Coastal protection in Sardinia (Italy): a tentative assessment of the Regional Landscape Plan

The planning activity of the regional administration of Sardinia (Italy) has undergone a deep change after the approval of the Regional Landscape Plan (RLP), which establishes the directions for nearly any future planning activity in Sardinia, and requires that actual sectoral and local plans, as well as plans for protected areas, be changed to comply with its directions. This mandatory adjustment process can be conflictual, if the administrations responsible for these plans disagree with the rules established by the RLP. On these bases, this essay develops a discussion around two issues concerning public participation in the Sardinian RLP. The first focuses on the extent to which integration of different stakeholders was looked for in the plan preparation and what the likely consequences of this degree of participation are. The second discusses how local communities may participate in the implementation process of the RLP. This assessment builds on empirical studies on conflictual issues concerning the Sardinian RLP analyzed through Multicriteria Analysis (MCA) and Contingent Valuation (CV). The contribution of this essay to define an on-going strategic assessment of the RLP identifies two main normative points. First, the right concept of subsidiarity has to be restored in the RLP planning implementation code (PIC). Second, the regional planning activity has to be based on a true cooperative-planning approach so that the relations between the regional administration and the cities may lose their conflict-derived inefficiency.