. Apartment and villa neighborhoods had been separated until 2007 because of privacy concerns. The new combination of buildings has resulted in a loss of privacy in villas overlooked by apartment buildings. Apartment residents are also parking their cars in villas' front yards because of a parking shortage. This study aims to 1) make spatial configuration arrangements of design standards, 2) define the spatial configuration combinations of streets and residential buildings by analyses of the expanding urbanization process, and 3) identify the issues with streets and determine a method to avoid such issues in future neighborhood planning. This study found: 1) a reality gap in design standards, such as the setback line and its relation to parking spaces, 2) unsuitable assumptions regarding car ownership per household, which resulted in a parking shortage, and 3) that resident use of sidewalk spaces as a semiprivate space negatively impacts the pedestrian environment.

Diversification of Villa-Type Neighborhoods and Its Impact on Housing Shortages in a Growing Saudi Arabian City: A Case Study of Jeddah

“…Maddah conducted studies at an urban design scale, for example, on the usage of open space [19] and spatial configurations between residential buildings [20]. A study to evaluate walkability in villa-type neighborhoods in Jeddah was conducted by applying the HPE Walkability Index developed by Hall Planning & Engineering Inc. [21].…”

The measurement of walkability in villa-type neighborhoods: using HPE’s walkability index: case of Jeddah City, Saudi Arabia

“…This area comprises of different elements such as walkable and urban fabric, its unique buildings, fulfillment of the needs of the society, and other different key elements. Source: (Maddah, Song and Deguchi, 2016)…”

“…Researches have also worked on environmental problems (Vincent, 2004) and flooding (Momani and Fadil, 2010). Many types of researches about pedestrian and motorization issues have also been conducted in planned neighborhoods (Maddah, Song, and Deguchi, 2016). Though quite some researches regarding Jeddah city problems such as housing…”