REINVENTING PARTICIPATION IN SPATIAL PLANNING - CITIZEN INVOLVEMENT AND EXPERIMENTATION IN THE MAIA

REINVENTING PARTICIPATION IN SPATIAL PLANNING - CITIZEN INVOLVEMENT AND EXPERIMENTATION IN THE MAIA LAND USE PLAN José Carlos Mota, Catarina Isidoro, Janaina Teles, Isabella Rusconi, Gil Moreira, Desiree Seixas University of Aveiro, Portugal

ENVIRONMENTAL CRISIS According to a recent report by the IPCC to the United Nations, the worrying scenario for the planet's climate is confirmed - the 1.5 degree increase in the global average temperature could reach 2040.

The result of #COP26 was far from what was desired. The objective was ambitious and set the goal of sustaining the increase in temperature to 1.5 degrees by eliminating coal from electricity production, ending subsidies for fossil fuels and helping the most fragile countries in the tough transition to the necessary decarbonization.

SOCIAL AND POLITICAL CRISIS Social inequalities Spatial fragmentation (sprawl) Gentrification and segregation The city as a commodity The lost of the «commons» Democratic gap “Citizens are no longer the heroes of the future” Harari (2018)

PLANNING CRISIS Traditional planning: focuses on land use, no strategic dimension, legal framework to orient private investments; vague practical implementation in terms of public investments; The notion of collective interest is explicit, although its representation may not be clear; Heavy, bureaucratic, of unknown effect.

PARTICIPATION CRISIS

Participation is a tool for the political legitimization of buzzword agendas: sustainability, eg. (Miessen, 2011)

Participation tends to force consensus to hide political power struggles; processes are controlled by powerful actors (Flyvbjerg, 1998)

PARTICIPATION IN PORTUGAL Although the legal framework of territorial plans considers the involvement of citizens, there are no clear methodological guidelines on how participation should be promoted.

Local administrations don't encourage citizen involvement and public participation in local land use plans (Bryson, 2004; Forester, 1999).

Consequently, the planning process is weakened in terms of legitimacy, social learning and citizen co-responsibility (Flyvbjerg, 1998).

NEW PARTICIPATORY PRACTICES Despite the apparent distance between citizens and politics, in the Portuguese context there is a growing availability for new forms of civic participation in the defense of issues that concern citizens and their daily lives (Seixas & Mota, 2015).

Several experiences in which citizens not only want to be reactive and show that they disagree with certain decisions through public demonstrations but are also proactive in the discussion of city models, improving common projects and implementing solutions to everyday problems (Lydon & Garcia, 2015;

Manzini, 2019; Mota and Santinha, 2016; Teles, 2019).

REINVENTING PLANNING Third-generation municipal master plans (PDM) in Portugal, guided by the RJIT (national law), may represent an opportunity to create new forms of planning, striving to overcome previous regulatory rigidities to adapt to their strategic, dynamic, flexible, participatory and of contemporary planning (Albrechts, 2005; Healey, 1997; Mota, 2013).

METHOD (1) clarification of the expectations of decision makers, municipal technicians, local actors and the community; (2) build a shared diagnosis of the territory and map collective memories; (3) define a set of proposals; (4) co-creation of a set of experimental activities to test some of the proposals; (5) discuss the results and approve the Municipal Master Plan.

EXPECTATIONS WITH PLAN AND PARTICIPATION Political consensus on the importance of participation The importance of involving mayors in the strategy of mobilizing communities in the process; The need to innovate in the way in which citizens and institutions are involved; Need to reconcile interests and prevent the debate from being centred on individual discussions and overlapping with collective interests;

FRAME LOCAL DEBATE WITH GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE

ROUND TABLES EFFECT

CHALLENGE – BRING YOUR COLLECTIVE MEMORIES

RECOVER THE COLLECTIVE MEMORY (LOST) Uncover the dust that covers several beautiful stories of the community's life, stories that illustrate the multiple and overlapping local identities.

The shared stories that we are gathering can serve to build a narrative for the future…

COLLABORATIVE DIAGNOSIS Listen carefully and register

COLLABORATIVE DIAGNOSIS

Techniques Collective memory maps; • Lotus flower • Methodological concerns listen attentively • registration • return (newsletters); •

BUILDING A STRATEGIC VISION / CITIZENS' AGENDA Proposals • Systematization of information • Interpretation of suggestions Results • Relevance and coherence

BUILDING A STRATEGIC VISION / CITIZENS' AGENDA

WHO WAS HEARD Guests: • local actors • Distinguished citizens and close to Parish Councils • Citizens via Facebook Type of participants: • Men; • Middle-age; • Various professions; • Genuinely focused on the collective interest

EXPERIMENTATION Importance of experimenting Concerns • Selection of citizens Operational Discussion • Interruption by confinement • • partial execution Results test the concepts • Next steps (short and medium • term)

MAIN PARTICIPATION PROCESS OUTCOMES Potentials • It is much more than seeking to value individual (landowners) interests. It is most useful in a context of difficulty and uncertainty (aging, climate change, inequality).

• Provide useful information for the planning process; • Make pedagogy about the construction of collective meaning and the correct transformation of the territory; • Recognizing and valuing invisible community resources and transforming them into actions for the benefit of society; • Co-responsibility for citizens for the options and mobilize them for collective action; Limitations • Cost and time;

RECOMMENDATIONS More flexible, experimental and democratic practices can inspire the construction of new participatory approaches in traditional planning: Methodological audacity (listening, recording and planning/action); Strengthening the connection of planning teams and other divisions; Articulation between planning instruments (citizens' proposals with continuity beyond the PDM);

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