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Abstract
Does public participation matter in planning? Although the paradigm of participation has strengthened, its practical implementation is not always successful. Critical literature stresses that public engagement is often ineffective since planning choices are mainly influenced by the most affluent groups. While most studies focus on collaborative or innovative cases of participation in urban design and transformation, this article focuses on local comprehensive planning and the statutory involvement of the public and interest groups. To assess their influence, their access to the planning process is analysed with data from a survey of elected officers and staff in the municipalities of the largest region in Italy. It is inferred that the access for non-governmental actors predicts the latter’s impact on policy decisions. Participation from citizens and stakeholders through the formal and legally regulated mechanisms does not seem to be empty rhetoric: their contributions appear to be taken into consideration. In most cases, they manage to make an impact on decision-makers by collaborating with them, while confrontation is seldom experienced. Residents and economic associations are the most influential players, while political parties are the least prominent ones. This implies that particular interests and expectations, manifested by many residents and stakeholders, may hinder policymakers striving to plan for the wider community’s benefit.
Acknowledgement
This work was supported by Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore under Grant D.1 2015.
Notes
1 For example, the Lombardy branches of nationwide environmentalist NGOs are composed of volunteers and a small number of paid staff. They do not have enough resources to monitor and take part in the making of over 1500 plans in Lombardy (interview with the former chairman of the Legambiente environmentalist NGO).
2 Burke (Citation1968) distinguishes various forms: mere education of the public; participants offering inputs to planners (“staff supplement”); “co-optation” aimed at neutralising opponents; and schemes that actually empower the community. Arnstein (Citation1969) depicts various strategies spanning from mere information and manipulation by authorities (consultative “tokenism”) to actual empowerment. Similar scales have been elaborated for e-participation tools, which can be introduced simply to inform or consult, but also to involve, collaborate, and empower (Simonofski et al. Citation2021: 1–2).
3 These exceptions especially concern: the involvement of residents in drafting strategic frameworks and structural elements of plans as well as, more frequently, the preliminary scoping; participation charters; and information desks and urban centres to facilitate communication between citizens and planners (Angelini Citation2014; D’Onofrio Citation2014b). Markedly, Tuscany’s “very progressive and participative model” includes possibilities for public involvement to be supported by public funds and managed by an independent authority (Zetti Citation2021: 2). Innovative forms of participation have tended to be endorsed for strategic planning, more than down-to-earth zoning and development projects (Angelini, D’Onofrio Citation2014c).
4 Similar considerations have been proposed for other European countries. See: Bacqué, Gauthier (Citation2011: 56–7); Zetlaoui-Léger (Citation2013); Gourgues (Citation2015: 100); Denolle, Duval (Citation2016: 37); Nyseth et al. (Citation2019: 14).
5 This can be equated with EU public consultations, initiated by the Commission prior to legislative propositions, which are considered “lobbying venues” where interested parties advance their proposals (Bunea Citation2020: 3).
6 Respondents to academic expert surveys may recall generic or overly specific cases of influence exercised by stakeholders, “thereby neglecting potential differences from one issue to another”, while interest-group representatives, when asked to provide self-estimations of their own as well as others’ influence, may either exaggerate or downplay it, “owing to a lack of information and analytic capacity” (Dür Citation2008: 565f.).
7 Defined in the questionnaire in the following way: “actors express consensus on the administrations’ choices only if these are coherent with their own demands”.
8 The sampling error of all analyses is between 4.4% and 6.2%.
9 Question: “Could you please provide some information with regard to the stages from the opening of the planning process to the first reading of the plan / from the first reading of the plan to its final approval? Have you received written contributions by … ”
Minority councillors are not considered here, although they are in the following analyses, because they usually intervene in the debates within municipal assemblies and do not interfere with public consultation.
10 Question: “With regard to the process of approving a plan, what kind of relationship has been established with … ”
11 Possible answers: not at all/only a little/somewhat/very much.
12 In fact, 82.7% of respondents agree with the statement: “Private actors (landowners) are only interested in the regulative features of the plan (e.g., zoning, building parameters)”.
13 “In the new plan or general variation of the existing plan that your administration has approved, what are the forecasts for farmland development in respect to previous forecasts?” Possible answers: decreased/unchanged/increased.
14 The statistical association has been measured using Edwards’ method (1963) to detect the existence, direction (attraction/repulsion) and intensity of the association between dichotomous variables. Edwards’ index ranges from 0 (maximum repulsion between mode pairs, i.e., negative association) to 1 (maximum attraction, which means positive association), with the middle value of 0.5 signalling statistical independence between modes. In order to build dichotomous variables, all answers to the survey have been grouped into variables with two modalities. For instance, the limitation of urban growth has been made a category of a dichotomous variable which also comprises an ‘urban expansion’ category.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Martino Mazzoleni
Martino Mazzoleni is Associate Professor of Political Science at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Milan (Italy), where he is a lecturer in public policy analysis and comparative politics. He has published on land-use planning, decentralisation, regional and local politics. His main research topics include comparative local autonomies, governance and planning policy.