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Authors requiring further information regarding Elsevier’s archiving and manuscript policies are encouraged to visit: http://www.elsevier.com/copyright Author's personal copy Land Use Policy 27 (2010) 690–705 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Land Use Policy journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/landusepol Assessment of the Regional Landscape Plan of Sardinia (Italy): A participatory-action-research case study type Corrado Zoppi ∗, Sabrina Lai 1 Dipartimento di Ingegneria del Territorio, University of Cagliari, Via Marengo 3, 09123 Cagliari, Italy article info abstract Article history: The planning activity of the regional administration of Sardinia (Italy) has undergone a deep change after Received 4 November 2008 the approval of the Regional Landscape Plan (RLP), which establishes the directions for nearly any future Received in revised form 14 July 2009 planning activity in Sardinia, and requires that actual sectoral and local plans, as well as plans for protected Accepted 9 September 2009 areas, be changed to comply with its directions. This mandatory adjustment process can be conflictual, if the administrations responsible for these plans disagree with the rules established by the RLP. Keywords: On these bases, this essay develops a discussion around two issues concerning public participation in Landscape planning the Sardinian RLP. The first part focuses on the extent to which integration of different stakeholders was Participation Governance looked for in the plan preparation and what the likely consequences of this degree of participation are. The second part discusses how local communities may participate in the implementation process of the RLP. This assessment builds on empirical studies on conflictual issues concerning the Sardinian RLP analyzed through Multicriteria analysis and Contingent Valuation. The contribution of this essay to define an on-going strategic assessment of the RLP identifies two main normative points. First, the right concept of subsidiarity has to be restored in the RLP planning implemen- tation code. Second, the regional planning activity has to be based on a true cooperative-planning approach so that the relations between the regional administration and the cities may lose their conflict-derived inefficiency. © 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Introduction be changed to comply with its directions. This mandatory adjust- ment process can be conflictual, if the administrations responsible Early recognition and integration of the local communities’ for these plans disagree with the rules established by the RLP. expectations into regional planning policies are necessary con- On these bases, this paper develops a discussion about two ditions for the sustainability of strategic planning processes (see issues concerning public participation in the Sardinian RLP. Directive 42/2001/EC of the European Union). They require con- The first part focuses on the extent to which integration of dif- necting planning choices to preferences and needs of the members ferent stakeholders was looked for in the plan preparation and of local communities, comprised of both strong stakeholders and what the likely consequences of this degree of participation are. of formal and informal organizations, through which citizens may By means of one-to-one semi-structured interviews carried out express their aspirations, needs, and expectations concerning the in Italian, some professionals involved in the making of the plan organization of the urban space. Regional and local planning pro- were asked to provide an informed insight on how horizontal coop- cesses are, therefore, significant grounds to analyze public policies eration, vertical integration, and inclusiveness had been looked from a participatory point of view, in an SEA-based framework. for, and whether the level of participation was satisfactory. As The planning activity of the regional administration of Sardinia for the implementation, possible consequences of inconsisten- (Italy) has undergone a deep change after the approval of the cies between the RLP and local master plans, as well as conflicts Regional Landscape Plan (RLP), which establishes the directions for between the regional and the municipal administrations, were nearly any future planning activity in Sardinia, and requires that explored. actual sectoral and local plans, as well as plans for protected areas, The second part discusses how local communities may partic- ipate in the implementation process of the RLP. This assessment builds on an empirical study on conflictual issues concerning the ∗ Sardinian RLP analyzed through Multicriteria analysis (MCA) and Corresponding author. Tel.: +39 0 70 6755216; fax: +39 0 70 6755215. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (C. Zoppi), [email protected] (S. Lai). Contingent Valuation (CV). The disparities brought out by the 1 Tel.: +39 0 70 6755200; fax: +39 0 70 6755215. application of these two methods clearly point to the selection of 0264-8377/$ – see front matter © 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.landusepol.2009.09.004 Author's personal copy C. Zoppi, S. Lai / Land Use Policy 27 (2010) 690–705 691 criteria, usually identified by experts on various fields. Since the erence for the sustainable development of the regional territory, inclusion/exclusion of a criterion can reverse the results of the clas- based upon a balance between social needs, economic activities and sification procedures, the choice of the criteria is decisive for the environment” (article 3). However, nowhere does the plan provide ranking of the scenarios. If this choice were open to public partici- a definition of “sustainable development,” nor does it clearly relate pation, it would be possible to implement decision processes where its policies and actions with these three traditional components of experts and the local community would share and possibly build sustainability. Furthermore, a reading of the documents contained common expectations on the future of their city environment. in the plan suggests that sustainable development, as pursued in Finally, the results arising from the views of privileged stake- the plan, is imbalanced towards the environmental component, holders and local communities are compared, and some lessons while economic and social aspects seem not to be given the same that can be learned from the intermix of the two approaches are importance as the environmental ones. Therefore, in order to estab- identified. lish whether the RLP, formally a plan for the landscape, but in practice a normative framework for other types of plans, pursues Privileged stakeholders and the Regional Landscape Plan this objective, the first part of this paper attempts to evaluate to what extent its contents, both rules and policies, are consistent with With its approximately 24,000 square meters, Sardinia is the the declared aim of its principles, that of pursuing a sustainable, second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea; its population den- balanced development. sity is rather low, as it counts less than 1.7 million inhabitants This section is organized as follows. In the first paragraph, jus- according to the 2001 National Census. The vast majority of Sar- tification for a qualitative approach is provided, together with an dinians live close to the sea, and especially in the two densely account of the selection of the interviewees; in the second para- urbanized areas around the two major cities (Cagliari and Sas- graph, the making of the interviews is described, while the third sari), while the inner areas of the island, hilly and mostly badly paragraph presents the content of the interviews. Finally, the forth connected to the rest of the island, are sparsely populated. This paragraph discusses the findings. uneven concentration of population parallels the island’s unbal- anced economic development, as in coastal areas the majority of A qualitative approach economic activities takes place. The peculiar combination of Sar- dinia’s insularity, geographical distance from the mainland, culture Since personal values and beliefs, as well as professional exper- and history, completely different to those of the rest of Italy, has to tise, affect the way sustainability is understood, the idea of a be taken into account to explain the special status of “Autonomous “logically ordered, objective reality that we can come to know” Region” granted to the island soon after the birth of the Italian (Babbie, 1998, p. 50) does not hold; many contrasting points of republic. This means that, together with three other regions and view exist, and for this reason this research relies on the collec- two provinces, Sardinia exerts a more robust legislative power than tion of “data based on privileged information” (Denscombe, 1998, the majority of the rest of Italian regions. p. 111). This choice has been judged as the best possible one, since It is therefore not surprising, given this context, that the the process of the plan, the