Is Consensus Possible?

http://www.cp-dr.com/3536

New York City skyline c. 1970s
vintage.es

Hello Everyone:

The milestones continue.  Yesterday we celebrated 15,000 page views and today we mark the 300th post of this blog.  It seems like yesterday I started this blog with just the idea of keeping myself occupied, learning about all things urban planning and design.  Now a year and almost three-quarters of the way in, not only am doing exactly what I set out to do but also I found a terrific audience and a voice.  That is pure gold.  I cannot wait to see what will happen in the next 300 posts but you and I can be assured that it will not be boring and routine.  So here's to the 300th post, the next 300, the 300 after that, and so on.  I'll keep writing if you keep reading.  Cheers.  On to today's posts, can planners, Tea parties, and property rights activists all learn to get along?

Los Angeles sprawl
lasmogtown.com

Usually I try to stay politically neutral about the issues that currently face our cities.  However, I recently came across this wonderful article by Dr. Karen Trapenberg Frick for California Planning & Development Report that asks "Can planners find common ground with Tea Party and property rights activists on means even if they don't agree on ends?"

The basis for this article is California Senate Bill 375 by State Senator Darrell Steinberg as a mechanism for achieve Assembly Bill 32's goal from cars and light trucks. (http://www.icleiusa.org)  AB 32-The Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006-requires the State of California to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 level no later that 2020. (Ibid)  This autumn, the California Strategic Growth Council will release its preliminary evaluation pf SB 375's implementation thus far.  Dr, Trapenberg Frick sees this moment as a good time to step back and reflect on the public participation process in California, particularly participation state mandated public participation.  Dr. Trapenberg Frick asks us to consider the requirements, such as whether or not those for the SB 375 regional planning process are helpful or an obstacle.

Union Square
San Francisco, California
sanfrancisco.about.com

The public process design, in California or any other state, is crucial when the participants are at ideological opposites and do not trust each other or the governmental agencies in charge. Therefore, it is absolutely important to seek out common ground.  For example, finding common ground over whether or not climate change exists.  While people may make heated arguments pro and con, we might be able to agree that hybrid cars should pay there fair share of road costs.  Also, while we may not agree on the merits of high density housing, we can undertake a joint fact-finding study to assess its impact on property rights, values, and services such as schools police, and fire.  Happily, Dr, Trapenberg Frick reports that common ground on hotly debated regional planning issues has been staked out in San Francisco, California and Atlanta, Georgia.

San Francisco Bay at night
storify.com

In San Francisco, Tea Party and property rights advocates joined forces to stop regional planning meetings run by the Metropolitan Transit Commission and the Association of Bay Area Governments to develop the area's first Sustainable Communities Plan-Plan Bay Area.  These activists were not alone in their fight, plaintiffs from across the political spectrum filed four lawsuits including: two with Tea Party and property rights activist affiliations, the Building Industry Association Bay Area, and one by environmental organizations.  At the left end of the spectrum in uber liberal Marin County, a group of non-Tea Party and property rights activist affiliated citizens have raised holy heck against the municipalities that adopted higher density development as a means to access available regional funds.   Not exactly a group of people that would be sitting down to coffee with each other.

To read more about the Tea Party and property rights activists's lawsuit, please go to:
http://www.cp-dr.com/mode/3011
The initial Plan Bay Area lawsuits is available at: http://www.cp-dr.com/mode/3403
To read about the partial resolutions, please go to: http://www.planetizen.com/node/69937, http://www.planetizent.com/node/70187
and the San Jose Mercury News: http://bit.ly/1mgVsh

Atlanta, Georgia sprawl
city-data.com

Meanwhile, in Atlanta, Tea Party and property rights activists led the charge against a regional sales tax proposal placed on the 2012 ballot. This initiative, Transportation Special Project Local Option Sales Tax, would have set aside half of the estimated revenue generated for public transit projects.  If approved, the measure would have added a tax to Georgia residents that could be extended long after its expiration date. (http://www.examiner.com/.../georgia-t-splost-loses-statewide-loses-9-of-12-regio...)  Politics does make strange bedfellows as a loose coalition including: the Sierra Club and NAACP leaders joined together in their opposition, partly because they felt that the proposed transit projects were not the ones needed their communities.  Dr. Trapenberg Frick notes, "Although it is hard to say what impact the coalition had on the measure, the tax failed tremendously with 63% of the vote in opposition."

