Free space policy

Open space policy is a sub-area of environmental policy . The focus is on dealing with spatial decisions and conflicts. Free space policy is concerned with improving the socially desirable functions of free spaces.

As freedom in this context landscapes in the city and considered in the countryside, which are as dealing with "open spaces" gardens, parks, squares and sanctuaries. They fulfill ecological, but also social, cultural or economic functions. This includes functions for recreation, climate protection, species and biotope protection. Because the landscape can be used, built on or plowed, open spaces are constantly exposed to potential danger. For example, pollution is caused by surface sealing through development or traffic emissions. However, too little or incorrect use of land can lead to the “ wasteland ” of landscapes or conflict with goals of open space policy.

Sectors

Open space policy encompasses several policy sectors such as environmental protection policy (nature, soil and water protection policy and green space management) as well as policy areas that represent potential burdens for the space, such as transport or infrastructure policy. The aim of politics is to weigh up the interests of different sectors with one another so that a decision can be made. The aim of the open space policy is to strengthen environmental protection and spatial quality aspects in this weighing process.

Technical plans from various sectors prepare political decisions. Legally binding planning works of the open space policy are the planning works of spatial planning, which consider all spatially relevant sectors cross-sectional. Here, issues of open space policy are assessed and weighted against economic or social interests. As a preliminary stage, for example, landscape planning policy bundles various environmental policy sectors (water, soil, air and the like). This planning coordination of the goals of different political sectors is known as "horizontal integration".

Levels

Free space policy is pursued on different levels:

• The spatial effects of climate change are a topic of open space policy on a global level, such as changes in the appearance and function of landscapes due to rising temperatures, floods or the melting of glaciers.
• In the national context , open space policy deals, for example, with the designation of species protection areas ( FFH areas ) or with the definition of motorway routes. The environmental impact assessment as an instrument of environmental protection is one of the instruments of open space policy.
• At the level of the federal states , open space planning issues are also important. With the state nature conservation laws, rules of open space policy and landscape planning are established .
• The municipalities are responsible for defining specific land uses. In the land use plan and landscape plan , the development plan and green area plan to regulate the use of the landscape. The municipal and urban open space policy primarily relates to open spaces close to apartments such as gardens, playgrounds, squares and parks. However, open space policy also has a regional dimension; agricultural and forest areas also fulfill open space planning functions.

The ideally coordinated treatment of open space planning topics on different planning and decision-making levels is called vertical coordination.

Actors and decision-making rules

Because free space policy decisions are usually controversial, they are made according to democratic rules. Different actors with clearly defined competencies are involved.

In the run-up to political decision-making, parties, citizens' initiatives, associations and citizens are involved. Often with the help of the press, they try to put a topic on the political agenda and gain influence over the decision-makers ( lobbying ). As a rule, decisions on open space policy are prepared by the administration, pre-discussed in the technical committees and environmental committees and finally decided in the federal, state, regional, municipal or city parliaments. The public is informed through the press.

Only in exceptional cases and with great public resonance citizens can hold a substantive issue directly to themselves by a civil or referendum initiated.

The quality of the environment, living and living also depends on the commitment of the citizens (civic commitment). They watch birds, they take care of city trees, they organize their claims in allotment garden colonies, parks or other public and private areas. This commitment is given voluntarily; it cannot be prescribed only by means of favorable conditions.

Plans, projects and the permanent maintenance and use of open spaces

Plans and projects are instruments for the preparation of open space planning decisions. General goals for the future are set out in plans in the medium and long term. Behind this is the claim to weigh up interests in a fundamental way and thus to resolve potential conflict situations in advance.

On a project-specific basis, citizens can be informally involved in the search for ( win-win ) solutions in advance of a decision . Various forms of citizen and interest group participation are available here, which are also used in mixed and combination variants ( planning cell , round tables, focus groups).

The permanent maintenance and care of the built open spaces, but also the repeatedly necessary adaptation of the land use pattern to changing social needs, is a permanent task of the open space policy. In some cases, the use is self-sustaining if products can be generated (for example, the sale of fruit juice can help maintain a meadow orchard). Protection and care measures must, however, be financed predominantly by taxpayers' money or provided through private commitment.

The valorisation of landscape and open spaces should therefore be systematically promoted through activities, events and offers of use. The planning sociologist Wulf Tessin suggested the term “open space culture management” to show that the use of open spaces is part of culture and that gardens, parks and landscapes are part of our cultural heritage.

literature

• Wulf Tessin: Freedom and behavior. Sociological aspects of the use and planning of urban open spaces. An introduction . VS - Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2004, ISBN 3-531-14309-3 .
• Heidi Sinning: Communicative planning: Performance and limits using the example of sustainable open space policy in urban regions . Technical University of Aachen, 2002, urn : nbn: de: hbz: 82-opus-3941 (presented as a dissertation.)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Wulf Tessin: Freedom and behavior. Sociological aspects of the use and planning of urban open spaces. An introduction . Publishing house for social sciences, Wiesbaden 2004