Principles of spatial planning- There are four spatial principles, which are central to creating positive settlements

Principles and methods in spatial
planning
Year 2: Geography 2017-2018
Dr. Ange Felix NSANZIYERA (PhD GIS & Remote Sensing)

1. Planning should be positive, setting out a clear vision for how
areas should look and function in long-term.
 Spatial planning is far more than controlling development through a
regulatory process – although this is essential to give it real basis in
managing land use change.
 Considering what development that people need, being visionary about
the type of places that people want to live and work in, and mindful of
long-term needs of future generations.
 Statutory plans have a crucial role: looking forward 10 or 20 years, or
even longer, and considering many and varied needs of local
communities.
 Large-scale individual projects can also make a significant difference to
quality of places (with biodiversity and green infrastructure)
Ir. Emmanuel NYANDWI Introduction to Spatial planning
Guiding Principles of Spatial Planning

2. Spatial plans should integrate all social, economic and
environmental issues affecting development and use of land
within a specific territorial area.
 The work of government is carried out on a sectoral basis, with different
departments for business, housing, health, education, and environment
and so on.
 Spatial planning, which can be at national, strategic or local level,
provides an opportunity:
 to integrate all the issues that affect the development and use of
land within a specific territorial area; and
 to resolve competing/conflicting uses of limited space and resources.
Guiding Principles of Spatial Planning…

3. Spatial plans should consider the strategic issues that may
affect a wider area than individual plan, including functional
ecological areas:
 Administrative boundaries rarely correspond precisely to real
geography. This is especially true for natural environment.
 Functional ecological areas may be based on estuaries, river
catchments or semi-natural habitats such as highlands or forest.
 This principle is particularly important for spatial plans prepared by
local planning authorities where there is no higher level of spatial
planning, as functional ecological areas often cross many local
authority boundaries.

4. Spatial plans should contribute to sustainable development by
ensuring that social and economic development takes place
within the environmental limits.
 Guiding principles of sustainable development are defined as: living
within the planet’s environmental limits and ensuring a strong, healthy
and just society, underpinned by a sustainable economy, good
governance and responsible use of sound science.
 For many spatial planning systems, achieving sustainable development is
the central purpose, and spatial plans play a key role.
 A healthy natural environment is fundamental to sustainable
development. Given the scale of biodiversity loss and the degradation of
ecosystem services, spatial plans need to protect and enhance what we
have where is possible.

5. Plans and projects should be based on up-to-date and
scientifically robust evidence
 Spatial planning is both an art and a science. The preparation of both
spatial plans and projects should be based on sound evidence tested
through some form of examination or investigation process.
 Evidence will be drawn from a variety of sources, but in the case of the
natural environment, it is important that it is scientifically robust and
credible.
 It must be up-to-date, methodologically sound, and based on
professional expertise.

6. Plans and projects should be carefully assessed for their
environmental impacts, and their results used to improve the
plan.
 Many spatial plans are proposed to achieve economic and social
objectives, such as the need for new housing, businesses, shops, roads
and other infrastructure.
 They need to be assessed carefully for their environmental impacts. Not
simply to inform decision-maker or to tick a box, but to improve the plan
so that it is more sustainable.
 This is true for spatial plans with an environmental objectives (reducing
flood risk) as they may negatively impact on other aspects of natural
environment.

7. Alternative options should be considered, particularly those
that are less damaging to environment, and reasons for
rejecting any options should be made public.
 Considering alternative options is an integral part of the planning
process, particularly in strategic planning when a wide range of options
is available.
 These include a range of development and spatial scenarios for the plan
area.
 The challenge for spatial planners is to rationally consider a wide range
of realistic alternatives that put the society on a more sustainable way.

 The mitigation hierarchy of:
 avoiding environmental harmful activities,
 mitigating for any adverse impacts, and
 Compensating for residual impacts,
 Seeking for environmental enhancement where possible
 Considering alternative options that are less damaging to
environment is relevant to all these steps, as options can be
strategic or more detailed.
Guiding Principles of Spatial Planning (7)…

8. Public participation is essential and should be both timely and
inclusive of civil society, whether community groups or other
stakeholders.
 Public participation in planning process is a long-established feature of
spatial planning systems.
 Legislation provides many opportunities for the public to be involved
in both plan making and decision-taking.
 There are close links with the democratic decision-making process.

9. Decision-making must be transparent and made by a
democratically accountable body or person.
 Planning raises many issues, which can make decision-making more
complex, at both the national and local level.
 Transparent and democratically accountable decision-making is
fundamental to ensuring that interests of the environment are
properly taken into consideration in the planning system.
 Spatial planning decisions have significant consequences for
landowners, developers, communities and frequently for the
environment.

