May 2018 - Parks & Recreation - 24

Community Center
IAP2's Public Participation Spectrum

Promise to the public

Public participation
goal

Increasing impact on the decision
Inform

Consult

Involve

Collaborate

Empower

To provide the public
with balanced and
objective information
to assist them in
understanding the
problem, alternatives,
opportunities and/or
solutions.

To obtain public
feedback on analysis,
alternatives and/or
decisions.

To work directly with
the public throughout
the process to ensure
that public concerns
and aspirations are
consistently understood
and considered.

To partner with the
public in each aspect of
the decision, including
the development of
alternatives and the
identification of the
preferred solution.

To place final decision
making in the hands of
the public.

We will keep you
informed.

We will keep you
informed, listen to and
acknowledge concerns
and aspirations, and
provide feedback on how
public input influenced
the decision. We will see
your feedback on drafts
and proposals.

We will work with you
to ensure that your
concerns and aspirations
are directly reflected
in the alternatives
developed and provide
feedback on how public
input influenced the
decision.

We will work together
with you to formulate
solutions and
incorporate your advice
and recommendations
into the decisions to
the maximum extent
possible.

We will implement what
you decide.

Building Community Capacity
to Plan and Implement
Building a community's capacity to plan
and implement that plan also requires building community social capital and resilience,
qualities that are farther along the participation spectrum. Working across organizations, interest groups, ethnicities and political
stripes does not come naturally. To collaborate requires that the park community first
have a minimal level of trust in the stakeholders at the table, and they must have minimal
competence to dialogue together to create a
shared vision and manage conflict.
Conflict is inherent in most planning
decisions - not just conflict between
parks and stakeholders (for example,
over proposed management policies),
but often conflict within park staff as
well. According to Smith, " There's often
internal conflict within parks that is not
being addressed or managed and contributes to challenges in a park achieving
its goals and objectives or even aligning
its goals and objectives across its own
divisions. " Since internal relationships
can directly affect implementation of
any plan, Smith says, " It is frequently helpful, if not necessary, to surface
points of conflict. Some of those points
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might be addressed within the planning
process, while others may require additional work. But either way, we need to
acknowledge that conflict. Ignoring it
and pretending it's not there is a recipe
for plans that cannot be implemented. "
Beyond public participation, successful
adaptive planning in a DICE world calls for:
1. Creating a management plan of reasonable technical quality co-owned by
the community
2. Building the park community's social
capital, trust, motivation and ability to
work together on an on-going basis
3. Establishing conditions for adaptive
and continuous planning, such as the
plan format itself
Rise of Holistic Planning
Holistic planning considers the interior
dimension of people (psychology) and
groups (culture), as well as exterior aspects of plan quality, strategies and skills.
It is an approach to planning that
* Recognizes emerging phenomena and
interprets them through interior and
exterior perspectives
* Redistributes political power by integrating different forms of knowledge
and implementing democratic reforms

| M AY 2 0 1 8 | W W W. PA R K S A N D R E C R E AT I O N . O R G

Once planners become familiar with a spectrum like this by the International Association
for Public Participation, they can never again
simply say " participatory process " without qualifying where on the spectrum the process lies.

* Transforms constituency visions into
reality through authentic conversation
that defines many facets of visitation
* Cultivates constituent communities
and strengthens their social capital,
cohesion and trust to learn from and
implement management decisions,
with sufficient adaptability to protect
heritage value and share them with the
wider public over the long term
Public participation cannot be limited
just to public hearings and 30-day comment
periods. People only protect what they care
about. Francisco's voice rises in intensity,
" When you have a public meeting and people are emotional and excited, that is a good
sign. They care. We may not agree with
them as land managers, but their showing
up means that they care. The worst possible
thing is to hold a public meeting and no one
shows up at all. " But hey, at least they offered
the public a chance to participate, right?
Jon Kohl is Executive Director of the PUP Global
Heritage Consortium (jon@pupconsortium.net).
May 2018 - Parks & Recreation

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