Participation server
On participation servers , electronic possibilities for public participation and the involvement of public bodies in planning procedures ( land-use plan procedure , street planning , etc.) are opened up. As a rule, these are content management systems that are offered to the public planning authorities by private service providers.
The legal safeguarding of electronic participation procedures took place through the European Law Adaptation Act in 2004. This act inserted Section 4a into the Building Code (BauGB). There it says in paragraph 4 among other things: “In the case of public and authority participation, electronic information technologies can also be used. Insofar as the municipality posts the draft of the master plan and the reasons for it on the Internet, the statements of the authorities and other public bodies can be obtained by notifying the location and duration of the public display in accordance with Section 3 (2) and the Internet address; the notification can be made via electronic communication, provided that the recipient has given access for this. "
The electronic options make it easier for those interested to find out more about planning and to actively participate in planning processes . Because of the often very extensive planning documents, the municipalities have so far not been able to make copies of these documents available to the public for private use due to the high expenditure. The legally binding plans as well as the associated justifications , expert opinions and textual stipulations can now be downloaded from the Internet in generally accessible data formats ( pdf, etc.) and the opportunity is given to comment on ongoing plans directly by e-mail.
The participation servers can generally be reached via a link on the homepage of the respective municipality.
Further internet solutions offer the visualization of all planning material (maps, texts, illustrations, tables, photos etc.) on the internet without downloading, e.g. B. with the help of the map server technology. In most cases, those involved are given the opportunity to enter their comments on the procedure in text and graphic form directly into an access-protected database and then activate them for the developer or the municipality. This avoids communication by e-mail, which is increasingly susceptible to interference due to the restrictively set spam and virus filters. A major advantage of this type of online participation is that it is no longer necessary to enter texts more than once (first by the participant, then by post, and finally by the developer). In addition, the creation of graphic objections based on the original map material is of great importance for the comprehensibility and clarity of statements.
In addition to the easier public access to planning information, the time and cost savings are an essential argument for the use of participation servers. For example, 30 to 50 different “public bodies” often have to be involved at least twice in urban land use planning. Each entity involved receives up to ten copies of the planning documents, some of which have to be copied using large copiers. Access to these documents via the Internet, on the other hand, does not usually cause any further financial expenses for the public authorities, but only the costs for web hosting. In the case of regional planning or planning approval procedures for large infrastructure measures (e.g. motorway or airport expansion), the planning documents are even more extensive: 20-30 DIN A4 files are not uncommon for each copy. The repro costs alone are in the six-digit euro range.