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New town planning instruments: participation or governance? The case of Brussels through the ‘Botanique structure plan’

2010; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 25; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/02665431003612966

1466-4518

Ludivine Damay, Florence Delmotte,

Social Sciences and Governance

Abstract This paper presents an analysis of some of the socio‐political stakes riding on the recent implementation of a 'structure plan' (or schéma directeur) for the 'Botanique' area in Brussels. The aim is to build a bridge between the discussions about the new modes of governance and the development of participatory or deliberative democracy, on the one hand, and an empirical study of a public policy that borrows from these categories, on the other hand. The innovative practices that characterise the 'structure plan' are often labelled 'participatory'. In this text, we intend to determine to what extent they participate more in a new type of urban governance without truly helping to enhance the people's involvement. Keywords: town planningBrusselscitizen participationgovernancedemocracy Notes 1. For a complete and comprehensive view on Brussels' planning history in social aspects, see Thierry Demey, Bruxelles. Chronique d'une capitale en chantier. Tome 1: Du voÛtement de la Senne à la jonction Nord‐Midi (Bruxelles: CFC‐Éditions/Paul Legrain, 1990); Demey, Tome 2: De l'Expo '58 au siège de la CEE (Bruxelles: Paul Legrain, 1992); Christian Dessouroux et le CIRHI‐BRU, eds., Espaces partagés, espaces disputés. Bruxelles: une capitale et ses habitant (Bruxelles: Administration de l'Aménagement du Territoire et du Logement de la Région de Bruxelles‐Capitale, 2008). 2. For a broader presentation of the case itself, see Florence Delmotte and Michel Hubert, eds, La Cité administrative de l'État: Schémas directeurs et action publique à Bruxelles, Les Cahiers de La Cambre Architecture n°8, (Bruxelles: La Lettre volée, 2009). 3. Plan Régional de Développement (Région de Bruxelles‐Capitale, 2002), 1st priority. 4. Charles Picqué, President‐Minister of the Brussels‐Capital Region; Press conference on 17 October 2006. 5. As Bertrand Pâques, Aménagement du territoire: Planification (Bruxelles: Facultés universitaires Saint‐Louis, 2005: 7sq.), points out, the notion of a 'schéma' (plan or outline 'with an indicative value') arose in the 1980s, as part of a set of initiatives that were launched first by the local authorities, and was opposed to the notion of a 'plan' (with 'regulatory' value). The schéma was supposed to correct certain flaws inherent in 'plans' per se, especially their lack of flexibility and thus their increasingly clear inability to allow for the changing nature of contemporary town planning and regional planning and development (or 'spatial planning'). The various schémas or other schémas directeurs ('structure plans') have thus been considered for the past score of years to be 'second‐generation plans' that are rooted in 'operational or active planning' and reveal the importance of the 'political' dimension, especially because they often concern not only 'regional planning and development per se' but also 'venture into fields specific to the economy, social affairs, and the environment'. 6. See Maurizio Cohen and Marie‐Françoise Plissart, [Agrave] Bruxelles, près de chez nous: L'architecture dans les contrats de quartier (Bruxelles: Ministère de la Région de Bruxelles‐Capitale, 2007). 7. See http://www.atelierslion.com; http://www.ecologie.gouv.fr/Yves-LION-Grand-Prix-de-l.html. 8. See Ateliers Lion Architectes Urbanistes and MSA, Schéma Directeur Zone Levier n°6 Botanique, November 2006, which can be consulted at http://www.cae-rac.be/. 9. Ateliers Lion Architectes Urbanistes and MSA, Schéma Directeur Zone Levier n°6 Botanique, 5sq. 10. Schéma Directeur Zone Levier n°6 Botanique, 7. 11. Schéma Directeur Zone Levier n°6 Botanique, 7. 