SPATIAL PLANNING Key Instrument for Development and Effective Governance

The framework plan should be formulated through a participatory process which allows stakeholders
to express their views on draft proposals, to recommend alternatives and, where necessary, to make
formal objections to the preferred option of the planning authority. There should be a system of
independent, third-party examination of the framework plan which considers these objections. The
plan should demonstrate conformity with national and regional policies, although in most cases, it will
be necessary for the framework plan to be approved by a higher authority.
5.7 Land-use regulation or development management
Most decisions on development should be made at the local level based on criteria (decision rules) set
out in policy documents (including the framework plan) adopted by the local authority after
consultation with higher levels of government. There should be a procedure that requires all those
(including all public bodies) intending to undertake development (above certain parameters) to obtain
authorization from the local authority. There should also be a requirement for each of those sectoral
interests to be consulted about particular decisions. However, the system overall should emphasize
that local decisions should be strongly directed by agreements reached among sectoral interests at
regional and framework levels. Inevitably, there will be proposals that are not identified in strategies
and plans, so the general framework provisions and criteria will apply in this case.
All development management decisions should be accountable to an elected body, at the appropriate
level. The decision-making process should strongly exhibit transparency, impartiality and fairness. For
example, the planning authority should make documentation widely available and make its meetings
open to the public so that decisions made by political representatives on the basis of recommendations
made by civil servants or local government professional officers are viewed as transparent. As noted
above, where the local political system is not firmly established, it may be appropriate to designate a
separate committee for decision-making made up of representatives from the civic, community and
business sectors. For reasons of efficiency, many routine decisions are often delegated to officers, but
where there is representation by third parties, the decision should be finalized by the main decisionmaking
body.
Planning law will need to identify which types of development will be referred to national and
regional government for decision, with reference to subsidiarity. This means that most decisions
should be left to the local level. The national government should be able to safeguard its interests and
priorities through policy statements and regional and framework plans. Where there is a need for
intervention from higher levels, the procedures should allow for consultation with local authorities and
other local stakeholders on the decisions made.
Detailed regulations have typically been administered through zoning by-laws (binding regulation
plans) throughout most of Europe. Zoning plans effectively allocate development rights at the time
they are adopted by the authority. Development proposals under consideration are checked against the
zoning plan before permits are issued. This approach requires great capacity in the planning system to
produce the zoning plans. They are difficult to keep up to date, especially where the zoning by-law
becomes part of the law. They are rigid and inflexible, but there are situations where this is valuable
(e.g. to protect environmental assets). Their inflexibility has meant that in many countries these plans
fall out of date and are bypassed by informal agreement or unauthorized development outside of the
system.
This approach works better when the public sector is the main developer, so the patterns of
development can be predicted with some certainty. However, widespread experience indicates that
such approaches do not relate well to contemporary spatial development processes. In market-led
24 Spatial Planning - Key Instrument for Development and Effective Governance