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DEMOS-Plan tool for participatory processes in land use planning successfully implemented and awarded price30. October 2008 – 16:07 by Bengt Feil |
In July of this year TuTech started its wide scale test of the-DEMOS Plan tool for participation in urban planning in the city of Hamburg. EU member states are required by law to involve the public in the planning process whenever the environment is concerned and DEMOS-Plan is aimed to directly address this mandatory form of participation. With the actual test phase, which was divided up into two test cases, finished and the first evaluation results in the success of this real world test is very clear and it shows the potential of the tool to address a clearly defined need in the realm of participation and administration.
DEMOS-Plan enables the complete formal participatory process in land use planning to be handled on the Internet. The system takes account of the differing demands of members of the public, companies, government departments and public agencies while at the same time supporting the responsible authority in the administration and consideration of submissions.. More in depth information about the tool itself can be found in my previous article on the matter.
The two test cases in Hamburg demonstrated that all parties involved in urban planning (e.g. the public administration and its different divisions, companies, NGO´s and citizens) were open to and used this innovative tool. For example 80% of all organisations who would normally be supplied with printed versions of all planning material decided to only use the online tool. In the first test case, which was aimed at involving public agencies in the planning process, the involvement of the participating parties was vivid and lead to many important remarks and annotations to the planning material. In the second test, which involved individual citizens, the participation was far stronger than the involvement in paper based planning efforts.
