Video games: Tactics in confronting conventional consultation Processes
London’s longest-running planning battle Blossom Street refurbishment was called in a Public Hearing by London Mayor Boris Johnson in the chamber at City Hall on Monday 18 January 2016.
The ‘Blossom Street’ scheme was being designed by AHMM-led team for the North Folgate area on the City fringe, have been heavily criticized by the heritage group who say the 32,550 m² scheme will result in more than 70% of the building stock being torn down.and will include office space, 40 flats and 13 shops as well as around 1,400m² of public space. The development went into planning in 2014.
Tim Whittaker, co-director of the The Spitalfields Historic Buildings Trust claims that the British Land proposal does not make an adequate enough contribution to the pool of jobs and housing for local people. It is aimed at large corporations while offering little to the tech industries and smaller businesses that are so successful in this part of the East End. Oliver Leigh-Wood claims that ‘There’s a fundamental failure of understanding’ It points out that the conventional way of consultation has a big problem through out information transformation and communication.
The Statement of Community Involvement(SCI) is a document that produced by local authorities to explain to the public how they will be involved in the preparation of local development. A key outcome of the SCI will be to encourage ‘front loading’ meaning that consultation with the public begins at the earliest stages of each document’s development so that communities are given the fullest opportunity to participate in plan making and to make a difference. Statement of Community Involvement will be included as part of the Planning Application.
During the preparation of ‘Statement of Community Involvement’, architects and local authorities would hold the consultation event for introducing the design proposal. It usually end up as just a box ticking action rather than achieving a truly effective communication. The conventional way of consultation is more like a one way presentation from local authorities, architects, developer to the public. It is hard to deliver the original value of what SCI sets out ‘the community and other stakeholders can be involved in development plan preparation and in the consideration of planning applications, including pre-application proposals and appeals.’
The consultation was focused on the design of emerging proposals, and was targeted at the immediate residential neighbours and local community groups with a particular interest in the area and the planning and design process. But this process usually happen at the very late stage. If it can happen in the early stage of designing the proposal and let the public involved in the design process through more innovative and accessible way, then the conflicts between public and local authorities can be decreased during the development project.
In addition, the consultation strategy is also one of the issue. Soundings is a London based consultancy, which has long term relationship with local authorities on public and stakeholder consultation for public place making. They coordinate the developers, local authorities, architects, agencies and communities to provide an integrated approach that actively supports complex situation for design and regeneration projects. Soundings communicate through traditional form of exhibition, weekly updates on website, publish on local media or working on several different publication. We want to propose a new way of consultation to lower the threshold to broaden participation.
In the blog LISTENING TO NO END: Regeneration, Consultation and Soundings Ltd At The Elephant noted about the problem of consultation during the Elephant and Castle regeneration:
‘Property developers are increasingly talking about community ‘participation’, ‘inclusion’ and even the ‘grassroots’. Below are a few reflections on the politics of consultation in the context of a ‘regeneration’ scheme that involves the replacement of a social housing estate by a large-scale residential and commercial development in Elephant and Castle, Southwark, London. We hope this brief account will be helpful to other community groups and activists to decide upon their strategies in dealing with ‘consultation’ professionals parachuting into their neighbourhoods. At the very least we hope to kick start a much needed debate amongst local groups on both the difficulties around the re-politicising of such consultations to make their workings truly accountable and the need to maintain a sense of external agency to publicly refuse regeneration schemes that are clearly not beneficial to local people.’
Instead of the conventional way, City Col [lab]’ is trying to propose a new way of collecting public opinion and challenging the traditional sense of consultation through more than just visual communication but the full experience interactive programme with video game and raising the citizen participation. City Col [lab] transforms the complex brief into the simple fun experience.
City Col [lab] is a non-profit social enterprise that collaborates with governmental planning bodies for long-term public space planning of an extensive neighbourhood. We advocate for a higher level of citizen participation and public accessibility in the consultation process of public space design and planning by using video game as a medium for open-source imagination and public consultation.
City Col [lab] is trying to do a creative and innovative ways of approaching place making founded on the belief that the voice of people is central to the co-creation of good design. We believe in the open government concept, the simple but influential idea that governments and institutions work better for citizens when they are transparent, engaging and accountable. Good open government reforms can transform the way government and public services work, ensuring that they are properly responsive to citizens, while improving their efficiency and effectiveness, and preventing abuses of state power.
The decision-making powers would gradually be devolved from central government control to individuals and communities. The Localism Act introduced in 2010 states that the groundbreaking idea of how this value transformed the current hierarchy. However, according to Jules Pipe, mayor of Hackney’s article on Guardian Two years on, what has the Localism Act achieved? the current system still has limitation on public engagement.
City Col [lab]’s aim is to bridge the gap between public and local authorities in public space making process. How are we going to bring two parties together who has different level of professional knowledge on public space making to have a fair platform for discussion? City Col [lab] believes that through video game we can establish a new tool for having the fair, transparent, engaging and accountable platform for conversation. The stage of making at which public participation is introduced has a decisive influence on the impact of participation. In this case we use video game as our medium for introducing the agenda setting, choice of issues, and the initiatives all play important roles affect the quality. We work as the agency to integrate the government body and the public. To bring back the right and power to the people devolution of decision-making powers from central government control to individuals and communities. Creating a more equitable, ethical decision-making system.
References
Elephant and Castle Regeneration
