INTEGRATING CONSERVATION
WITHIN THE PLANNING PROCESS
Only when conservation goals become
a part of the thinking of each functioning unit
within city government will the historic and architectural
values of our historic towns be adequately respected.
As long as departments concerned with traffic management,
for example, may pursue their goals without reference
to conservation criteria, then a city's historical
and architectural resources will be at risk.
Moving conservation concerns into
the decision-making arena within the planning process
will usually require a number of parallel or sequential
initiatives :
- public support must be encouraged,
and demonstrated, so that heritage issues become
an important part of the public agenda;
- the city's operating
master plan and supporting secondary plans should
incorporate heritage conservation objectives and
goals within their development;
- the administrative structures
of historic cities must do more than admit a heritage
conservation function to their activity;
- they must ensure that
each area or department acknowledges conservation
as a part of its responsibility;
- the thrust of conservation
policy development should go beyond the boundaries
of the "historic district" to look at needs and
implications across a city and its surrounding
region;
- an historic city must
be prepared to intervene within prevailing market
forces to sufficiently defend conservation and
other quality of life goals;
- in this fashion, "appropriate
development" - not just "development" - becomes
the goal. Public debate in each community may
then focus on the criteria which will determine
appropriate in its own context.
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DEVELOPING SUPPORT FOR CONSERVATION
Effective conservation policies
require broad public support. And like any other
idea or commodity, the worth of such policies may
not be immediately self-evident to all groups without
promotional effort. Conservation advocates who wish
to see their message achieve higher levels of support
may benefit from the analysis that marketing specialists
bring to their work : a clear definition of the
intended market, and clarification of the intended
message.
Whatever our predispositions to
the use of marketing techniques to "sell" values,
it is evident that marketing specialists have developed
a large array of analytical tools and promotional
mechanisms to assist them to achieve their goals.
These tools may be of great assistance in promoting
the heritage message.
Conservation groups, particularly
in the western world, have not always managed to
imbue their cause with strong appeal. While the
environmental cause is couched in a friendly "green",
heritage conservation is still perceived by many
as a fringe activity. World heritage towns have
begun to sell their cause according to sound marketing
practices, as a part of the global good, to begin
to combat this inadequacy.
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INTEGRATED ADMINISTRATIVE
STRUCTURES
Civic governments generally develop
internal structures aligned with the particular
services they deliver. Department heads, each responsible
for a particular set of services, compete with each
other for available resources to fulfill their respective
mandates. Once heritage conservation is recognized
by a civic administration as a legitimate field
of endeavour, those responsible are usually housed
within a city's planning department, since it is
principally through the use of planning mechanisms
that cities involve themselves in conservation.
As long as heritage conservation
is perceived as a "service", its capacity to influence
will be limited by the strength of the particular
voices or departments championing its worth in civic
debate. Increasing the size of the conservation
unit department is therefore not the only means
to increase the acceptance of conservation ideas;
nor is the creation of special heritage units to
co-ordinate conservation activities and goals among
departments. Indeed, in the long run, recognizing
conservation as a legitimate civic objective, it
may be more useful to promote approriate "attitudes"
within other departments, as a means of creating
a climate in which conservation practices become
every-day habits.
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MASTER PLANS
Most cities use master plans to
suggest the preferred direction of growth and development
within a prescribed future time period, and to provide
a framework for restricting or channelling development
proposals to conform with an overall vision. These
are often accompanied by secondary plans which provide
greater detail on a sector by sector basis.
But many cities, once having proclaimed
their master plans, ignore them in practice. Master
plans which provide exemption each time aggressive
developments are proposed are of little real value
in guiding decision-makers.
Historic cities which take full
advantage of the ability of the master plan to guide
decisions are likely to accompany such plans with
the following :
- full participation of
various interests within a city in development
of the master plan;
- faithful and consistent
adherence to the master plan in the face of development
review applications;
- incorporation within
the master plan of clearly delineated conservation
plans, clarifying zones requiring special treatment,
and the nature of that treatment.
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GOVERNMENT PARTNERSHIPS
Cities do not carry out their
functions in isolation. Their working populations
are buttressed daily by the influx of those from
beyond their borders. Transport, housing, employment
- all must be integrated on a local, regional and
national basis to ensure adequacy of supply in any
one area. Conservation policies are no less in need
of integrated approaches to attain their goals.
Cities or towns are generally
wary towards the presence of other governments within
their boundaries. While appreciating the benefits
that come from pooling resources, they are generally
reluctant to part with their autonomy. The health
of historic quarters in older towns, or in the centres
of historic cities is inextricably bound up with
policies at all levels of government which may inhibit
or support heritage conservation goals.
An example of the need for integrating,
rather than opposing, heritage conservation goals
is programmes which provide incentives for improving
certain aspects of the building stock.Many national
governments, for example, attempt to upgrade housing
conditions, through preferential interest rates
on loans, or direct subsidies. Frequently, it is
a community's oldest buildings that may qualify
as heritage and be farthest from meeting health
and safety standards; without an integrated approach,
one or both goals may suffer.
Government policies which support
urban heritage conservation are likely to have the
following characteristics :
- a comprehensive approach
to land use and development, balancing needs to
maintain productive farmland in agricultural use,
to accommodate growth in locations which minimize
costs of new infrastructure, and to maintain centre
city vitality and the value of "sunk" investment
in existing buildings and infrastructures;
- an integrated approach
to decision-making, attempting to achieve goals
in one area without expense to other areas;
- support for efficient,
convenient and cheap forms of transit which flow
workers and consumers to their desired destinations
with minimum impact on a city's heritage qualities.
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ASSESSING & APPROPRIATE
DEVELOPMENT
Means to assess appropriate development
are not new to planners. For historic towns, the
conventional criteria need only be expanded in order
to include respect for heritage character, as a
key factor in assessing development options. The
determination of acceptable options requires assessing
their ability to succesfully meet the criteria chosen,
and the relative weight assigned each.
The kinds of criteria that planners
might include in their analysis would include: permanent
jobs created, investment attracted, impact on air
quality, infrastructure costs, demonstrated market
demand, etc.. A city interested in attracting development
appropriate from a heritage conservation perspective
will ensure that conservation criteria play an important
role in the analysis.
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