The paper presents a multiple criteria model for the evaluation of the sustainability of projects for the economic re‐use of historical buildings in Venice. The model utilizes the relevant parameters for the appraisal of sustainability, aggregated into three macro‐indicators: intrinsic sustainability, context sustainability and economic‐financial feasibility. The model has been calibrated by a panel of experts and tested on two reuse hypothesis of the Old Arsenal in Venice. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The Hedonic Pricing Method is one of the principal assessment methods for evaluating services and resources not normally exchanged on the market. However, the method is often unable to account for the great variety of qualities in an urban context and faces scarce and heterogeneous market data. This paper presents a model for the valuation of benefits generated by environmental and urban improvement investments adopting a mixed hedonic-multi-attribute procedure for modeling a value function of urban real estate values. The peculiarity of the model is that the independent variables are aggregated indicators, which synthetize more detailed characteristics. Using the expertise of real estate agents, all relevant variables influencing real estate values were weighted and synthetized in a set of cardinal indicators. Next, market prices were used to calibrate a hedonic function that transforms the cardinal indicators into real estate values. The valuation model was integrated into a GIS for mapping the housing value, and its variation induced by urban investment. The proposed model pointed out plausible and robust results, in particular, the possibility to use any available information, such as location, position, technical and economic characteristics of buildings, and organize it in a flexible and transparent way, and to keep evident the role of each characteristic through the hierarchical structure of the model. The model was applied to the real estate market of Venice to test the effects of the MOSE project (Electromechanical Experimental Module) for the protection of Venice from high tides. The results of the application showed a relevant increase in real estate values in the center of Venice, especially related to property in ground floor units, of about 1.4 billion €.

Are economic incentives and regulatory relief useful tools for encouraging reuse of abandoned or under-utilised urban sites with historic buildings? Answering this question is of key importance for many European cities and for older US cities, and has important implications in terms of urban sustainability and “smart growth” initiatives. This study uses conjoint choice experiments to explore the relative importance of economic incentives, regulatory relief, land use and property regime offerings at under-utilised historic sites in Venice, Italy. Real estate developers and investors were surveyed, and asked to choose between pairs of hypothetical projects in three Venice locations, as well as between one of these projects and the alternative to do a development project elsewhere. Statistical models of the responses to these choice questions indicate that respondents were sensitive to the price of acquiring the land (and hence to any policies that influence prices), and particularly sensitive to the property regime that would be granted to developers and investors and to the allowable land use. It is concluded that the city should focus on offering land uses and property regimes that are more in tune with developer demand.

The paper reviews the economic incentives for the development of renewable energy sources in Italy, in particular in relation to hydroelectricity. The review addresses the impacts of the hydropower development incentivised by the Green Energy Certificates. The Green Energy Certificates were introduced in Italy in 1999 and modified several times. In 2011 the Italian Government decided to phase out the compliance market for certificates and to replace it with a system of auctions. The paper attempts to draw conclusions from the application of the compliance market in Italy, further discusses the performance in the light of the similar economic instruments put in place elsewhere in Europe and finally, offers a baseline for the comparison for the new policies to be implemented in the future.