SUMMARY ․ 105
SUMMARY
Introducing and Operating Community Boards to Ensure Citizen Participation in Urban Planning
Lee Daye, Choi Jeongyoon, Kim Joongeun, Seo Hyeongju
Key words: Urban Planning, Citizen Participation, Community Boards
The purpose of this study was to review the feasibility of introducing community boards—organizations representing residents related to urban planning—and to come up with measures to resolve the limitations of the resident participation system for urban planning, in order to realize citizen participation in the development of urban plans. The community board proposed herein is an organization representing residents within a specific spatial range. These organizations allow citizens to participate in matters related to urban planning and put forth opinions on major urban planning and policy matters.
In this study, implications for introducing and operating community boards were derived through an analysis of similar cases found in domestic and foreign residents' organizations. First, in the case of the New York City Community Board in the United States, residents are legally authorized to participate and exert their influence in the ULURP(Uniform Land Use Review Procedure). The
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Super Neighborhood Council in Houston has securely established citizen participation by supporting the creation of SNAPs(Super Neighborhood Action Plans) and CIPs(Capital Improvement Programs).
Next, Suwon City in South Korea runs an urban policy citizen group to conduct roundtable discussions on major urban policy issues and reflect the outcomes in actual measures. The Sejong City Residents' Association has established and implemented village-level plans and recently expanded its role through its participation in urban planning process. Grounded on a clear legal basis and an operating system, these groups have provided residents with the opportunity and authority to participate in the decision-making process, and have transformed residents from targets of a plan to its actors.
This study put forth a plan to introduce and operate community boards based on the findings of previous studies on the ways to improve the urban planning resident participation scheme and the implications derived from case analyses.
First, three basic directions for introducing and operating community boards are put in place: endowing authority, expanding participation, and sharing information. Each local government can autonomously introduce and operate community boards in accordance with these basic directions, with it being desirable for the governments to prepare their own guidelines and ordinances for more effective operation. The spatial unit in which community boards are introduced can be adjusted according to local conditions such as eup, myeon, dong, or autonomous districts and si/gun levels, and it is also possible to expand the roles of existing resident organizations in the region, without establishing new ones. The size of the organization is appropriate at about 20 to 50 people. Further, when selecting members, representativeness should be ensured in the consideration of gender, age, occupation, region, and so forth.
SUMMARY ․ 107 Next, the main roles of the community board should be participation in urban planning, presenting opinions on major urban planning issues, and providing local residents with urban planning information and collecting opinions. It is of paramount importance to regularly hold meetings and public hearings, as well as encourage the participation of ordinary citizens, in order for the community board to perform its roles effectively.
It is anticipated that it will be difficult for the community board system to be fully implemented in South Korea within a short period of time, given that it is an unfamiliar system and that Korea's grassroots participation culture has not matured. Thus, a step-by-step approach is needed to ensure that local governments introduce community boards on a trial basis first, and mandate a review of the boards in urban planning decisions and licensing procedures in the mid- to long term. If possible, the process of further refining the system should be initiated through a review of its operability and effectiveness in areas of actual implementation in the years to come.
