The current research describes a methodology to determine the importance of social objectives by using pairwise comparisons following Saaty´s AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process). With the help of AHP, objectives are ordered by importance and a weight-vector is determined. The method can be used to support the decision making process at corporation level and to work out the sub-objectives at national and local level. Hereby, an optimal balance of allocated capital can be achieved at every decision making level.

Housing corporations are not after a financial gain but allocate part of their financial capital in order to achieve a range of social objectives. The real problem is that it is often very difficult to compare those objectives. That is why, the current research suggests a method for comparison, which will allow officials and corporation stakeholders to implement new statistical approach in this field.

For the decision taking process of the corporation, it is important to keep in mind how a change in the policy can affect the total score. In this way, the stakeholders are continually looking for a more efficient policy. A policy can be called efficient when the ratio between the score and the cost is as high as possible. In order to implement a more efficient policy, the corporations will have to find and analyse alternative policy variants step by step. It is crucial to use employees with profound knowledge of the properties. On a local level, employees can reach efficient solutions by splitting the objectives and the costs of the corporation into sub-projects.

ORTEC
Bert Kramer, tel. +31 (0)182 540 500

01/01/2005

Bert Kramer

research

Urban Policy > Housing

Housing policy