Scale and scope of environmental planning transformations: The Israeli case

Abstract

This paper explores the scale and scope of transformations in the environmental planning field, and the factors that may advance or impede their widespread adoption. A conceptual model is offered which examines scope (defined as type, breadth and structure of the transformation), and the scale of its impact (categorized as stakeholder, organizational, institutional or societal) and applies it to the analysis of several cases in Israel where environmental transformations, affecting the way in which planning is conducted, have been adopted. Conclusions include identification of conditions for facilitating and advancing transformations, including knowledge of innovative alternatives, initiative, willingness to adopt new practices, and identification of policy windows that emerge during conflict, reform, or crisis. The fostering of relations between environmental non-government organizations and planning systems and leadership roles are also significant in catalyzing environmental transformation.

Keywords::

• environmental transformation
• Israeli environmental planning
• planning organizations
• planning institutions
• planning culture

Acknowledgments

Appreciation and thanks to Valerie Brachya for her initiative, vision and ongoing interest throughout the research process. We wish to thank Ariel Saban for his help in locating relevant archival materials, Noga Yosilevech for her dedication and graphic skills, and the reviewers and editors for their constructive suggestions and insight.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

^1. Interview protocol questions per case included:

• Describe the sequence of events, including dates, time frame, significant stakeholders.

• Describe the acceptable norms before the case.

• Were there institutional/organizational/regulatory changes which occurred as a result of the case? Describe.

• Can you characterize the essence of the change (temporary or permanent; semantic or fundamental, one-time or continuing)?

• What affected/catalyzed the change: internal to Israel (Israeli political, civil society pressures) or external to Israel (international/global awareness, strengthening of global environmental discourse)

• Can you identify catalyzers (key players) of change?

• Was there a window of opportunity within which the case occurred and developed?

• Were there subsequent cases in which changes in the planning systems resulting from this case were implemented or expressed?

• Have the changes in the planning system which emerged from this case affected other public decision-making mechanisms (aside from planning)?

• Can you direct us to additional sources–media, literature and other interviewees?

^2. The Hill Committee was appointed by the Ministry of the Interior. It was headed by the late Professor Moshe Hill of the Technion (Israel Institute of Technology) thereby bringing Israeli academics for the first time into the heart of planning decision-making.

^3. The novelty here is the Towns Union's environmental mandate. Towns Unions existed at this time, usually for solid waste or fire- fighting. The innovation is the concept, not the administrative body (Marinov, interview, 28 November 2011).

^4. Marinov was Israel's delegate to the Stockholm Conference. At the round table on 9 May 2012 he described the major impact of the conference on his own environmental tenets and outlook which guided his professional career first as Director General of the Ministry of the Environment and prior to that as the first Director of the Environmental Protection Service in the Ministry of the Interior.

^5. Interviews with Kaplan (1 November 2011), Sagi (14 November 2012), Lerman (14 December 2011) and Rachewsky (1 February 2012). See also Shachar (1998).

^6. According to Lipshitz the collaboration was requested by Brachya from the Ministry of Environment at a critical juncture.

^7. While the objections that suggested that public transport should substitute for Road 6 were not accepted, the view that there is a trade-off between public transport investments and further road development has since become commonplace.

^8. Koptasch (round table discussion 9 May 2012) described the sewage conditions as one of the major turning points of NMP 31.

Additional information

Funding

This research was initiated and funded by the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies.

Notes on contributors

Deborah Shmueli

Deborah F. Shmueli is a faculty member in the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies at the University of Haifa and former Department Head, and a co-Principal Investigator of the Minerva Center for Law and Extreme Conditions at the University of Haifa. She is a planner specializing in environmental policy issues related to land use and allocation, water and transportation, and has published widely in these areas. Strong foci are public sector and environmental conflict management and community and institutional capacity building. She has served as an environmental consultant on planning teams and run many workshops on consensus building, conflict assessment, environmental and public sector conflict management and public engagement. Her undergraduate and master's degrees are from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) (1980) and her doctorate degree from the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology (1992). She is a visiting scholar at the Wagner School for Public Policy at New York University in 2014–2015.

Eran Feitelson

Eran Feitelson is a Professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. A former chair of the Department of Geography, he was for five years the head of the Federmann School of Public Policy and Government. Currently he is head of the Advanced School for Environmental Studies. He holds an MA in Geography and Economics from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a doctorate from the Johns Hopkins University. In 2009–2010 he was a visiting professor at the Transport Studies Unit, Oxford University. He has edited or co-edited three books, and published over 70 papers in refereed journals and edited volumes in the fields of transport policy, land use planning, environmental policies and water policy. In addition to his academic work Eran Feitelson has participated in several national planning teams and has been a member of many national committees. He has also served as chair of the Israeli Nature Reserves and National Parks Commission for 10 years.

Benny Furst

Benny Furst is a geographer and environmental planner (BA, MA and PhD from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem). He works in the Planning Department of the Ministry of Environmental Protection in Israel. His doctorate (2013) focused on environmental campaigns and he has published several articles on the subject. He was an adjunct lecturer at the University of Haifa, and is now in that capacity at the Technion.

Iris Hann

Iris Hahn is a planner (MA Technion) and Lawyer (Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya). She coordinated planning for the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel (SPNI), and went on to head planning and research for DESHE (a subset of SPNI) specializing in the preservation and use of open spaces. In that capacity she served as the representative of the non-governmental environmental organizations on the National Committee for Planning and Building for over a decade. From 2014–2015 she served as Acting Director for Planning in the Ministry of Environmental Protection. She is an adjunct lecturer at the University of Haifa and at the Technion.