Aspects of the national urban policy management under conditions of integrated planning/Salies urbanistines politikos valdymo aspektai integruoto planavimo salygomis.

Jakaitis, Jonas ; Paliulis, Narimantas ; Jakaitis, Karolis 等

1. Introduction

The participation of society in the process of formation of sustainable development of democratic cities in Western Europe and the rest of the world influences natural changes of the ways of formation of Lithuanian economic, legal and social urban development. Relations between the state, self-government and tax payers, i.e. enterprises and residents, are changing. More attention is increasingly paid to the sustainable development of territories (Viteikiene, Zavadskas 2007), to the improvement of life quality, social security and ecology.

After the restoration of independence Lithuania refused to adhere to the planning principles that it had been applying before. There were no common methodology guidelines for activities planning, thus each institution had its own planning strategies. The increasing number of activities, responsibilities and limited financial resources forced the Government to review the previously applied principles of activities and resources planning. The main aim was to improve the management of institutions and application of financial resources by introducing the principles of strategic planning. However, sectoral management, poorly integrated with territory planning on national, regional or municipal level, sometimes duplicated each other. Therefore, Lithuanian national planning peculiarities and traditions (the economic justification was eliminated from the system of territory planning) were underestimated when introducing the planning experience of the West, and it was the first time when the planning of financial resources was related to the strategic planning. According to the planning experience discussed in various sources (McSweeney 1997; Kavaliauskas 2008; Rutkauskas 2008; Ciegis and Gineitiene 2008; Zavadskas et al. 2007; Bardauskiene 2007), strategic planning became inevitable while trying to implement reforms in various fields and solve complex issues. During the process of strategic planning an institution always analyses a prospect impact of surrounding factors on its activities, i.e. an institutional subject, not a territory, performs its activities and is chosen as a planning object. It is very important for an institutional subject to use all the obtained financial, material and labour resources as effectively as possible for achieving the goals set. The most important fact is that an institution plans its resources and activities so that it can achieve concrete results in a definite period of time.

As there is a ack of coordination between the types of the strategic planning, the main aim of this article is to draw attention to the issue of a disintegrated sectoral planning in the territory planning processes. This article aims to propose certain measures to integrate the interaction of the elements of planning systems while reviewing the tradition of the systems of strategic and territory planning in Lithuania as well as pursuing to avoid general fragmental reasoning. The third aim of this article is to establish a definite model of the planning system which could be applied to form a prospect for sustainable territory development. The fourth aim is to propose solutions for improving the management system of territory planning in the context of informal planning, since, as we know, planning issues (particularly in Palanga and the Curonian Spit in Lithuania, which often witness violations of construction bans, constructions often disguised as reconstructions, repairs or applying other informal activities) and their implementation are rather complicated.

The article has been produced after having evaluated a multidisciplinary aspect with other sciences, basing its content not only on the research of the results of the survey, but also on methods of statistical analysis.

2. Problems of planning

After the launch of the implementation of the Lithuania/Canada Public Administration Reform Project, which was aimed at the introduction of strategic planning at the Governmental level, the Government started to form the budget of Lithuania on the basis of programmes. In 2000, all the ministries, municipalities and other institutions, wishing to receive financing from the state budget had to elaborate the plans of strategic activities. After 2000 such plans became a mass phenomenon. They had to include the information on strategic objectives of an institution, programmes aimed at implementing those objectives, to prospect results and funding necessary to reach those aims.

The Government did not always manage to perform the functions of an urban planner (only after the received financing in 2003 municipalities and regional government institutions started general planning) and a developer of the national architecture. When evaluating the Plan of Measures of the Comprehensive Plan of the Republic of Lithuania, which specifies the period from 2003 to 2008 for producing by municipalities' Master Plan, the main objectives are intended for institutions managing these processes. They have to ensure the development of territories, economic growth, increase in job positions, and attraction of investments. On the other hand, those institutions have to evaluate the object of planning, i.e. a territory, as a limited resource. That led to a rational use of resources, i.e. minimisation of losses and effective maximisation. Therefore, a necessity emerges to change attitudes towards urban planning and urban building policy.

