State Secretary Ministry of Environment Mr. Jesper W. Simonsen

Regional and Urban planning in Norway, Challenges and Strategies

July 7th, 1999, Bergen

1. Opening

Ladies and Gentlemen: Welcome to Norway and to Bergen! It’s a pleasure for me to open this 13th congress of the Association of European Schools of Planning. This network and its ambition to foster and enrich higher education in planning across Europe are of great importance to the field of planning and to the development for the society.

2. About Norway and planning challenges

Norway, as many foreign tourists (and even some Norwegians) discover, covers a very large area. The distance from Oslo to the northernmost point, Nordkapp, is roughly the same as the distance from Oslo to Rome. At the same time, we’re a small nation counted in people, less than 5 million, and the population is largely scattered across the country. We also have a very decentralised structure of management. The Planning and Building Act, for example, delegate decisions concerning land-use, to the municipal level. This leaves the local communities with great challenges in terms of co-ordinating planning for the different needs of the public, industry and trade, and at the same time assuming that the national guidelines and over all policies are taken into consideration at the local level. The theme of this congress, “Community based planning and development” is therefore a question of daily concern for Norwegian planners on all levels of government.

3. Special challenges to the planning education in Norway

Our educational structure is also decentralised. We have 38 universities and regional colleges, 12-15 of these are working with planning education. 27 per cent of the young people in Norway (19 to 24 years old) is currently attending to college- or university- level education. The main universities are located in Oslo and the regional “capitals” of Norway, f.ex. here in Bergen. The distribution of education institutions across the country gives us great resources in terms of “human capital” in all regions.

4. The strategy for planning education in the Ministry of the Environment

The modern context of planning leads to the conclusion that we need tools that are flexible enough to cope with the different and changing situations, and enhances participation in the planning process. The tools also need to be able to comply with an increasing need of documentation in the decision-making processes.

The top planning authority is placed in Ministry of the Environment in the department of Regional Planning, Land-use and Geomatic Policy. It is a central part of our strategy to support network between the planning authorities, educational and research institutions and practitioners.

Through this network strategy we want to stimulate:

• reflecting practitioners,
• relevant research of use for practitioners and policy makers,
• education useful for practical planning
• Constructive criticism in planning practice

In respect and understanding of the connection and interdependency between research, education and practice of planning, we want to develop
“the reflecting practitioner”. He or she should have the following competence:

• ability to adapt to changing contexts and address them adequately
• abilities in communicative planning and learning, networking, workshop and participation prosesses..
• ability to grasp and communicate global perspectives.

At the moment we are starting a master-degree education in planning which is process-oriented and based on social sciences. We also have a 30 year old annual planning course called “Samplan” which is a continuing education in planning for professionals. This course is runned by my Ministry of Environment, the Ministry of Local Government and Regional Developmentand the Norwegian Association of Local and Regional Authorities. About 35 planners and a few politicians, from all the levels in the municipal, regional and national planning system participate every year. The course consists of 8 weeks of lectures and discussions and a voluntary final exam.

5. Nature-given planning challenges

Our natural recourses are rich, but vulnerable. For instance, Norway may look rugged and wild, but the area that can be classified as wilderness, is continuously decreasing. This constitutes a serious risk to the biological diversity in our Nordic climate and to the nature-based resources on land and in the sea, which Norway has an obligation to preserve on behalf of the world. Transport and energy questions arising from our scattered population and low average temperatures are also of great concern. Therefore, we’re trying to put emphasis on sustainability and environmental topics in every field of policy.

During the last years the policy has concentrated on five topics of priority:

• protection of agricultural areas,
• the inland river systems,
• the coastline in southern Norway,
• the uninterrupted areas, especially in the mountains

and maybe the most important:

• the connection between land-use and transportation consequences in town-areas and outside.

Our challenge is to combine the European tradition for compact towns with the Norwegian “rural” town-tradition. We try to develop more compact towns without missing the “green structures” for recreation and biological diversity.

The Ministry of Environment has co-operated with research institutions and local town authorities for many years in order to develop “National guidelines” on these topics. It is of course very important that national policy and guidelines are rooted and understood by regional and local authorities.

6. Challenges related to welfare and quality of life

Such “National guidelines” have also been used to assure the rights of children and young people in the planning system. This is a way of continuing the Norwegian Welfare Society that developed in the 1960-ies and –70-ies. In the Norwegian Constitution (Article 110b) the public is given the right to information on the environment.

This right combined with increased common knowledge and education, has increased the public discussions on the situation for children and young people, women and the disabled, about cultural heritage, recreation and sustainability. This has led us to develop public participation in the planning processes as a supplement to the democratic processes through the more formal political system. The Planning and Building act gives the citizens rights to participate, and the Ministry has in the last 20 years encouraged communicative planning through special programmes and local projects. One example her in Bergen is the “Nordnes”- township, which I assume will be explained in more detail in the parallel topic sessions later.

We have also a long tradition in distributing economics resources to local communities trough the regional governments in order to obtain results in areas where the planning instruments alone are not working well enough. Especially to maintain the structure of settlement in the district areas and reduce market-oriented centralism. The building of infrastructure, both in the field of energy and communications, has always been a national challenge. Previously highly respected technological solutions are now challenged – today solutions must consider and give account for the impact they make on the environment.