12. Here we found our position on the interview (Brussels, autumn 2006) of Benoit Moritz, from MSA, and the speech he gave at 'La Cambre', School of Architecture (Brussels, March 2007). At this occasion, he spoke more precisely about the three 'phases' that marked the recent history of Brussels town planning: first that of 'technocratic' town planning, then that of 'consultative' town planning and finally that of 'participatory' town planning. In the last one, the idea is not just to 'inform' and 'consult' but to deliberate and even to 'co‐produce' things with all of the parties involved. That intuition was systematised as the notion of the 'second turning point' in reference to the (first) turning point discerned by Jacques Aron, Le tournant de l'urbanisme bruxellois. 1958–1978 (Brussels: Fondation Joseph Jacquemotte, 1978). 13. Avis de marché No. 8400, Ministère de la Région de Bruxelles‐Capitale, Bulletin des adjudications (24 June 2005), 8342–6. 14. Ministère de la Région de Bruxelles‐Capitale, Administration de l'aménagement du territoire et du logement, Cahier spécial des charges relatif à l'élaboration du schéma directeur de la zone levier n° 6 'Botanique'. 15. Michel Delnoy, 'Définition, notion de base, raison d'être et sources juridiques des procédures de participation du public', in La participation du public au processus de décision en matière d'environnement et d'urbanisme, ed. Benoit Jadot (Brussels: Bruylant, 2005), 7–28. 16. This notion refers in Belgium to multipartite information, dialogue and deliberation aimed at achieving a common position or 'compromis'. 17. See, for example, one of Loïc Blondiaux's articles denouncing this cynical position, for example, Blondiaux, 'Prendre au sérieux l'idéal délibératif: un programme de recherche', Revue suisse de science politique 10, no. 4 (2004): 158–69. 18. Jacques Donzelot and Renaud Epstein, 'Démocratie et participation: l'exemple de la rénovation urbaine', Esprit no. 326 (July 2006): 5–34. 19. Sherry Arnstein, 'A ladder of citizen participation', Journal of American Institute of Planners 35, no. 4 (1969): 216–24. 20. Donzelot and Epstein, 'Démocratie et participation', 7. 21. Kathrin Braun and Suzanne Schultz, 'Pure publics and embodied expertise. Participatory governance arrangements in the area of human genetics' (paper presented at the ECPR General Conference, Pisa, September 2007). 22. Frank Fischer, 'Citizen Deliberation and the Problem of Expertise: Resituating Knowledge in Practical Reason', in La situation délibérative dans le débat public, vol. 1., ed. Bernard Castagna, Sylvain Gallais, Pascal Ricaud and Jean‐Philippe Roy (Tours: Presses Universitaires François‐Rabelais, 2004), 87. 23. John Stuart Mill and Carole Pateman are usually considered to be the main classical political thinkers representing this school. 24. Jon Elster, 'The market and the forum: Three varieties of political theories', in Deliberative Democracy: Essays on Reason and Politics, ed. James Bohman and William Regh (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1997), 3. 25. Loïc Blondiaux and Yves Sintomer, 'L'impératif délibératif', Politix 57 (2002): 17–35. 26. Alban Bouvier, 'Démocratie délibérative, démocratie débattante, démocratie participative', Revue européenne des sciences sociales XLV, no. 136 (2007): 5. 27. Joshua Cohen quoted in Jürgen Habermas, Droit et démocratie, Entre faits et normes (Paris: Gallimard, 1997), 330 [Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy, Cambridge: Polity Press, 1996]. 28. Bouvier 'Démocratie délibérative', 5–34. 29. See Olivier Paye, 'La gouvernance: d'une notion polysémique à un concept politologique', Études internationales XXXVI, no. 1 (March 2005): 13–40. 30. See Corinne Gobin, 'Gouvernance', in Les nouveaux mots du pouvoir: Abécédaire critique, ed. Patrice Durand (Bruxelles: Aden, 2007), 262–7. 31. Claudette Lafaye, 'Gouvernance et démocratie: quelles reconfigurations?', in La démocratie à l'épreuve de la gouvernance, ed. Caroline Andrew and Linda Cardinal (Ottawa: Presses de l'Université d'Ottawa, 2001), 57–86. For more on this subject, see as well Yannis Papadoulos, 'Is "Governance" a Form of "Deliberative Democracy"?' (ECPR Joint Session of Workshops, Turin, March 22–27, 2002) and Yannis Papadopoulos and Philippe Warin, 'Are Innovative, Participatory and Deliberative Procedures in Policy Making Democratic and Effective?', European Journal of Political Research 46, no. 4 (2007): 445–72. 