INCLUSIVE REPRESENTATION IN PLANNING PROCESSES

Thanks to The Netherlands' newly-introduced Environmental and Planning Code (Omgevingswet) public participation is now a core component of planning processes throughout the country. Municipalities are now legally obliged to consult the public when taking development decisions on matters which affect them. 

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This has energised the market for specialist participation consultants and companies founded specifically to assist municipalities in participation with their citizens are experiencing a significant growth in demand. Kickstad, a small company based in Rotterdam, is one of these participation consultants. Their work has seen them involved in dozens of development projects across The Netherlands and they believe they have uncovered a significant shortcoming in the way participation processes are currently undertaken - They rarely include a representative sample of the people affected by a project.

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As Masters students on the MSc Metropolitan Analysis, Design & Engineering course at the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions, we were approached by Kickstad to tackle their perceived problem by means of a four-month living lab, and propose a method for making participation processes more inclusive.