Land use planning implementation: a 'best practices' assessment.

Additionally, respondents were allowed to rank implementation practices as ties. In these cases, the average value for the range covered by the tied implementation practices was used to rank the group. During their ranking exercise, respondents were simply asked to assign the next value to all implementation practices thought to be of equal importance. For example, suppose three practices were considered of equal importance after having successfully ranked the first four highest priority practices. The respondent, in this situation, would rank each as '5' and the evaluator would calculate the average of the range. Thus, each of these three practices would be ranked as a '6' (i.e. (5+6+7)/3 = 6).

Once the questionnaire responses were adjusted, implementation practices were assigned to one of three categories. The top third of each agency's applicable implementation practices were categorized as 'first priority', the middle third were classified as 'second priority', and the last third were considered 'third

Study Limitations

This research design has several limiting factors. First and foremost, the study results are based on the perceptions of senior officials in only five case study agencies. Interviewing only executive-level respondents may introduce a favorable bias into interpretation of program effectiveness, since these types of respondents may not always have the intimate firsthand knowledge of program workings 'on-the-ground' that a line worker may have. Additionally, interviews conducted by telephone lack nonverbal cues, such as facial expressions and body language, which can provide valuable information (Weiss 1998). Second, because of the necessary usage of qualitative methods, probabilistic parametric statistical techniques cannot be applied. Hence, probability values of any sort cannot be assigned to any conclusions. These limitations should be balanced by the fact that the respondents in this study have broad professional experience with implementing land use plans within their present organizations, and often elsewhere as well.

Conclusions

Implementation is an essential, yet neglected field of planning research. This paper attempts to help fill the current gap in our understanding of the comparative importance of elements used in implementing land use plans. It does so by reporting results from surveys and interviews with senior program personnel regarding their agency's experience with implementing land use plans. One of the key findings of this study is that a collaborative planning process that engages stakeholders in the development and implementation of plans is a requisite for successful implementation.

By designing new regimes for implementing land use plans around these practices, plans may be implemented more quickly with less effort, thus saving resources. Moreover, such a framework could be used to evaluate existing land use implementation efforts, exposing possible shortcornings. Finally, this framework permits an agency, when faced with shrinking budgets and bureaucratic downsizing, to strategically allocate scarce resources, be they time, money, or personnel, among program elements, thereby allowing maximal gains towards overall program goals and objectives. Yet, this focus should not be pursued in such a fashion that the other implementation practices identified by this research are excluded. Instead, the first priority practices should serve as foundational precursors on to which the other practices are layered. Are 1: Definissent of Petris Implementation Practices Implementation Practice Definissent Legislated Mandate Achieving States locations leurs

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