Under market conditions, an optimised system of planning, which pays much attention to general and strategic plans and other planning documents become very significant for the state. Much attention is paid not only to the process of planning, but also to the system of implementation and control. The demand for monitoring processes, as mentioned in the Law on Territorial Planning (Law on Territorial ... 2004), is just a statement, since it is not supported by any secondary legislation. An actual system providing with a possibility of a constant monitoring and speedy analysis, defining changes in urban development, drawing conclusions, analysing development tendencies, supplementing and correcting documents on territory planning, while specifying development priorities, should be created.

This process will be efficient only after a complex system of the implementation of national plans. Achieving this aim requires defined criteria, a system capable of ensuring a comprehensive and objective analysis of territory development and changes, information collection, accumulation, storage and processing as well as a structure of decision drafting and making. The currently existing theoretical reasoning of the plan implementation in the form of recommendations and regulations are not efficient, and that does not help forming a complex attitude toward the formation of the urban development policy and perform speedy assessment while improving justified near and far prospects of the national urban development.

The analysis of planning systems applied by various countries of the world and the Baltic states (BSR INTERREG IIIB Project ... 2007) in respect of types, interrelations and contents has shown that all the development aspects are justified mainly theoretically. Therefore, detailed and specialised (Lithuania has a type of specialised planning) plans and programmes constitute an integral part of a complex plan regarding economic, social and other issues (in Lithuania, the levelling and categorisation as well as interharmonisation of planning documents are not optimised). Therefore, legal acts currently in force should reflect the identity of concepts. In order to ensure an effective national sustainable development, an integral strategic system of urban development should be developed, which could engage all the national institutions at all governmental levels, in charge for strategic and tactic objectives. The system should also include the evaluation of subjects performing their activities abroad. As far as differences in the contents of strategic planning documents are concerned, a lot of controversial discussions emerge trying to define the interaction between territory planning documents (the Comprehensive Plan of the Territory of the Republic of Lithuania) (1) and strategic planning documents (Long-term Development Strategy of the State) (2), strategic plans and their place in an integrated system of plans. A lot of ambiguities arise when using different definitions of aims and objectives of territory planning in terms of plans of various types. The latter are not clearly differentiated in the Law on Territorial Planning and that leads to a conclusion (and our society usually draws such a conclusion) that those definitions are applied to a territory of any size and to a planning process of any level or type. Ambiguous and unclear notions, as, for example, notions regarding the interharmonisation of plans as well as their harmonisation with society and subjects or such notions as "protected areas", "negative impact" or "visual pollution" or the absence of definitions of such notions as "public interest", "justified expectations" etc. not only mislead planning organisers, assets owners, investors (all of them have individual interpretations of the contents of the above-mentioned documents), but also cause conflict situations in tactical planning. The analysis of the General Plan of the Territory of the Republic of Lithuania and the Long-Term Strategy Plan of the State shows that the existing analyses, solutions and monitoring peculiarities duplicate each other. It is natural that they have to provide with the same development policy, vision, priorities, aims and objectives to reach those aims for one and the same territory.

3. Contents of the theory

The Long-Term Strategy of the State is a large concept of the use of resources in order to reach of aims. The Strategy provides for the ways to use national limited resources and defines development guidelines for the usage of them. In addition, it establishes competence advantages, i.e. financial potential, industrial capacity, ways of competent management of responsible institutions, etc. Taking into account the above-mentioned aspects and the general aspect of the national territory (Fig. 1), a model of a planning with system has been suggested (Fig. 2) an area of the integration of plans. Solutions of general and strategic plans are interrelated in this model. Strategic development priorities defined in the General Plan of the Territory of the Republic of Lithuania are at the same time elements of the Long-Term Development Strategy of the State. Other more detailed objectives regarding territories are solved in the next part of the planning process by adapting them to a given urban situation. Thus, the spatial concept of the General Planning of the state territory, the main provisions for the use of territory and security and the territorial aspect of the long-term development of all fields of management become an integrated factor, and the territory development priorities specified in it become an integral part of the Strategic Planning. They supplement each other and define common priorities of the national territory development.

