Last week, on 22nd
January, the City of Luxembourg started a new consultation process in
developing its 2014 official land-use plan, the ‘Plan Aménagement Général’
(PAG). After inputs were given by Mayor Lydie Polfer and appointed experts, the
audience was asked for comments. Unfortunately, the crowd that wanted to attend
this meeting was much larger than the Cercle Cité was able to host, so about 150 people stood
outside. In response to this high demand, a second meeting has been offered that
will take place, Thursday, 30th January, Grand Théâtre (1,
rond-point Schuman).
Markus Hesse was lucky
enough to attend the first meeting. Below, please find his notes on both the
event and the context. A more or less similar German version of this post, “Ein
neuer PAG für die Hauptstadt” was published today, 29th January, in
the daily newspaper “Luxemburger Wort” (page 11, Analyse & Meinung). A copy
can be obtained from us upon request.
The enormous rush to the Cercle
Cité to attend the first public meeting to discuss the new general land use
plan was, first and foremost, a vital sign: There is obviously a great demand to
participate in the future of urban development in the Ville de Luxembourg (VdL). People want to know what is going on,
have a stake in the future of the city, and have a voice that will be respected
and involved in meaningful ways. This is very encouraging. It confirms, in
principle, the participatory approach that the city has engaged, and it concurs
with the widespread perception among professionals and the interested public
that participation is a rather underdeveloped concept here, both in regards to general
policy-making practices across the Grand Duchy and for urban planning in
particular. There is an undisputed need to catch up, and this btw, was one
major reason why we proposed the SUSTAIN_GOV research project in the first
place.
So far so good. However,
preluding any citizen participatory practice with respect to PAG processes, poignant
questions must be addressed. Some of these points were raised by members of the
audience at last week’s event, and others should be included further ongoing
dialogues. These questions are particularly relevant, first, because designing
a plan is a considerable challenge, and second, because there is a significant
danger that “participation”, after its difficult start, will lose its charm.
The questions I refer to do not apply only to the question of how to organize
good participation. This is, indeed, important, and requires intuition, expertise
and good will, which seemed to be present at the meeting. For many cities and
regions indeed, participation is no longer unchartered terrain, so the list of “how
to”-tools (discussions, neighborhood gatherings, websites, blogs) are, in fact,
already available.
However, two further
points are crucial for the VdL which must be addressed before practice. Firstly, the direction of the voyage must be
clarified. Cities need strategies! Only then can mid-term plans and programmes
be developed, and appropriately adjusted for changing framework conditions.
Only against this background does it make sense to discuss more detailed
questions, such as a land-use plan. Without this, without developing a strategy,
one is reminded of Mark Twain: " ... after they had lost orientation, they
were doubling their efforts." And, in fact, recent urban development in
the Capital City is characterized by a striking contrast between a multiplicity
of individual building projects and initiatives on the one hand, and a lack of
strategic direction and comprehensiveness on the other hand. At this point, it
is important to know that a land-use plan can reveal quite a bit in certain detail,
but might be too narrow or concrete for achieving a common understanding of where
to go in the future.
Yet, this is exactly
the issue at stake: strategy and orientation. Will the Capital City continue to
serve as an economic magnet and represent a node in financial market circuits,
and shall Luxembourg continue in providing office space for the growing service
sectors? Will the prime target be implementing rather expensive, large-scale
urban projects that are difficult to integrate in social and urban terms? Or
will urban policy begin to seriously tackle the housing problem – for all parts
of society? Will the transport problem be approached systematically, by
targeting the trans-national inbound commuter flows first, or will Luxembourg end
up with another large construction site right in the centre of the capital? These
are the sorts of cutting-edge issues that need to be discussed before revising
the PAG.
In answering these questions – and this
point was rightly made by an audience member at the Cercle Cité – the VdL is not autonomous. Thus secondly, while the city
might be an economic magnet, it is definitely not a political island where sovereign
decisions can be reached concerning where to go and by what means. One feature
that has to be taken into account here – clearly distinguishing the Grand Duchy
from its neighboring countries – is the two-level political and administrative
structure. As an immediate outcome of this characteristic, the state claims a
sort of hegemony in planning and building processes. This has historical
reasons and can also be explained by the specificities of Luxembourgian town
and country relations in terms of size. Still, the relationship between the
government and its municipalities (commune)
remains rather unclear and this, itself, is a problem. The state not only
provides the legal framework and financial means, but often exerts detailed control
of municipal land use and building policy (not seldom down to the last square
centimetre). Given the lack of strategy across the municipalities, this intervention
even happens sometimes for good reason. However, it generates a certain degree
of political friction, which hinders sound policy-making.
Developing a sense
of strategy thus means clarifying the internal and external relations of the
city. Internally, where does Luxembourg want to go in mid-term, where are future
priorities, and these not least in spatial regards? At the same time, the external
embeddedness of the city needs to be determined and understood more precisely:
What is the Capital City’s role in the country's wider sustainable development?
How can objectives of the state’s regional planning be better coordinated with,
and fairly weighed against, municipal development and respective local needs
and desires? How can the political process be made more flexible, but
effective? Ultimately, these questions also emphasize the role of those actors
that were decisive in the economic success of city and country, that are thus
also important determinants in spatial development: European institutions and corporations
of the services industries. As the Mayor had pointed out at the Cercle, they must not be forgotten.
Participatory
processes can shed light on such issues, thus enabling and fostering an important
leap forward: building trust, practicing transparency, and preparing robust
decisions. In the very end, participation will not ignite total enthusiasm nationwide
about the PAG 2014. Rather, the opposite may be expected: Participation is about
revealing different, sometimes contradictory opinions, in order to prepare widely
accepted decisions. And in Luxembourg, participation is a practice on
unfamiliar terrain. It’s far from being business as usual, and exactly due to the
very specificities of the VdL with its international dynamics, linkages and dependencies,
the process should be managed with caution. Once the rather typical discretion
and secrecy of the nation’s political discourse collides with the insurrection potential
of the Internet, this process may end up in a dead end. It might, thus, be wise not to set the expectations
too high in the beginning, but to pursue a more sustainable, long-lasting
communication and meaningful exchange. This would also prevent a sort of rapid
disappointment in the case that participation turns out to be what it definitely
is: a tedious task, but very worthwhile, necessary project.
