URBS 300 Test 1

Participatory planning → Community development practices → Activism and community
participatory planning: stakeholders work together (residents, businesses and gov)

70s: effects of new large scale projects
80s: limiting growth
90s: slums, massive unemployment, urban renewal

Quantitative changes will be +/-, but each will in turn trigger other types of changes
- Increase in population, change in automobile numbers
- More population = more housing, more automobile infrastructure
- More younger population = more schools, more playgrounds
Qualitative aspects of the community
- Ex: shift in cultural mix
Growth & development will arise from a variety of sources – both within & beyond a community and in constant flux
Thus, planning is needed to respond to changing conditions in a way that protects & enhances interests of community members

2 key issues
- May not be known from previous experiences
- Role of scientific and technical knowledge

Planners need to predict problems of development proposals
-Cost vs. benefits
-Precautionary Principle
- Risk Assessment

Manufacturing to periphery;
Working class housing now scattered around metropolitan area & increasingly segmented;
CBD dominated by corporate headquarters;
Middle & upper classes fled to suburbs;
City sprawled

“Urban renewal was a program for urban economic growth and revitalization. It was designed to stimulate economic growth by making cities more profitable places for capital to invest. Urban renewal was not a housing program and did not have housing production as its goal except where housing fit into overall plans for economic development and growth

New investment patterns in post-industrial cities:
Result = diminished tax base, vacant antiquated industrial infrastructure, unemployed workforce
Cities ushered in corporate era however possible:Universities, Tourist attractions, Corporate headquarters, Government offices, etc.
Urban renewal could facilitate but not cause corporate investment in central cities

Federal funds for ‘slum clearance’ and urban redevelopment – i.e. residential (but ambiguous wording)
Developers would destroy housing and replace with commercial developments
Nothing to mandate housing reconstructed be for low-income people
Amendments to Act (1954, 1959) allowed more $$ to be used for commercial developments
Used to expand universities, colleges, hospitals in the central city

Rebuilt large portions of central cities - increased property values, expanded tourism
BUT 2 main types of problems:
1) Carried out at the expense of the poor, working class and racial minorities;
2) Did not fundamentally change the patterns of capital investment in the city – i.e. urban decline continued (Kleneiwski, 1984: 217)

Winners & losers in the process
Winners = pro-growth coalitions, white middle-class professionals gained;
Losers = poor black and minority groups lost – displaced from their homes and communities (Kleniewski, 1984: 219)

Began in 1944
13 000 housing units demolished
Government spent $145 million on 48 urban renewal projects Increasing citizen resistance to the program Hellyer Task Force (1968) – called for change in approach – from urban renewal to urban rehabilitation (Carter, 1991: 11)

Boston’s worst slum
Instead of super-blocks it has very small blocks
Mit and Harvard planning used this neighbourhood to learn how to master plan an area

After jane jacobs re-visited she saw how the neighbourhood had improved
- Low disease, low rent, booming business, low crime

Argued to be worst slum and a textbook example of a neighbourhood to redo, yet without any investments by municipality it was revitalizing itself

composed of skyscrapers in a park setting
Vertical city - 1200 per/acre - very high density but left 95 % of the ground open - skycrapers in a park

The uses of sidewalks:
Safety - ‘eyes on the street’
Contact - public trust
- As the main contact venue, pavements contribute to building trust among neighbors over time.
Assimilating children
- Last, neighbourhood streets serve as a place to assimilate children to the realities of the city, with an abundance of adults etc, in close proximity.

Successful neighbourhood parks:
Successful parks contain both a diversity of users (who come and go at different points throughout the day) and different uses

1.Need for primary mixed uses
2.Need for small blocks
3.Need for aged buildings
4.Need for concentration/density
All (4) are necessary to generate city diversity; absence of any one of the four frustrates a districts potential

2nd generation of urban renewal policies - neighbourhood rehabilitation (as opposed to clearance)
In canada: neighbourhood improvement progress (1973)
Adopted a comprehensive approach emphasizing social problems
mid-60’s – mid 70’s

Approach:
This approach simultaneously rehabilitated existing housing while at the same time attempting to address the social problems facing the resident population through the provision of better social services.

