Zoning as a verb: a scaffolding for land use planning practice

CHAPTER 9. Zoning as a verb: a scaffolding for land use planning practice edited by Bernadette Baird-Zars -- Zoning is at once a key technical competency of urban planning practice and a highly politicized regulatory tool. How this contradiction between the technical and political is resolved has wide-reaching implications for urban equity and sustainability, two key concerns of urban planning. Moving beyond critiques of zoning as a regulatory hindrance to local affordability or merely the rulebook that guides urban land use, this textbook takes an institutional approach to zoning, positioning its practice within the larger political, social and economic conflicts that shape local access for diverse groups across urban space. Foregrounding the historical-institutional setting in which zoning is embedded allows planners to more deeply engage with the equity and sustainability issues related to zoning practice

Conflicting interests between local governments and the European target of no net land take

To halt land take in Europe, the European Union set a “no net land take by 2050″ target in 2011. However, land take continues to occur in European countries, with recent studies suggesting that local decision-making is playing a major role in these land-use conversions. In this study, we investigated how urban growth boundaries (UGBs) are used by local governments to manage urban growth in Romania. A mixed-method approach was adopted, combining analysis of UGB changes over the past decade in all Romanian cities (N = 319) with a survey among representatives of local governments involved in land-use decision-making (N = 91 cities). The results showed that many cities have expanded their UGBs, despite population loss and sufficient undeveloped land within UGBs, showing that local government decisions conflict with policy targets at the European level. This is even the case when there is no physical need for land-take limits to be exceeded. We show that population dynamics and the extent of nature conservation areas significantly contribute to UGB changes, though these explain just a small fraction of all UGB changes. Furthermore, we identified a wide range of motivations among decision-makers regarding changing UGBs, including not only the fiscal system but also cities’ competitiveness and decisions about the long-term vision for development. We argue that policy innovations in urban containment should (i) aim to balance the interests of governments at different administrative levels, (ii) account for the particularities of each state member's planning system, and (iii) allow for integrated and strategic city planning

Understanding strategic spatial planning to effectively guide development of urban regions

Strategic spatial planning is increasingly practised throughout the world to develop a coordinated vision for guiding the medium- to long-term development of urban regions. However, from a theoretical and conceptual perspective, strategic spatial planning is hard to grasp, as it is multidimensional, embedded in sociopolitical and institutional complexity and highly context-dependent. Moreover, current planning debates mainly focus on the outputs of the strategic planning process while largely neglecting the impact that strategic spatial plans can have on urban transformations. Here, we show an empirically-based analytical framework grounded on an analysis of 21 European urban regions, representing the key components of plan-making and plan-implementation as well as the main interrelationships among them. The proposed framework (SPlaMI) reflects current planning practices and intends to contribute towards consolidating a European understanding of strategic spatial planning while providing the basis for dialogue with broader discourses on sustainable development in a global context

Emergency-line calls as an indicator to assess human–wildlife interaction in urban areas

Human–wildlife interactions (HWIs) are increasingly common human disturbances as development continues to remove wildlife habitats. Documenting HWI is critical for environmental protection agencies to develop strategies and management decisions that meet the needs of both people and wildlife. However, evaluation of the frequency and types of HWI at broad spatial scales (e.g., national or regional level) can be costly and difficult to implement by managers. In this study, we apply a novel method for the evaluation of patterns of HWI in urban areas by using publicly available data from emergency calls (ECs) placed by inhabitants of Romania\u27s urban areas. We used information from 4601 ECs placed at the Romanian National Emergency Call System 112, which consisted of (1) wildlife species, (2) spatial location, (3) date and time, and (4) a short description of the emergency. Of the 318 analyzed cities, 300 cities documented ECs on HWI between 2015 and 2020, with roe deer and brown bear being the most frequently mentioned species. We recorded an increasing trend in HWI-related ECs in 73% of the urban areas over the five-year period. We mapped the large-scale distribution of HWI by species and type of interactions in order to capture variations at the national level. Further, we analyzed the social and the biophysical factors potentially influencing the occurrence and frequency of HWI. The results showed that social factors have the same effect on all species, while the effect of the biophysical factors varied between species. Particularly, the presence of large natural habitats, represented by forests, influenced the number of calls only for brown bears. Seminatural landscapes with agricultural land have a different influence in terms of effect and significance for the considered species. Our results suggest that publicly available data from ECs can be used for the rapid assessment of HWI and for evaluating trends and predictors of HWI at broad spatial scales

Can Church Gardens Represent a Valuable Recreation Alternative in Cities?

Urban green infrastructure is a key element in improving quality of life and creating an appropriate framework for sustainable, resilient and inclusive cities. Also, achieving a coherent spatial planning based on development of urban green infrastructure can be an useful solution to negative changes related to environmental quality, segregation and ecosystem services. We use church gardens in Bucharest as a case study to understand how these small green spaces can be integrated into urban planning. The paper aims to analyse the potential of church gardens as recreation areas at city level in Romania. The analysis focused on three major aspects – the spatial distribution of churches, the accessibility of green spaces located in church gardens (calculated both for adults and elderly people as most important groups accessing the gardens) and the characteristics of those gardens in terms of facilities, use and problems (based on a field survey filled for a 20% sample of the 287 churches in Bucharest). The results showed that the homogenous spatial distribution of churches with green gardens makes them accessible for residential areas located far from traditional green recreational areas. In Bucharest, the service areas of churches with green spaces cover 84% of the residential areas when accounting for the adult’s walking speed and 61% when accounting for elderly people. Green spaces in church gardens amount to over 25 ha in Bucharest, with an average of 1737 square meters per garden, representing a surface which could be designed to respond better to the population needs. The major challenges identified in the church gardens are (a) the use of green space for other purposes than recreations, such as storage space for construction materials (31.5%), waste (17.5%), temporal constructions (12.3%) or car parking (21%), and (b) quality of vegetation. Our study highlights that through their number and distribution church gardens can represent an alternative to large green areas if they are opened to the population and used for organising activities and events. Their importance and potential could be increased if designed for such purpose. Such analysis can be useful in the planning process of small urban green areas in order to integrate them into urban management process