How accurate are these two statements about planners?

[OfficialPlanner]

Please keep this anonymous to protect the innocent. Out of curiosity, how accurate are these two statements below?

Good planners make elected officials think the planners ideas are actually their own.

The fact that development standards have or are in the process of dramatically changing in many places around the country illustrates what kind of power planners have. It's not direct and not always easy to see, but well, that's kind of the point.

Their power is behind the scenes and can be missed if you don't know what to look for. If you want another analogy, pretend there's an election coming up. Think of planners as if they're the media and elected officials are the voting public. Fox news doesn't determine the election, but they most certainly influence how the voters who watch think.

Again, the continuing success of New Urbanism and Smart Growth is testament to the power of planners. Most communities are against NU and SG at first. The general public doesn’t like them because they think density and narrow streets are bad. Developers don’t like them because it changes the status quo (the development industry is ridiculously conservative). Elected officials don’t like them because few of their constituents do. Someone is changing minds about NU and SG somewhere along the process. Who could it be?

While I was lurking the forums, I came across this coment by Planner B.

My approach is to maintain as much objectivity and neutrality as possible. Let the debate get played out in public discussions among the citizens, rather than between staff and citizens. Make yourself available to all parties. Listen more than you speak. Ask more questions than present answers. Explore ideas with people. Show that you understand their perspective. If people see you as open-minded, concerned, and sympathetic, they will typically respect you regardless of which decision gets made.

We are not hired to make the decisions, but to provide advices. As I see it, this could mean putting together a matrix of the potential outcomes of different decisions. Lay out the good and bad in a side-by-side comparison of different choices, and facilitate the discussion rather than come out advocating a position.

I just though these two statements seemed very interesting. Is there any opinions on Planner A or Planner B's comments?

[Chet]

I actually think both are fairly accurate statements, especialy this part:

Make yourself available to all parties. Listen more than you speak. Ask more questions than present answers. Explore ideas with people. Show that you understand their perspective. If people see you as open-minded, concerned, and sympathetic, they will typically respect you regardless of which decision gets made.

[abrowne]

It seems that citizens are slowly convinced of many things... not just urban planning concepts. Hardly limited to our field. Remember when the idea of a phone on a camera was idiotic and not necessary? I still loathe the idea. Tax increases, changes in procedure... all are usually brought through with persistent whispering.

[brian_w]

I must say I agree with Planner B on this one. And maybe that is based on my current situation. We (my fellow planners) find ourselves several time making an informed, professional planning decision only to be shot down by the elected officials. I don't blame the elected officials for doing so because I know that they have to answer to their constiuents just like I have to answer to the elected officials. Its just the way it works.

But I agree about the statement of listen more than you talk. We are trained to look at all viewpoints and offer our best professional opinions on a topic, but those that get elected have to make the decisions. I compare it to an assistant coach on a football team, they may make a certain call, but ultimately its the head coach that influences the team.

[Cardinal]

Planner B is obviously a genious! I could not have said it better if those were my own words. The other guy is pretty much on target too,

[gerblunk]

I agree with Planner B. You don't work for the Congress of New Urbanism, you work for the people of the community you were hired to serve. They didn't elect you to make decisions. They hired you to help their elected leaders make decisions.

[boiker]

to quote the simpsons..."so you want a realistic, down to earth show that is completely off the wall and swarming with magic robots?"

Sometimes, it feels that way in planning too. You want to encourage responsible design based upon current theory and practice, but you also need to cater to local preferences and community plans.

[permaplanjuneau]

I agree with both A and B, and this is not a case of multiple personalities fighting in my brain.

When it comes to reviewing a project for which we have an application in front of us, planners (and here we're talking planners in regulatory agencies, not planners in private practice as consultants or agents) must review the project in light of adopted codes and regulations--in this we are facilitators and here to "provide advices" as Planner B put it.

However, we are also (occasionally) in a position to draft changes to the codes and regulations that we enforce. The municipality I work for is currently working on a large-scale (but not comprehensive) re-write of our Land Use Code, into which we are working everything from increased setbacks from salmon streams to new provisions for cluster subdivisions and cottage developments--effectively creating entirely new development opportunities that do not currently exist in the Borough.

In this case, we are shaping what even makes it to the table for public discussion--not because the Assembly or Planning Commission asked for new types of subdivisions, but because the planners think that it is important to provide these opportunities to developers. This is along the lines of what Planner A was getting at--regardless of the political climate, regulatory staff can (in some cases, at least) put certain things before the elected officials for consideration while stonewalling (or at least not acting on) other items that staff does not support.

This also gets into the realm of "death by conditions," where a BAD project that can't be denied outright can have so many conditions placed on it that the developer doesn't have the option of continuing with the project--as long as staff can back up the conditions with code, the Planning Commission will either have to make different (legally defensible) findings in order to not adopt the conditions suggested by staff, or they will just have to deny the project outright if the developer refuses the conditions. Of course, every regulatory body and every geographic area have different regulations, so it won't work like this everywhere...and it doesn't always work anywhere.

In any case, the fact of the matter is that (as they taught (me) in planner school) planners "wear many hats." We are sometimes regulators, sometimes proponents, sometimes operate in a quasi-judicial role, and sometimes paper-pushers. It's one of the great things about this line of work--every project is different, and our role in each project is similarly diverse.