Marnix Smit

Planning and commitment in cultural heritage projects

Purpose – The purpose of the study is to generate insights into the planning process for reusing cultural heritage within urban redevelopment projects and identifies barriers to and drivers for stakeholder commitment. Design/methodology/approach – Characteristics of five Dutch urban redevelopment projects with built cultural heritage are studied in terms of the context, interaction and commitment. The findings are confronted with insights from urban planning literature. Findings – The study shows that although there is a strong belief in the added value of reusing cultural heritage, dealing with uncertainty over costs and benefits associated with heritage transformation is a major barrier. There is no standard planning strategy to deal with these issues. Further, we could not identify a direct link between the planning strategy used and the commitment of key stakeholders. Nevertheless, it seems that a shared framework and a shared belief in the heritages added value are vital. Research limitations/implications – The study has an explorative character meaning that further analysis is needed to gain a greater understanding on how planning strategies affect stakeholder commitment in cultural heritage projects. As only cases in the Netherlands are studied, institutional differences are not considered. Practical implications – This study can help practitioners to develop planning strategies by offering insight into a number of barriers and dilemmas that need to be overcome in the planning process. Originality/value – This study explains why the presence of cultural heritage creates difficulties in adapting available planning tools and in developing new sustainable strategic planning approaches

Why local governments rarely use PPPs in their road development projects: Understanding the barriers

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify barriers that prevent local governments from applying PPPs in their road development projects. Design/methodology/approach – Based on insights from a literature review, interviews were held with relevant staff to identify barriers. These were verified and their relative significance was determined through the use of a questionnaire, before being reflected upon and compared with literature findings. Findings – The research identified 37 barriers to local governments using PPPs in road development projects and showed that four barriers consistently stand out. First, the application of PPPs requires local governments to adapt their current working methods, which amounts to a large impediment to local governments applying PPPs. Second, local government employees believe that applying PPPs might effectively exclude local contractors from involvement in projects. Finally, local governments experience the whole PPP approach (the third barrier) and the PPP contract (the fourth) as overly complicated. Practical implications – To increase the use of PPPs for infrastructure provision at the local level, one has to focus on removing dominant local barriers as identified in this research. Originality/value – Although local-level PPPs have seen increasing interest, this is one of the first studies paying attention to the barriers to using PPPs for local road development projects

Negotiation processes in urban redevelopment projects: Dealing with conflicts by balancing integrative and distributive approaches

Dealing with conflict through dialogue receives considerable attention in current planning approaches. However, debate and negotiation are also inevitable features in the planning of urban redevelopment projects. Insight into the negotiation process contributes to current planning practice as negotiation provides a strong basis for addressing conflicts and satisfying both individual and common interests. In this paper the concepts of integrative and distributive negotiation are explored and analysed in two urban redevelopment projects involving cultural heritage buildings in the Netherlands. The paper shows the negotiation dynamics over time and argues that openly formulating joint ambitions and making strong statements to fulfil individual interests are both essential in coming to a mutually beneficial agreement.

Implementing joint ambitions for redevelopment involving cultural heritage: a comparative case study of cooperation strategies

ABSTRACT Urban redevelopment projects at brownfield sites are challenging, especially when heritage conservation needs to be integrated into urban development plans. In these processes, close cooperation between various actors is essential to develop and implement plans. However, many projects seem to fail or opportunities are missed. This paper sheds light on the barriers and drivers in the planning process of these projects and shows that cooperation and interaction strategies might enable actors to implement joint ambitions. Therefore, we conducted a comparative case study of 10 urban redevelopment projects involving cultural heritage buildings in the Netherlands. Our results show that there is no standard strategy. Various cooperation arrangements and interaction types are effective in dealing with complicating contextual factors and conflicts in the planning process.