The coordination of aspects of economic and financial planning, presented in the Strategic Planning document, with solutions provided for in the General Planning could be beneficial for establishing an integrated planning system. The proposed integrated model of management of plans integrates processes of the Strategic Planning and General Planning into one complex planning (CP). The stage of drafting of general and strategic plans covers the creation of a future vision of a city. It also covers the segmentation of future activities, evaluation of the previous planning process (monitoring results), ensuring changes of general culture of an organisation (urban residents, etc.) and application of motivation systems. Thus, the main aim of the Complex Planning is to define directions of the territory planning. When it comes to changing those directions, for example, when the policy of urban development and architecture is to be changed, the changes would be implemented by procedures of Comprehensive Planning and Strategic Planning. However, bearing in mind the experience in architectural formation of cities of Western Europe (Sweden, Austria and Finland) or Canadian cities, that would be a very rare phenomenon. Thus, the Official Plan of Toronto provides with strategy development guidelines for the forthcoming 30 years. Those guidelines are presented in greater details in strategic documents, for example, in Municipal Housing Strategy, Transportation Strategy and Community Service and Facilities Strategies (Toronto Urban ... 2002). If necessary, thematic plans can be presented in greater detail through Secondary (Master) Plans, by including them into Urban Design solutions. The urban planning system of Wien (Austria) is similar to the above. Its strategic planning forms the prospect of a vision (Complex Planning document), which covers the period of 20 years ahead. Solutions of this planning document are implemented by more detailed thematic strategic special plans (Master plans) (Olechowski, Schweighofer 2006), for example, the Transport Master plan. A separate department has been established to be put in charge for implementing the plan.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

[FIGURE 2 OMITTED]

The mentioned model has been suggested on the basis of a provision that the planning is a process of selecting a development direction of an organisation (a country) as well as methods and ways which could be applied while trying to achieve those objectives. The integrated system of plans (3) includes all types of plans and is aimed at the achievement of the set objectives. The system of plans (Fig. 3) should also cover all time periods, evaluate the territorial aspect and provide with a possibility of planning at all national development stages and in all functional fields of activities. The sustainability of plans is also compulsory--short-term plans are consequences of the detailing process of long-term plans (Ginevicius et al. 2006). Thus, the principles of the subordination of ranking documents should be maintained.

And the documents (4) (Concise strategic activities plans of institutions of the Government of the Republic of Lithuania approved by the Government of the Republic of Lithuania) should be aimed to improve management of institutions while evaluating territory development documents.

The Law on Territorial Planning defines the General Territory Planning as a process of a complex territory planning aimed at defining a policy of territory development, priorities of the use of territory and its security as well as major administration measures. However, this provision is partially correct, since it does not define the investment system of organizers of General Planning (governmental institutions) and private subjects. In addition, general plans define not only the funds provided by the budget, but also the ones provided by private investors, their amounts and financing mechanisms. Thus, certain doubts arise on whether the part of the General Planning on economic development and integration with Strategic planning could be effectively managed. It is a risk to plan economic indicators for future in the General Planning documents. That leads to conflicts between the organizer of the General Planning process and the rest part of the society, which would like its activities to be developed in other directions. As the results of the research show (Pakalnis et al. 2006), the number of such society representatives, who were concerned with their own interests, for instance, while drafting the General Planning of the City of Vilnius, reached 80%. Thus, disputes emerge while trying to define concepts of private and public interests (as mentioned before, the latter are not defined in any legal act regulating territory planning).--J. J.). That leads to tension, stagnation of development, or its financing by the state budget. A flexible document on strategic planning which would define objects of territory development but not the ways to implement it, as it is a concern of a lower level planning, is necessary. That is, however, another subject.