32. Loïc Blondiaux, 'La délibération, norme de l'action publique contemporaine?', Projet, no. 268 (winter 2001–2002): 86. 33. Blondiaux and Sintomer, 'L'impératif délibératif', 29. 34. On the distinction between deliberations stricto sensu and informal processes of building public opinion, see Habermas, Droit et démocratie, 332. 35. Marcus Andre Melo and Gianpaolo Baiocchi, 'Deliberative Democracy and Local Governance: Towards a New Agenda', International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 30, no. 3 (September 2006): 590. 36. See, for example, the issue of Politix on participatory schemes: Dispositifs participatifs, Politix 19, no. 75 (2006). 37. It sets a good example of a recurrent theme of town planning in Brussels: the request of building housing in compensation for office floor spaces. In the case of the CAE, 35% of housing are, moreover, compulsory because the Plan régional d'affectation du sol (PRAS, Regional Soil Use Plan, which has a regulatory value) had defined the CAE complex as a 'regional interest area' (zone d'intérêt regional or 'ZIR') before the site was embodied in the leverage area Botanique defined by the regional development plan (which has a more programmatic and indicative value). 38. This is not an isolated example. Other 'commissions de concertation' concerning the renovation of the CAE have been held since September 2007. They concerned other buildings ('D' and 'F'). Here, too, the town planning permit applications were submitted in 2006, that is, close to three years after the buildings changed hands. 39. The structure plan was indeed consolidated in the form of a regional government decree in June 2007. However, it must be followed up by a PPAS (Plan particulier d'affectation du Sol or Special Soil Use Plan) that the City of Brussels must draw up in order to make the structure plan's proposals binding. The problem lies in the telescoping of procedures (the structure plan and PPAS on the one hand and permit applications on the other hand) with different time frames: the applications were submitted before the structure plan was finalised, their review phases are shorter than the time required to develop a PPAS and so on. 40. The prospective and political nature of such a tool also raises questions as to its scope. For example, does it apply to private individuals? This question is not as theoretical as it may be seen. In Flanders, the law identifies the legal subjects to which the compulsory parts of the plans apply (Pâques, Aménagement du territoire). 41. Administration de l'Aménagement du territoire et du logement, Rapport annuel 2006, http://www.bruxelles.irisnet.be/fr/region/region_de_bruxelles-capitale/ministere_de_la_region_de_bruxelles_capitale/competences_et_organisation/amenagement_du_territoire_et_logement.shtml (accessed February 12, 2010). 42. Charles‐Albert Morand, Le droit néo‐moderne des politiques publiques (Paris: LGDJ, 1999), 189. 43. Ibid, 16. 44. Yannis Papadopoulos, 'Cooperative Forms of Governance: Problems of Democratic Accountability in Complex Environnements', European Journal of Political Research, 42 (2003): 473–501. 45. See, for example, Liesbet Hooghe and Gary Marks, Multi‐Level Governance and European Integration (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2001). 46. According to the classic definition of the term 'neocorporatist' that can be found in, for example, Philippe Schmitter and Gerhard Lehmbruch, eds., Trends Toward Corporatist Intermediation (London: Sage, 1979). 47. Archon Fung and Erik Olin Wright, 'Le contre‐pouvoir dans la démocratie participative et deliberative', in Gestion de proximité et démocratie participative. Une perspective comparative, ed. Marie‐Hélène Bacqué, Henry Rey and Yves Sintomer (Paris: La Découverte, 2005), 49–80. 48. The various collectives that mobilised in favour of the site in 2003–2004, motivated by the extra‐local interests that the CAE represented (its architecture, its location, etc.), headed for other battles after the owners refused their requests to occupy the premises. The trust that these collectives had in MSA (the urban planning agency in charge) and BRAL (the association organising the participation), which were close to them, may also explain their demobilisation.