Post-Apartheid National Spatial Development Planning in South Africa - A Brief History

Since coming to power in 1994 successive ANC-governments have engaged in a series of attempts at national spatial development planning in South Africa. These engagements have received scant treatment in the planning literature. In this paper a broad overview of these initiatives is provided, with an emphasis on the different instruments; the context in which they were developed; the institutions that were proposed and/or created in support of the instruments; and the extent to which the instruments were implemented and what their levels of success were. The paper concludes with a call for comparative research, including South Africa, in this arena

Accessibility Instruments In Planning Practice: Bridging The Implementation Gap

Accessibility concepts are increasingly acknowledged as fundamental to understand cities and urban regions. Accordingly, accessibility instruments have been recognised as valuable support tools for land-use and transport planning. However, despite the relatively large number of instruments available in the literature, they are not widely used in planning practice. This paper aims to explore why accessibility instruments are not widely used in planning practice. To this end, we focus our research on perceived user-friendliness and usefulness of accessibility instruments. First, we surveyed some instrument developers, providing an overview of the characteristics of accessibility instruments available and on developers’ perceptions of their user-friendliness in planning practice. Second, we brought together developers and planning practitioners in some local workshops across Europe and Australia, where participants were asked to use insights provided by accessibility instruments for the development of planning strategies. We found that most practitioners are convinced of the usefulness of accessibility instruments in planning practice, as they generate new and relevant insights for planners. Findings suggest that not only user-friendliness problems but mainly organisational barriers and lack of institutionalisation of accessibility instruments, are the main causes of the implementation gap. Thus user-friendliness improvement may provide limited contributions to the successful implementation of accessibility concepts in planning practice. In fact, there seems to be more to gain from the active and continued engagement of instrument developers with planning practitioners and the institutionalisation of accessibility planning

Changing spatial planning systems and the role of the regional government level; Comparing the Netherlands, Flanders and England

Several European countries are adapting their planning system to current requirements of public and private sector and society. Examples of such countries are England and the Netherlands. The paper start with an overview of theoretical concepts of planning systems in relation to spatial planning. We then focus on the proposed and recent changes in the English and Dutch planning systems. What are the main objectives for the changes and how are they elaborated in planning instruments, procedures and institutional framework? The paper concludes with relating the changes in the two presented planning systems to the theoretical concepts op planning systems.

Forest management plan as a policy instrument: carrot, stick or sermon?

Technical aspects of forest management planning as decision-support have been addressed in numerous scientific studies. However, forest management plans (FMPs) also play a significant, but largely neglected, role as forest policy instruments. We have examined the policy context and planning practices in two contrasting case countries, revealing striking differences in policy instrumentation. In Sweden, FMPs mainly serve for informational steering, with under-utilised potential for providing individualised advice. In Lithuania, the plans are primarily regulatory, serving for effective control but with several deficiencies, notably excessive costs and institutionalised corruption. The study demonstrates that policy analyses can be fruitfully grounded in the empirics of planning practices

STS payload data collection and accommodations analysis study. Volume 1: Executive summary

The requirements of investigations/instruments and integrated missions to be flown on the Space Transportation System (STS) and the accommodations/resources on the STS actually available for use by these investigations and missions are identified. Deficiencies, areas of concern, and needed improvements in the STS are considered in terms of requirements versus accommodations. A data base developed for investigations/instruments considered in mission planning activities for OSTA is described

Changing of the spatial development means and institution in hungary after the change of regime

Before 1990, regional development policy as a governmental function was of secondary importance. Although economic planning, control and management were based on sectoral principles, regional processes contributed towards an equilibrium in the sense that differences in social-economic development were decreasing among the various regions. This apparent contradiction is attributable to Hungary’s economic structure. Before 1990, due to the lack of market and competition, the economic system basically gave support to and protected weaker regions at the expense of the strong ones. These tendencies hindered the dynamism of the economy while leading to the mitigation of regional imbalances. In the first half of the 1990s, spatial development activity in Hungary was of transitory nature. Partly because of the untested practice of spatial development management, institutions and mechanism, and partly because of the absence of a medium-level authority with appropriate powers, the issues that required intervention had to be handled by means of direct governmental instruments. The insufficiency of the available instruments, however, hindered the efficiency of individual interventions. The process of economic recession highlighted the need to create new spatial development instruments in order to manage growing regional disparities, the problems of depressed regions affected by serious social and economic crisis. The clearly unfavourable regional trends created the need for establishing a more pronounced regional policy with a new institutional system, decentralisation of decision-making, co-ordination of resources. Its basis was laid down in Act XXI of 1996 on Spatial Development and Planning. The law specifies the tasks and identifies the instruments and institutions of spatial development and planning. With the adoption of the Act, Hungary was the first among the accession countries to create a legal framework in conformity with EU spatial development requirements. A review of spatial processes and measures indicates that in the 1990s spatial development policy established its new network of instruments and institutions, primarily with a view to mitigating spatial disparities and it focused, in particular, on underdeveloped and depressed regions. Although this policy could reduce the unfavourable effects of market-based spatial differences in the economy, it could prevent new excessive depressed (crisis-ridden) regions from surfacing, nevertheless it failed to put a halt to these trends.