 Thus, adversely affected by a planning decision should have an
opportunity to challenge it.
 It is crucial that when poor decisions are made, there is an opportunity
to put them right.
 Planning systems therefore allow for developers to appeal on the merits
of the case against a refusal of planning permission, usually to an
independent body such as the Planning Inspectorate.
 Appeal systems allow for third party views to be taken into account,
although there is no opportunity for third parties to challenge decisions
directly.
Guiding Principles of Spatial Planning 9…

 The planning appeal process should deal with the vast majority of cases
satisfactorily,
 but environmental justice may in some cases require legal redress for
affected individuals and communities.
 The judicial review of planning decisions should be restricted to points
of law rather than planning merits of the case, and can be prohibitively
expensive.

10. Public authorities should be given the legal powers and
resources to enforce planning laws, especially where illegal
development is resulting in environmental damage.
 Enforcement of planning law is a matter of last resort, but it is essential
to strengthen the planning system.
 Likewise, public authorities (local planning authority) need to have
resources to carry out effective enforcement of planning laws and
regulations.

11. Plans should be regularly monitored and reviewed
 Planning is not a one-off activity of preparing a plan.
 It is a continuous cycle from collecting evidence and drafting the plan
to adopting it, monitoring its implementation and reviewing the plan
in the light of changing situations.
 Good planning process should have the monitoring and review phases
as an integral parts of spatial plan-making:
 including monitoring across a full range of indicators: economic,
social and environmental outcomes.

1. Respect and plan around the physical characteristics of the
land.
• Slope,
• Soil types,
• Rare geological or
• Vegetation.
2. Consider the capacity and characteristics of the transportation
system
• Transportation is the second most, after spatial configuration of land,
important determinant for land use.
• Heavy traffic generators should be placed on the larger capacity streets.
• Major shopping and other traffic generating uses should be placed at
major intersections so there is access from two high-capacity streets.
Methods of Spatial Planning

3. Recognise existing land uses and growth centres
• First Law of Geography (Waldo Tobler 1970): "everything is related
to everything else, but near things are more related than distant
things.
• Proximity principle in predicting land use pattern
• Spatial planners are encouraged to recognise and designate the
existing downtown and any other major shopping or activity
centres, and then plan to allow auxiliary services to group near
them.

4. Spatial efficiency/Optimum density
• Discovering ways to make increased housing density and
commercial intensity acceptable as land use planning principles in
your community is a very important project.
• The density of the housing allowed also should relate to the
capacity of the transportation system and physical characteristics of
the land.
• This importance stems both from the need to avoid suburban
sprawl and the desire to keep your community's carbon
footprint small by limiting car dependency

5. Making land use transitions gradual
• Nearby uses have to be compatible.
• As spatial planner you should not place heaviest industry by
residential core zone.
• Residential should give way to neighbourhood-scale retail, then to
more intense retail and light industry.
• Heavy industry, sanitary landfills, and visually unappealing uses
deserve some well-considered transitions from your most desirable
real estate.

6. Mixed-use development
• Try to respect the historic pattern of smaller communities that are
naturals at mixed-use.
8. Transit-oriented development
• Allow for intense future land use around future or current fixed
transportation stations.

9. Consider appropriate scale (right-size) in land use.
• As spatial planner you should not plan for the development of 300
new modern home on the edge of a neighbourhood of 350 historic
homes since it will forever change the character of the historic
area.
• In other cases, this principle will mean aggressively mapping for
additions to current land uses that you have in undesirably small
quantities.
• Also avoid out of scale developments, like where structures are
too big or too small in relation to the surrounding ones. E.g. Some
area surmounted by an enormous structure, utterly out of scale with
the houses.

10. Use population data as tool for adaptation spatial planning
• Population dynamics should give you important clues about future
land use and development.
• Are population, number of jobs, and property values increasing?
• Is the population composition changing in any way, due to
immigration, aging in place, or lack of in-migration of people from
other cities?
• Are major employers leaving or arriving?

11. Think of agricultural land uses value to future generations
and in case of national emergency threatening the integrity of
the food supply.
• To convert agricultural land use to residential and other urbanized
land uses, make sure that population increases justify this
conversion; Otherwise, do not plan conversion to urban uses.
• Apply containment boundary as way to send the signal that this
marks the end of the urban development, and future expansions
should fit within that boundary.
• Consider establishing open space buffers or greenbelts at the
periphery of your town as urban sprawl solutions.

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