[FIGURE 3 OMITTED]

Research results discussed in international and national conferences (From Urban Forum "Creation ... 2007; Jakaitis 2007; Lass 2007; Standing conference ... 1997; The International UBC seminar ... 2007). That shows that the main democratic principles of planning are usually ignored in Lithuania. Pragmatic interests of a short time gain prevail in our society and ignore the ideology of sustainable territory development (Jakaitis 2008). On the other hand, our society usually does not fully comprehend the aims, objectives and solutions, their interaction and ranking in general, special and detailed planning. On the other hand, some members of our society use those gaps in legal acts on purpose, ignoring public interests. As A. Nasvytis claims, "unless there is an efficient control (monitoring of territory development,--J. J.) of laws in force, such notions as "civil responsibility" and "professional ethics" will be just mere words". Thus, our society perceives and explains Paragraph 2 of Article 3 of Law on Territorial Planning on the possibility of forming an adequate, healthy and harmonious environment for living, work and recreation with the aim of creating better living conditions of equal value in the whole territory of Lithuania (Law on Territorial Planning ... 2004) as "... a means to ignore land owners' opinions and applicants' (usually land owners) offers". Our society usually has a mistaken opinion that General Planning is a mechanical sum of detailed plans, which could be easily amended, if necessary. When participating in the planning process, territorial communities, citizens, non-governmental organizations and informal groups have other objectives usually aimed at solving more primitive, pragmatic and urgent problems, and not at analyzing issues of urban development strategies. Unlike Estonian experience of the planning system, public opinion in Lithuania is based on ambiguities of the Law on Territorial Planning. Paragraph 2 of Article 7 of the above law requires "to define height and intensity parameters of the development of the planned territory, or reserve territories for the communication corridors, engineering and communication infrastructure and the other objects necessary for the demands of society" (Pakalnis, Motieka 2007).

But those are the objectives of the detailed planning, which are presented as the regimes of the use and, i.e. borders of land sites, and concrete objects, which contradicts to provisions on the specified objectives of general planning laid plots in Paragraph 33 of Article 2 of the Law on Territorial Planning while defining conceptual regulation of territory development (5).

In order to achieve effectiveness in solutions of managenial decisions, management structures of state institutions should be corrected, what could create conditions and preconditions for sustainable territory development. The aim of the model of the complex planning is primarily focused on implementing strategic objectives while integrating strategic interrelation of long-term documents, which becomes a significant integral factor of the monitoring system (Fig. 4).

In order to perform effectively and to reduce operation expenses, changes of the landscape and its components are evaluated during the monitoring, as well as decisions on changes in plans of territory development and their priorities are taken. The compulsory objective of the monitoring is to ensure that all the data collected could be valuable while evaluating changes in the current situation and integrate all the development possibilities and requirements provided for in short- and long-term plans. A division performing permanent monitoring of the territory development (which actually does not exist at the Ministry of Environment, and if there are any, they usually act in sectoral way), when analysing the implementation of General Planning and development tendencies, should present justified suggestions on programme formation and correction of solutions of the general plan.

[FIGURE 4 OMITTED]

4. Conclusions

All the levels in our country, including the national level, experience a necessity to form integrated and well formalized systems of territory development planning and monitoring, which should be clearly linked to processes of general and strategic planning, procedures, in terms of publicity and other aspects, as well as with other planning documents of a lower level.

Research results, which are discussed in international and national conferences, show that the main democratic principles of planning are often ignored in Lithuania. Pragmatic interests and the principle of one day gain prevail in our society, which ignores the ideology of sustainable territory development. On the other hand, our society usually does not fully understand the aims, objectives and solutions and their interaction and ranking in documents of general, special and detailed planning. On the other hand, some members of our society use those gaps in legal acts on purpose, ignoring public interests.

The application of the complex planning model and supplementing the national legal acts currently in force could help forming long-term integrated complex plans of territory development. General and Strategic plans could constitute an integral part of complex plans and at the same time supplement each other. A complex plan of a territory could perform the formation of strategies of urban development and function as a tool for social management of investments, which could be also financially supported. Another way of the formation of the investment policy, which is a more advanced measure, could be planning investments by government institutions and other directly influenced investments.