Incentives, Policy and Voluntary Approaches to Improve Natural Resource Management in the Onkaparinga Catchment

Consultancy Report 3 for the Onkaparinga Catchment Water Management Board. The report lays out a set of recommendations regarding opportunities for consideration in future strategic planning in four areas of interest to the OCWMB.A portfolio of instruments to achieve the Board’s goals are also considered.Australia;water;natural resource management;catchment

Evaluation of public policies in Portuguese regional development context – a preliminary methodological approach supported in north region

The evaluation of territorial programs and plans has been gaining importance, both in political-institutional speeches and practices and in academic reflections. In Portugal, the structure of planning, operacionalized on a vast number of quite recent instruments, requires an effort of articulation in the guidelines to various scales (from European until the municipal) and of the various fields (some sectoral, others, of more transversal nature). The development of monitoring systems, as well as the generalisation of the evaluation procedures, answer to the need of articulation between policies and support the strategic nature that is planning today. As a part of the Research Project SPOTIA - Sustainable Spatial Policy Orientations and Territorial Impact Assessment - Contribution to Portuguese context' (Centre of Geographical Studies – University of Lisbon to the Ministry of Science and Technologies), this paper aims to present an example of the first outputs of this research on the analysis of coherence between three different instruments planning, such as the National Policy Planning (PNPOT), a guiding document of national level, the Regional Spatial Plan to Northern Territory (PROT-Norte), the regional guidance document, and the Regional Operational Programme (PO-Norte), the regional program associated to a financing plan and program implementation. The analysis of coherence between these documents is not only between their general, strategic and specific objectives, but also by the indicator system assessment of each document. With this analysis we can reach the domains that are constantly, or not, present in these documents. In this context, a first essay of a methodological approach on evaluation of public policies in Portuguese context will be presented.

Policy instruments for renewable energy: an empirical evaluation of effectiveness

This paper evaluates the effectiveness of renewable energy policy instruments on wind energy production using annual data from 106 countries over the period 1997-2014. Eleven policy instruments are evaluated: direct investment, feed-in tariffs, grants and subsidies, loans, taxes, green certificates, information and education, strategic planning, codes and standards, research, development and deployment and voluntary approaches. The empirical evidence uncovers the impact of different policy instruments on wind energy production. The model tests which policy instruments are effective in promoting wind energy, and whether their effectiveness depends on their existence, experience, implementation or combination. The results of the mean group estimation show that two policy instruments have positive impact on wind energy production: tax incentives and the strategic planning. The impact of strategic planning increases with a number of policy changes

From Master Plan to Vision Plan: The Changing Role of Plans and Plan making in City development (with reference to Mumbai)

Master plans are the traditional instruments used by urban local governments in India as forward planning tools by anticipating urban development and making provisions for the same in terms of (a) the allocation of land for various uses, (b) the regulation of its development and (c) the provision of civic infrastructure. However, they failed to meet the expectations of the citizens as well as the decision makers for several reasons: their design and approach were far too simplistic in anticipating the citizens’ needs and aspirations; their very long tenure has been a major hindrance to anticipate socio-economic changes over time horizon; further, the restrictive approach taken to their implementation without adequate flexibility to meet the changing needs of hour has been acting against the spirit of urban planning. Essentially, it is because of these inadequacies in the plan design, plan making and plan implementation that there is a need felt now on steering an alternative course for achieving the city development goals. Vision plans, in this context, have emerged as alternative instruments useful for achieving the city development goals over a medium to long term; and they are increasingly becoming popular in the cities across the USA as well as elsewhere. This paper describes the evolution of master plan in the Indian context and analyses its inadequacies first (as found in literature); subsequently, it explains the positive features of emerging alternative approaches like the strategic vision plans. In particular, it illustrates the specific case of the Strategic Vision Plan for Mumbai, jointly prepared by a partnership of private non-profit initiative and for-profit organisation, as to how its design is different and as how it takes in to account of / built upon some of the principles of master planning approach. It therefore lays down, finally, how the urban planning has to change the course, akin to the economic planning focus change from that in central planning [of pre-modern era] to decentralized planning [of post-modern era].Master plans, City development, Vision plan and Planning focus.