Am I Making a Difference?
Staff-level planners often ask: am I making a difference? Often, they do make a difference but lack a holistic view of project conceptualization, planning and design, and implementation.
Political Dimensions Can Affect Project Approval
For example, municipal planners are not privy to developer deliberations about project parameters. A municipal plan may influence the developer's project idea before it reaches the approval process.
Similarly, the developer's consulting planners do not know the full political dimensions of project approval. The municipal planner may ask for a project mitigation measure that seems to have symbolic value but paves the way for approval.
Finally, those involved in mitigation monitoring may not know the tradeoffs in project design that were made before mitigation measures were adopted. They may wonder why better project planning did not alleviate the need for environmental mitigation.
Alternative Analysis May Seem Like Rubber-stamping
The higher the planner's management level, the broader the view.
The staff-level planner does not see the upstream and downstream decision-making. Not at the table for negotiations, management meetings, and elected official briefings, they receive task assignments after they have been decided by managers. Without the full picture, such planners may underestimate the positive impact of their work, not knowing its impact on the overall process. Some may feel that they are not making the contribution they desire.
Let's take environmental planners as an example.
Environmental review laws require that alternatives be considered for the proposed project. Because a lot of technical and political work is invested in bringing a project to the point where it can be environmentally reviewed, alternative analysis in environmental review rarely leads to the adoption of anything but the preferred project. Of course, it may lead to modifications to the preferred alternative or the development of mitigation measures.
To a staff-level planner doing the work, alternative analysis may appear to be "going through the motions" because alternative projects are rarely selected. It may seem like an expensive and analysis-heavy form of rubber-stamping project. Without a broader view, such planners may conclude that their work isn't benefiting the environment.
In my view, the EIR is the wrong place for substantive alternatives analysis — that should occur upstream in the planning process. However, the EIR requirement may have done its work in the project conceptualization stage — where developers and designers knew that subsequent review would expose environmental problems. By being part of that complex process, the staff-level planner may be achieving the goal of reducing environmental impacts in ways not directly apparent.
Understanding upstream and downstream processes from one's particular role provides a broader perspective on how planning and regulatory processes affect outcomes. As a staff-level planner's career proceeds, they'll move to management levels where impacts can be more clearly seen.
This blog series is amplified in Richard Willson's book, A Guide for the Idealist: How to Launch and Navigate Your Planning Career. The book includes perspectives, tools, advice, and personal anecdotes. It is available now at Routledge, Amazon, and most retailers.
Top image: Thinkstock photo.
