This post-occupancy study examines Wesbrook Place, an intentional sustainable neighbourhood, nine years after construction began and six years after the first residents moved in. We evaluated the development against its own goals and targets related to land use planning, urban form, transportation and environmental sustainability. We also evaluated physical aspects of the development such as network density, completeness, connectivity, quality of habitat and comparing pre-development site to post development conditions of land use/cover, impervious surfaces and tree canopy cover.

The neighbourhood performs very well relative to measures of population diversity, land use mix, density, walkability, access to parks and services and to good transit services. Although a buffer of forest was preserved around the perimeter of the neighbourhoood, few mature trees were saved on site. Several other indicators could not be evaluated due to a lack of data, such as building energy performance; transportation mode share by residents; stormwater runoff quantity and quality; residents’ satisfaction with quality of life.exam