The (mis)alignment of user involvement with development objectives

Abstract

Urban renewal is seen as an opportunity to improve the environmental and socio-economic performance of cities. Yet, it appears hard to tackle the social challenges by a focus on spatial interventions only. A more participating society and more user involvement could help to improve the social environment. Dutch urban area development, such as urban renewal, is becoming more private-led, while the government is trying to shift responsibilities. The Environment and Planning Act is a tool to ensure the involvement of users during private-led developments. In theory, an involvement process can contribute to the objectives of the most important stakeholders in urban renewal projects: the government, users and private developers. Since these potentials in practice are often not achieved, literature advises to involve users early and intensively in the development process and to develop with flexibility along the process. However, for each project, boundaries limit the development options for a private developer and therefore, as well the options to involve users. It seems that private developers do not have enough room for involvement to align the involvement process with the objectives of the three stakeholders. This study explores that hypothesis. Considering the perspective of the private developer, the main question of this research is: to what extent do the development boundaries leave enough room for private developers to align user involvement with the objectives of users, the municipality and the developer themselves? The research is conducted through a case study analysis of three private-led urban renewal projects in which users were involved. Developers, municipal officials and users were interviewed to gain insights. The analyses show how development boundaries are defined, what room is left for user involvement and how the involvement process aligns with the objectives of the three parties. By considering the developers perspective, it is explored why the current involvement processes are not reaching their full potential as described in theory. This study shows that full alignment is difficult due to conflicting demands. Municipal broader, cross border objectives often conflict with those of the local users. It appears that the boundaries defined by the municipality are quite fixed, while those of the developers are flexible. This flexibility could be used when there is a lack of support for the plans. Since full alignment seems impossible, a second interview round provides insights into what extend of alignment would be important for private developers to aim for. For developers, long term business continuity and a positive corporate image are important to ensure profit gaining in the future. For them, this is more important than profit gaining in the short term. Flexibility can be found in the development boundaries when these long term objectives seem to be threatened. Game theory, approaching user involvement as a negotiation process and integral development offer opportunities for private developers to improve the alignment of everyone’s objectives with user involvement without having to adjust their development boundaries, unplanned. This will need to be further explored in new research. The insights from this study provide knowledge about the relation between the important stakeholders in urban renewal projects and how they influence a user involvement process. This new knowledge can help to reach more potentials of user involvement in practice.