It addressed the renovation of existing housing, together with selective demolition of substandard housing, while simultaneously providing funds for the improvement of social and community services and providing mechanisms for the participation of existing residents in the decision-making process

​​A particular type of person, function and architecture defines each concentric circle or zone.
1. The Loop (Central Business District)
2. The ‘zone in transition’ - mix of light manufacturing and low-income residential areas - ‘slums’
3. The ‘zone of workingmen’s homes’ - inhabited by workers and their families who have escaped the area of ‘deterioration’, but need to live in proximity to employment areas -skilled working-class, second-generation immigrants
4. The ‘residential zone’ of high-class apartment buildings or of single-family homes.
5. The ‘commuters zone’ - suburban in character typified by single-family dwellings and more elite status

Jane Jacobs:
Neighbourhood as a fluid concept
Neighbourhood as the organ of self-government
Considers 3 types of neighbourhoods:
1. city as a whole= most power – where decisions are made, policies determined, and resources obtained and distributed
2. street neighbourhoods= ability to organize and maintain order in a small area through social networks, everyday public life and public trust
3. districts = chief function of action as a broker between city & street

Neighbourhood most often associated with specific shared geography
Community = people living their lives in some common or shared way

Neighbourhood planning concerns itself with building community

Subarea planning
Top-down process
Initiated at city level, but involves deconcentration of planning activities to n/h level

Neighbourhood planning
Bottom up process
Community based

Contrived participation = ways of avoiding sharing any direct planning power
1. Manipulation = practiced when participation is organized to ‘educate’ and persuade citizens to support an already decided upon plan or program
2. Therapy = practice of engaging with citizens in diversionary activities that will ‘cure’ them of their concerns over basic flaws and injustices

Token participation = ways of sharing a bare minimum of power with citizens
3. Informing = first level in which planning process is opened up to citizen, information provided on the nature of the plan, its schedule and the role of citizens
4. Consultation = explicit means are used to gather the views of citizens – i.e. attitude surveys, public meetings
5. Placation = forms of participation where citizens are given the opportunity to be heard, (planning advisory committees or planning websites), but no guarantee that their advice/input will be taken into serious consideration

Power sharing = where citizens share increasingly greater degrees of power with planners and politicians
6. Partnership = involves an agreement to share responsibilities for planning through joint policy boards or committees
7. Delegated Power = gives citizens dominant decision-making responsibility over a plan or program – usually from the outset
8. Citizen Control = citizens govern a program or project in all its policy and managerial aspects

Initiated by municipal officials
May follow steps of rational planning
May produce written plans
Helps fulfill minimal requirement for citizen participation
City planning undertaken at a smaller scale
Supportive of citizen participation, but efforts do not lead to citizen control
Generally use procedures which act to inform, consult, placate

More closely allied with citizen protest movements than with just citizen participation

Neighbourhood organizations in older urban neighbourhoods:
Housing revitalization, physical improvement, social services, employment, health and safety and community empowerment

OUTCOME : creation of an independent agenda or plan

People have right to participate in decisions that affect them.
People have right to strive to create the environment they desire.
People have right to make informed decisions & reject or modify externally imposed conditions.
Participatory democracy is the best method
Maximizing human interaction in community will increase potential for positive development.
Creating community dialogue & interaction among citizens will motivate citizens to work on behalf of their community.
Ownership of process & commitment for action is created when people interact to create a strategic community development plan.
The focus of CD is cultivating people’s ability to independently & effectively deal with the critical issues in their community ( Source: Phillips 2014: 107)

Self-help & self-responsibility required for successful development.
Participation in public decision making should be free & open.
Broad representation & increased breadth of perspective & understanding are conditions that are conducive to effective CD.
Methods that produce accurate information should be used to assess the community, to identify critical issues, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT analysis).
Understanding & general agreement (consensus) is the basis for community change.
All individuals have the right to be heard in open discussion whether in agreement or disagreement with community norms.
All citizens may participate in creating and recreating their community.
With right of participation comes responsibility to respect others & their views.
Disagreement needs to be focused on issues and solutions, not on personalities or personal or political power.
Trust is essential for effective working relationships & must be developed within community before it can reach its full potential.

