Developing an Integrated Approach for Public Participation: A Case of Land-Use Planning in Slovenia

This paper draws on the importance of public participation in improving several aspects of the land-use planning and decision-making process and regards the lack of adequate tools as an important barrier hindering effective implementation of participation in planning practice. The hypothesis is that extensive research into local knowledge, especially regarding values and goals, followed by a careful and focused preparation of expert proposals could improve the effectiveness of the participatory process. The paper therefore focuses on the development of methodologies to obtain knowledge from local residents and to integrate it effectively with expert knowledge to produce an input for the communicative process, whereby interaction and communication can bring about consensual planning proposals. The methodology discussed in this paper is an innovative combination of several tools already recognized within spatial and/or participatory planning, such as public surveys and participatory workshops. Connecting these tools can be shown to ameliorate their individual drawbacks and to achieve synergetic effects in all aspects. The use of support tools, such as cognitive mapping, statistical analysis, and suitability modeling, to assist these processes is also discussed. The study was implemented as a pilot project testing the proposed methodology in a case study of land-use planning for a local community in Slovenia, which is currently undergoing significant change from a rural community into an urban community. The results have shown that the use of a traditional questionnaire, combined with the mapping of chosen responses, proved effective in the acquisition of existing local knowledge. The result also showed that in-depth analysis of local knowledge and values and consideration of both in preparing alternative expert planning proposals proved to be a valuable input into traditional participation workshops, thus fostering an interactive participative planning process, whereby conflicts could be resolved while searching for a consensual solution.