7. The planning levels and perspectives

The “hinge” of the planning processes, as stated in the Planning and Building Act, is a municipal master plan both for long term and short term development. The long-term part of the plan sets up goals and measures for the sector planning and a land use plan, and the short-term part is a co-ordinated programme for the development of various sectors. This plan is to be revised once every four years. The making and adoption of this plan is the responsibility of the local government, with the necessary public participation and review procedures. There are great challenges concerning the achievement of smoothness and coherence within this planning process and many municipalities find that their administrative capacity in the day- to day reality, to keep the process running, is limited.

The municipalities-borders can be too narrow fore some topics. Regional governments have therefore recently introduced Regional Plans to solve infrastructure-challenges, regional shopping-centre-localisation and land use in the coastal areas. Previously it was up to the local government to decide upon shopping-centers. We realised that this was “the law of the jungle” – and a five year ban on shopping-centers outside towns and cities was introduced in order to get this into the regional planning system. Very often this regional planning takes place in co-operation with and after initiative from local municipalities. The Government is now considering including a stronger land use commitment in the regional plans.

8. Planning dilemmas:

• the local self-government

• national guidelines and

• the practice in national institutions

In Norway, as you have understood, the local governments have a strong role in the planning procedures. The Planning and Building Act states that it is mainly the responsibility of local municipalities to decide upon land use, to secure quality planning and possibilities for development and preservation; based on their local resources, their uniqueness and local participation. But they are also obliged to implement national and regional guidelines and strategies as part of the planning processes. This presents the local governments with challenges in terms of co-ordinating various local needs and creating a sound strategy for the development in the local municipality.

Every year approximately 1500-2000 land-use plans are completed locally. Regional sector authorities have the right to make objections, but only 30-40 of these plans will be sent to the Ministry for final decision because of conflicts in the plan. In half of these plans we agree with the local municipality – this means that only 1% of the plans are “overruled” by the central authorities. I think that proves that it is a fairly common understanding on how to interpret the national guidelines.

In Norway we talk about a crisis in the recruiting to political positions on the municipal level.

The local governments increasingly find themselves in the role of provider and administrator of services to the population. They express a certain frustration regarding the fact that they receive a large amount of instructions and grants addressed to certain uses. They feel, not without reason, that this inhibits the freedom to choose strategies the local politicians.

In this situation it is important to explore the possibilities of simplification and to activate and make more efficient the possibilities of strategic planning that, after all, are available. The Government has therefore launched a program for “Simplifying Norway” . That means less national ruling trough detail-regulations. The Ministry is in this situation naturally concerned with how too promote National Guidelines and at the same time make the planning process less complicated and overruled by central and often sector-dominated interests.

9. Norwegian planning and the European context

Local and regional tasks often includes trying to find a balance between national politics, regional understanding and at the same time adapting to Europe. We are naturally concerned about the international conventions in the environment-aspect. Several of our local and regional governments have therefore made connections to the visions of the ESDP (European Spatial Development Perspectives), to different Inter-Reg-programmes and collaborations with European and Nordic municipalities and regions. I will particularly mention the Barents-co-operation with regional governments in Russia, Finland and Sweden. Norway feels a special responsibility for the Nordic and Arctic areas. Here we have important resources connected to the sea and recreation for all Europeans, security-politics, ethnical minorities and vulnerable arctic nature. There have in this areas developed and under continuous work, planning- and co-operated patterns to handle those regional and interregional challenges. Also principles about the rights to land and resources in the Saami areas are now to be discussed. For the last ten years the saami minority has had its own Parliament. Maybe some of this inter-Nordic experience, including the north of Russia, can become a contribution to the challenges in regional planning and development we can see in others part of Europe the next 10 years.

10. Local Agenda 21

The global challenges and their connection to lots of those subjects I have mentioned, are connected through our national programme for Local Agenda 21. The Norwegian concept “dugnad” has roots going back many centuries in Norway. Dugnad means a collective effort, a work sharing activity where people contribute as volunteers on equal basis. This is the fundament for the Norwegian process for Local Agenda 21. It is based on the assumption that local municipalities have a potential of environmentally sound action that may be released to contribute a more sustainable development. The success criteria are our ability to release this potential.

The Ministry of Environment is responsible for the co-ordinating of the activities on national level. Our strategy is based on four elements:

• Integration of LA21 in the environmental management (closest to home-strategy).
• Work closely with the other ministries to develop their strategies.
• Development and facilitation of “regional cross-roads” and networks to co-ordinate, inspire and assist local initiatives.
• Active use of regional and local work-shops to develop creativity and activity.
• Provide access to information and knowledge about LA 21

LA21 is one of the Rio commitments, but it is not in compliance with the LA21 concept to instruct the local community how to do it. We ant to stimulate and make the framework and be good and reliable partners when local communities come up with solutions.

11. Conclusion

The greatest challenges to government and local municipalities, not only in Norway, but everywhere, lie in the fact that the questions we try to address have a global dimension. Global challenges create a need to exchange ideas across borders, and to try to create an international learning process that makes us able to collectively cope with the awesome tasks ahead. Therefore, a congress like this is of great importance for the field of planning. From the programme of this year’s congress I have seen that the congress is going to address several topics that are in line with the challenges I have touched upon, and what Norway sees as special points of interest. It will be interesting to hear and learn from the contributions and discussions of these topics that will take place in the next days here in Bergen. I hope we all, both guests and hosts, can draw conclusive statements for following up own practices. I wish you all the best for this congress and your work in this important field in the time to come.

Thank you!