The General Plan could cover all the fields of activities and reflect their long-term development. It would provide with more detailed ways of how to achieve the objectives set on a lower level of the territory planning. It would also specify prospect territory development directions and the term of implementing the objective set, as well as territories favourable for future investments. The Comprehensive Plan (territory) could focus not on the economic development, but on disclosing possibilities for the economic development in the analyzed territory. The Strategic Plan (economic) could define main directions of territory development with regard to financial resources as well as primary regulations for all the planning activities. Short-term economic plans could be based on a programme chosen by the Government and could function as an instrument of the budget formation. The complexity of planning could enable the country to a more economical use of its financial and intellectual resources for all national plans.

Received 2 October 2008; accepted 23 January 2009

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(1) Comprehensive Plan of the Territory of the Republic of Lithuania--a long-term strategic planning document, which defines a spatial development concept of the national territory and presents main provisions of the use and protection of the territory and a long-term territory development prospect of all fields of management (Decision No. IX-1154 of 29 Oct 2002 on the approval of this document).

(2) Long-term Development Strategy of the State--unites various documents of long-term planning (Resolution No. IX-1187 of 12 Nov 2002 of the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania on approval of this document).

(3) The notion "system of plans" used in the article means a complex of interrelated plans joining development priorities, objectives, budgets and other divisions of various fields as well as elements of project plans.

(4) Strategic planning documents briefly present the content of the plan of strategic activities: mission of an institution--strategic aims, programmes under implementation, aims and objectives of these programmes.

(5) The innovative practice of the Master Plan of Vilnius City Municipality for 2007, while functionally zoning the territory of the city according the polifunctional principle, has suggested the ways to avoid details in the process of the strategic territory planning. However, this innovation is accepted cautiously in various institutions in charge of the monitoring of interpretations of legal acts.

doi: 10.3846/1392-8619.2009.15.26-38

Jonas JAKAITIS. Architect-Expert, Doctor of Humanities (2007), Assoc Prof, Dept of Urban Engineering, Vilnius Gediminas Technical University (VGTU). Sauletekio al. 11, LT-2040 Vilnius, Lithuania. Director of Territorial Planning of Urban Development and Architecture Department of Ministry of Environment of the Republic of Lithuania. Master of Architecture, VGTU, 1997. Author or co-author of 36 national and international projects of architectural, urban design and planning. Author of 22 scientific publications. Participant of 23 national and international conferences. Membership: member of the Lithuanian Union of Architects, member of the Lithuanian Union of Landscape Architects, member of Steering Committee of the Union of the Baltic Cities (UBC) Commission on Urban Planning (CUP). Internship: "Urban Summer School" in 1997 at Cracow; in 2004 at European Academy of the Urban Environment of Berlin. Research interests: urban development programs, physical planning, urban planning, land use management, public participation.

Narimantas Kazimieras PALIULIS. Doctor Habil, Professor and head of Department of Management. Business Management Faculty, Vilnius Gediminas Technical University (VGTU). Doctor (1986), Doctor Habil (1993), Professor. Publications: author of 5 books, about 85 research papers published in Lithuania and abroad. Research interests: re-engineering of organizations, logistics, information management.

Karolis JAKAITIS. Student in Trent University, Canada. Trent International Program (TIP), Trent University 1600 West Bank Drive Peterborough, Ontario, Canada K9J 7B8. Research interests: macroeconomics subject, strategy planning.

Jonas Jakaitis [1], Narimantas Paliulis [2], Karolis Jakaitis [3]

[1] Dept of Urban Engineering, Vilnius Gediminas Technical University, Sauletekio al. 11, LT-10223 Vilnius, Lithuania, e-mail: j.jakaitis@am.lt

[2] Dept of Management, Vilnius Gediminas Technical University, Sauletekio al. 11, LT-10223 Vilnius, Lithuania, e-mail: paliulis@vv.vgtu.lt

[3] Trent International Program (TIP) Trent University Peterborough, Ontario, Canada K9J 7B8, e-mail: karolis.jakaitis@gmail.com