1.Establish an organizing group
2. Create a mission statement
3. Identify community stakeholders
4. Collect & analyze information – (community profile, business survey, citizen attitude surveys, etc.)
5. Develop an effective communications process
6. Expand community organization
7. Create a vision statement = one sentence that embodies the desired state of the community in the future
8. Create a comprehensive strategic plan
9. Identify leadership and establish a plan management team
10. Implement plan
11. Review & evaluate planning outcomes
12. Celebrate successes
13. Create new goals & objectives as needed

arguments:
Planners are not ‘value-neutral’ technicians
Planners should not attempt to frame a single plan that represents the “public interest”
Citizen participation measures usually reactive rather than proactive
Planning boards/commissions are making political decisions
Urban planning needs to be broadened to take physical, economic and SOCIAL planning together

Key limitations =
No mechanisms to ensure that citizen voices will be listened to and their plans given fair consideration (Peterman 2000)
Advocate planner represents the interests of others who are in some way marginalized
Question of ‘speaking for others’
Issue of insiders vs. outsiders
Can act to better situate community-expressed needs – as have a wider perspective on analyzing actions
Planner as ‘consultant’ =
Doesn’t have the same power dynamics inherent in it as ‘advocate’
Implies those seeking advice are capable of making decisions themselves

1. Problem-setting phase : bringing stakeholders together, obtaining commitments to work collaboratively, developing structure to facilitate collaborative process
2. Direction-setting phase : stakeholders working together to identify problems, exchange info, resolve conflicts, determine common goals, achieve consensus, identify implementation measures
3. Implementation phase : stakeholders establishing structure & approach for implementation, implementation itself, and monitoring and feedback

Gives all voices equal weight & allows for a variety of different viewpoints, but only equals when sitting at the table
Lack of acknowledgement of power differences b/w stakeholders internal and external to community
Rarely able to influence direction of policies, programs, decision-making or allocation of resources
Peterman (2000) argues elements of advocacy approach could be useful here, as confrontation is needed in order to turn collaborative plans into action

DEFINITION: “Community land is land taken out of the speculative real estate market and owned by a public, non-profit, or private entities that are responsible for holding the land in public trust, using it for public purpose, or limiting profits from resale

Strategic approach to land, including planning, development & control of lan
Can involve a variety of different forms of ownership:
Local non-profits, limited equity coops, community land trusts
NEED TO REDEFINE HOW WE THINK ABOUT LAND : LAND SHOULD BE THOUGHT OF NOT SIMPLY AS A PHYSICAL OBJECT BUT AS A SET OF SOCIAL RELATIONS

Real estate vs. community
Capital vs. labour
Contradictions within communities themselves

Progressive community planning occurs in a political context – it comes from political struggles for social justice

How to join struggle against concentration of noxious land uses in low -income communities of colour and their neighbourhoods, while at the same time do so without encouraging gentrification and displacement ?
KEY CONCEPT = LULU = locally unwanted land use
Dilemma = when communities succeed in battles around environmental justice, gentrification often emerges as a issue in the neighbourhood

Community land;
The bundle of processes including conflict, collaboration and complexity;
Tension b/w eliminating environmental injustice & preventing gentrification.

