Public Participation

Malaysian Institute of Planners (MIP) organised a discussion on public participation in planning last Saturday prior to the holding of an Extra Ordinary General Meeting discussing the proposed amendment to the Constitution. A resident was invited to share his experiences and thoughts on public participation in particular their involvement in public objection process. He reckoned that as a lay man, it is very difficult for them to put up their case as professional as it can or supported their claim and experiences with technical data or analysis. As a NGO on voluntary basis, they are also facing with lack of resources and expertise. Thereby, asking them to have professional discourse without too emotional and setimental attached over a proposed development project is always a difficult task. The public at large definitely need some input and help from the professional individual or bodies. It is time for Institute like MIP to provide pro-buno services providing advisory, educating and facilitating role for general public to understand constructive planning so that decision making process can be participatory in nature.

The discussion also brought up interesting scope of public participation. It was argued that what residents are interested at the moment is public objection, objecting to all development projects. Public participation is more than public objection during the planning permission process stage. Stakeholders can be and shall involve themselves during the development plan preparation stage so that their views on future development direction and form can be co-determined. However, this is seldom highlighted and given proper focus. Many time we witnessed cool response from the public in plan exhibition and objection stage. Only when it come to actual development proposal, we saw people come out in full force stated their opinion. This should not be the case in which public representation should be done equally important during the plan preparation and development control stage. I presume people is not doing so during plan preparation stage as while some is handicapped with the technical knowledge, many just simply have apathy (I do not care) attitude. Hence, education and capacity building is important in which I reckoned that MIP can play an important role outreaching the mass. Perhaps local planning authorities should also do more to proactively engaging the people in soliciting their views, small or big and silly or constructive. Effective communication and public relation exercise is definitely order of the day.