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Public Involvement in the Recreation Planning Process Michelle Walsh, MA Candidate Faculty of Applied Health Sciences, Brock University, St. Catharines, ON Rationale Practitioners embarking on a recreation planning process would benefit from understanding this process further. Although recreation planning continues to occur in communities, there has been little academic attention paid to it in the past twenty years. There is a need to better understand this process and to discover and share successful methods of involving the public. Recreation Planning Recreation planning is the process communities use to envision the future of leisure and recreation services. Plans outline the present and future recreational program, facility and open space needs of a community and work strategically with its resources to meet those needs. History of Recreation Planning • 1960’s Small number of communities (Sault Ste. Marie, 1966) began developing recreation master plans. • 1980 The Ministry of Culture and Recreation encouraged the master planning approach and funded planning initiatives with the WINTARIO Planning and Grants Program. • 1983 Ministry of Recreation and Tourism created three separate grant programs: recreation planning, recreation centers, and capital grant program for new and innovated projects (Wilkinson, 1985). •1990’s Planning continued despite WINTARIO grant programs being discontinued. • 1987 National Recreation Policy Statement (1987) and the Ontario Community Recreation Statement (1987) recognized the geographic community as the focal point for recreation activity. • With the growing numbers of recreation plans being completed in communities during the late seventies and early eighties there was a corresponding growth in the recreation planning literature. (Getz, Graham, Payne, & June, 1985; Hunt & Brooks, 1983; Jaakson, 1985; Reid, 1985; Wilkinson, 1985; Gold, 1973). The planning presented in these publications was a traditional model relying heavily on expert and professional influence. There was an emphasis on economic costs and benefits, removal of citizens with use of technical jargon, and adoption of models before fully understanding them (Hunt & Brooks, 1983). Public engagement was viewed as costly and unnecessary. The extent of public involvement in these plans was to inform and educate the public of decisions that were already made. • In contrast to the more traditional approach, there has been a push in recent years to include the public in decision making processes. Recreation planning today tends to include some level public involvement. Communities are beginning to recognize the benefits of including citizens in the process. Methods of Public Involvement Public Involvement Process In a study of community leisure plans in Ontario, Reid (2001) found that in general leisure planners and consultants were committed to engaging the public in the planning research process. Much of the participation Reid (2001) discovered in Ontario leisure plans was of a quantitative nature relating to supply and demand. He argues the methods planners are using fall into the technical and practical traditions of public participation and that a shift to more critical-emancipatory approaches would lead to creative alternatives and force communities to move beyond the status quo. Arnstein’s (1969) widely cited ladder of citizen participation presents eight rungs of participation, each representing a different level of involvement and the corresponding power relations. The bottom rungs of the ladder, manipulation and therapy, represent nonparticipation and are more about the powerful curing or educating the powerless. The next two rungs of the ladder are informing and consultation. Much of what is considered public involvement today is within these rungs and is also known as tokenism. The public may hear and be heard but they lack the power to insure their views will be taken into consideration by the powerful. The fifth rung is placation, the powerless are able to advise but ultimately decisions are made by officials. Moving up the ladder to partnership, the influence and involvement of citizens increases to that of shared authority. With the final two rungs delegated power and citizen control the power relationship shifts, placing the majority of decision making power in the hands of citizens. Public Involvement Continuum Inform or Educate Gather Information Discuss Low Level of Public Involvement and Influence Engage Partner High Level of Public Involvement and Influence Adopted from Health Canada’s Public Involvement Continuum Benefits of Public Involvement • Create a common and shared vision • Build community pride and boost morale for citizens • Catalyst for action • Resolve contentious issues • Enhance the quality and legitimacy of decisions • Highlight community potential • Build both individual and collective social capital The following are a sample of methods used by communities to involve citizens in the planning process. They offer various levels of public involvement and are used for a variety of purposes. Charettes Charrettes are a multi day workshop where ideas are shared and generated by community stakeholders about specific projects. Idea generation is followed by decision making and problem solving resulting in proposals and recommendation (Sanoff, 2000). Charettes are best used when there is an identifiable problem or situations with real projects where development is imminent. Dotmocracy Dotmocracy is an equal opportunity & participatory group decision-making process of collecting and prioritizing ideas among a large group. Participants write down ideas and apply dots under each idea to show which ones they prefer. The final result is a graph-like visual representation of the groups collective preferences (dotmocracy.org) Participation Games Games are useful in planning when used to test the effectiveness of ideas or costs and benefits of certain options. Players are able to simulate different organizational structures and options for resource allocation and communication (Sanoff, 2000). Workshops Workshops involve a high level of interaction between people where the goal is to facilitate learning around a common interest. Workshops should provide opportunities for group members to become so involved with each other that they begin to see each other as persons and become interested in each others perspcetive. Indirect Methods to Gather Information Indirect methods refer to such things as surveys and questionnaires. Surveys and questions help to gather information, attitudes and opinions from a sample of the population. These approaches give planners quantifiable results. Such as a mapping study where citizens identify their perceived neighbourhood or areas of environmental degradation (Sanoff, 2000). Methods to Inform or Educate There are a variety of methods planners and community officials use to notify the public of the planning projects and most often of the implementation of projects. These can come in the form of exhibits, news media, walking tours, or newspaper postings. These methods are less about the involvement of citizens and more about making citizens aware of decisions that have already been made. These methods are also used in the early stages of planning when making citizens aware of the opportunities to become involved such as becoming a committee member or advertising for a community forum. Proposed Research The purpose of this study is to understand the process of public involvement in recreation planning. This is a single site case study of a community recreation plan. By conducting in-depth interviews with stakeholders involved in the planning process and by completing a document analysis this case study will assist practitioners in better understanding the process and outcomes of involving the public in recreation planning. It will assist in building a bridge between the fields of recreation and planning. Contact Information For more information or a list of references contact: [email protected]