Begins in 1959 – Urban renewal proposed for 11-block area
Project would displace
Local activists created the Cooper Square Community Development Committee and Businessman’s Association

Basics of alternate plan:
Started by exempting five blocks from any clearance
Supported clearance and rebuilding on six blocks
With most tenants to be relocated in stages within the urban renewal area
Proposed a mix of different housing including: 620 new public housing units, 520 middle income cooperative housing units, 300 moderate income rentals, a SRO hotel, and 48 studio apartments for artists
Almost ½ of all housing was for low-income people

City formally approved the Cooper Square Alternate Plan

outcomes:
- In 1984, first of the low-income housing was built – totalling 146 low-income subsidized units
- 1990’s – David Dinkins becomes NYC first black mayor – strong proponent of community based organizations and expedited Cooper Square Plan
- With the City created Cooper Square Mutual Housing Association (MHA) – a non-profit ownership model with tenant control
- Now manages 18 buildings in the area with a total of 300 units – all of the units are affordable to low-income people
- MHA owns buildings, but land buildings sit on is owned by the Cooper Square Community Land Trust
- 2013 all housing in the original Cooper Square Urban Renewal Area completed including 4 new buildings, 700 units total (1/4 reserved for low-income); 85 000 sq. ft. of commercial space; a community & athletic center
- Overall, 60% of housing built on site is for low-income renters and will remain affordable in perpetuity (Angotti, 2011)

trategies for land:
1.Expand the public trust and consolidate community land
2.Connect land and people
3.Consolidate the urban commons
4.Create a land bank for the commons
5.Regulate the commons
6.Create more community land trusts

Strategies for people:
7.Promote quality of life instead of the growth machine
8.Think locally, regionally and globally
9.Take comprehensive planning back to the future
10.Think of the seventh generation

2 parallel sets of actions each with its’ own logic:
1. Highly structured process with specific steps laid out in the provincial planning legislation that must be followed
- in Quebec the Land use planning and development act
2. Other process is concerned with making the content (substance) of plan & it develops out of community interests & conventions + professional planning practice

1. Determining Community Preferences
2. Articulating Goals and Objectives
3. Plan writing
4. Implementing the plan
5. Clarifying the plan

Participants in this phase include:
‘public’ participants - individuals & organized groups from community, personal interests & community interests
Planner needs to examine these participants & consider if there are real or perceived barriers to access ???
IF SO, figure out how to broaden participation

Other officials of municipal government aside from planners (i.e. communications director, administrators, engineers, lawyers, parks director, traffic engineers, etc. )

Best practice is to get the widest range of citizens possible involved at this stage of the process

Goal: A goal is a short statement of the desired outcome to be accomplished over a long-time frame. It is a broad statement focused on the desired results and does not describe the methods used to get the intended outcome.

Objectives: are specific, actionable targets that need to be achieved within a smaller time frame to reach a certain goal. Objectives describe the actions or activities involved in achieving a goal. They define strategies for action.

Actions : specific measures (plans, policies, designs, steps, stakeholder inputs) needed to achieve the set objectives

Municipal planner’s reformulate plan’s goals, objectives into text, diagrams, and maps gives the plan its basic structure
Written so it leads to realization of the goals & objectives, in spatial, functional & policy terms
Plan will be submitted to required agencies for vetting (rules for conformity)
Once plan has been adopted by council & stamp of approval is given by higher levels of government, it is time for plan implementation

Once approved by council the plan is implemented using a variety of different land-use tools
KEY POINT: Plan is not legally binding on individuals, bylaws are legally binding on individuals
Bylaws are thus tools for implementing the plan!

1. Inherent differences among pieces of property that could affect the type of development that is possible there;
2. The ways that different developers view the potential for land development on specific sites; and
3. The different ways other landowners or the public view development initiatives

Formal planning frameworks thus provide a means by which these differences can be reconciled !!

1) Scope of both political arena & marketplace overlap
2) Planning realm must accommodate pressures of political and economic spheres
3) Planning directly affects community decision-making – with the extent of planning impact varying across communities & projects

Paradoxical relationship:
Employer (politician), employee (planner)
Expert (planner), client (politician)
Everyone asks for planner’s expert advice, no one is obligated to listen!
Long-term horizon (planner – 20-30 years), short term horizon (politician – 4-year election cycle)