Planning policies are necessary conditions for the sustainability of strategic planning processes (see Directive 42/2001/EC of the European Union). They require connecting planning choices to preferences and needs of the members of local communities, comprised of both strong stakeholders and of formal and informal organizations, through which citizens may express their aspirations, needs, and expectations concerning the organization of the urban space. Regional and local planning processes are, therefore, significant grounds to analyze public policies from a participatory point of view, in a SEA-based framework. 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 paper develops a discussion about two issues concerning public participation in the Sardinian RLP. The first part focusses 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. By means of one-to-one semi-structured interviews carried out in Italian, some professionals involved in the making of the plan were asked to provide an informed insight on how horizontal cooperation, vertical integration, and inclusiveness had been looked for, and whether the level of participation was satisfactory. As for the implementation, possible consequences of inconsistencies between the RLP and local master plans, as well as conflicts between the regional and the municipal administrations, were explored. The second part discusses how local communities may participate in the implementation process of the RLP. This assessment builds on an empirical study on conflictual issues concerning the Sardinian RLP analyzed through Multicriteria analysis and Contingent valuation (Zoppi, 2007). The disparities brought out by the application of these two methods clearly point to the selection of criteria, usually identified by experts on various fields. Since the inclusion/exclusion of a criterion can reverse the results of the classification procedures, the choice of the criteria is decisive for the ranking of the scenarios. If this choice were open to public participation, it would be possible to implement decision processes where experts and the local community would share and possibly build common expectations on the future of their city environment. Finally, the results arising from the views of privileged stakeholders and local communities are compared, and some lessons that can be learned from the intermix of the two approaches are identified.

Assessment of the Regional Landscape Plan of Sardinia (Italy): a participatory-action-research case study type

ZOPPI, CORRADO;LAI, SABRINA
2008-01-01

Abstract

Planning policies are necessary conditions for the sustainability of strategic planning processes (see Directive 42/2001/EC of the European Union). They require connecting planning choices to preferences and needs of the members of local communities, comprised of both strong stakeholders and of formal and informal organizations, through which citizens may express their aspirations, needs, and expectations concerning the organization of the urban space. Regional and local planning processes are, therefore, significant grounds to analyze public policies from a participatory point of view, in a SEA-based framework. 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 paper develops a discussion about two issues concerning public participation in the Sardinian RLP. The first part focusses 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. By means of one-to-one semi-structured interviews carried out in Italian, some professionals involved in the making of the plan were asked to provide an informed insight on how horizontal cooperation, vertical integration, and inclusiveness had been looked for, and whether the level of participation was satisfactory. As for the implementation, possible consequences of inconsistencies between the RLP and local master plans, as well as conflicts between the regional and the municipal administrations, were explored. The second part discusses how local communities may participate in the implementation process of the RLP. This assessment builds on an empirical study on conflictual issues concerning the Sardinian RLP analyzed through Multicriteria analysis and Contingent valuation (Zoppi, 2007). The disparities brought out by the application of these two methods clearly point to the selection of criteria, usually identified by experts on various fields. Since the inclusion/exclusion of a criterion can reverse the results of the classification procedures, the choice of the criteria is decisive for the ranking of the scenarios. If this choice were open to public participation, it would be possible to implement decision processes where experts and the local community would share and possibly build common expectations on the future of their city environment. Finally, the results arising from the views of privileged stakeholders and local communities are compared, and some lessons that can be learned from the intermix of the two approaches are identified.
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11584/104417
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