"Vote No TSPLOST"
examiner.com

In her analysis of this odd-at-first-glance coalition, Dr. Karen Trapenberg Frick observed four points of convergence between conservative activists and planning scholars, mostly over transportation policy and process issues that warrant the planners's attention.  These points of convergence generally align with progressive activists's position, albeit, the divergent sides come to planning from different perspectives.

First, Dr. Trapenberg Frick observes, "...the most surprising area of agreement was in Atlanta when on the vehicle miles traveled (VMT) fee.  Conservative activists supported this fee as a replacement for the gas tax if major administrative and privacy challenges were overcome.  In making an argument similar to researchers who called for fees based on actual vehicle miles traveled, conservative activists were concerned that drivers of electric and hybrid cars were not paying their fair share of costs into the transportation system.  Progressives frequently argue for a fee transition as well, however, with the hope that revenue could be channeled toward transit, bicycle, and pedestrian projects.

Atlanta transit
ledger-enquirer.com

Second, conservative activists in the Bay Area and Atlanta questioned the logic of operating expensive rail lines in low-density area, another point where they converge "...with researchers who caution that mass transit needs a sufficient mass of residents and jobs to generate transit riders or the system will have little use."  Rather, the activists, researchers, and frequently their progressive counterparts opine that Bus Rapid Transit service as more viable, cost effective option in less dense areas that do not have the sufficient number of residents and jobs to generate riders.  From this, we can conclude that conservative activists oppose transit straight away, however, like the researchers, conservatives viewed development densities for generating riders and found it as important in weighing project costs.

Third, said activists in both places questioned the authenticity of the planning process, wondering if the planners were just going through the motion before arriving at a predetermined conclusion.  If you have ever taken part in a public process, it can feel like the ones in charge are just going through the motions before reaching a predetermined conclusion.  Likewise, planners involved in the public process questioned the activists's motivations and actions.  The necessity of large-scale planning processes with public participation has been the subject of much debate as a way to form a consensus through meaningful public input.  Finally, in Atlanta, the reason why activists across the spectrum opposed the 2012 ballot initiative because it was a regressive across-the-board tax instead of a user fee. Transportation planning scholars cautioned against a regressive tax as a way to fund infrastructure. They also argued that California should also switch to a user fee instead of using local sales tax to support transportation projects.

"Which way forward"
3riversepiscopal.blogspot.com

Is there a way forward for planning efforts that could bring together citizens from divergent ideological lines in order to find a common ground?  Absolutely, Dr. Trapenberg Frick offers some solutions to move everyone forward.

Planners could use the political theory of agonism, which emphasizes the possible positive aspects of some forms of political conflict, in framing their approach to public engagement.  In this context, the actors consider their opposition as legitimate opponents rather than mortal enemies.  The players retain their core values and identities but may find commonality, agree, or disagree.  A group consensus is not the goal, rather compromise through bargaining and negotiation is the preferred outcome.  Debate can be informed through joint analyses developed by each party that examine, for example, the array of potential affect on property rights and the full lifespan cost of the projects and plans.

This may seem challenging but worthwhile in order to achieve the long-term goal of moving from a highly antagonistic process and counterproductive meetings to more interactive agonistic debates.  In the end the State of California may be best served by looking for points of commonalities as a key to a more thorough examination for state Senate Bill 375' public participation and general requirements. The current law and practice force regions to adopt plans that could leave open to more costly and lengthy lawsuits if they are supported solely by a weak consensus.  Such a plan may collapse over time.  Thus we need strong community negotiations to keep future plans from falling apart.