Accelerated planning for urban housing infills: coordination strategies

Abstract

The outcome of local policies to satisfy residential demand by accelerating urban planning and development is studied here for an infill programme with about 30 plans and a target of 7,000 new suburban dwellings, launched by a mid-sized Swedish city, Gothenburg. Interviews with developers and officials, questionnaires, policy and planning documents including appeals have been analyzed. Three municipal strategies for acceleration were applied: interdepartmental coordination, collaboration with developers and parallel processing of plans and permits. Plans were produced more rapidly, but the goal of parallel work on building permits was seldom achieved. A complex pattern of delay causes has been found and is discussed in the light of coordination strategies. Strong initial focus on the physical design in the detailed development plan overshadowed the need for an early identification of coordination issues throughout the stages of implementation. This emerges as one reason why developers have been reluctant or unable to start detailed design early on, instead of embracing the principle of parallel planning and preparation for a building permit.