This legislation finds its application and relevance in the new planning approach: the integrated development planning approach. The new planning paradigm differs from conventional planning in the sense that it is based on strategic decision-making and development.
ORIENTATION TO THE CASE STUDY
Chapter four covers two essential elements of the case study planning processes and procedures. The first element is the description of the local development planning for the Outer West Operational Entity.
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
CRITERIA FOR A DEMOCRATIC PLAN
Judgments were legitimately made by the planners in the context of socially accepted rules governing power relations. In the second phase of the Local Development Plan, in the Kwaximba workshop, the planner was very careful not to confuse the participants. This was evident in the construction of the vision for the area where the local population seemed lost.
One would have expected the planner to show more credibility, more sincerity about the fact that the entire document was written in the target language and that there was no translated version of the document. In the presentation of the spatial framework, the planner did not misinform and manipulate the information in the planning process, which could lead to distortions. This was an example that proved that the planning team fulfilled all the communication conditions of the planning exercise.
The planner stated that both the main road and intermediate road scenarios could not happen in the short term. In the Kwaximba workshop, most of the participants were men and therefore they had more power to make decisions during debates in the workshops. In the Monteseel workshop there was a power struggle between the various cultural groups present.
FORMS OF KNOWLEDGE
The dominant group at the Monteseel workshop wanted to block the development because they felt they were being robbed of their finances. Unicity was perceived as a development undertaking in the area at the expense of those who had previously contributed to the area's rates. In terms of power relations, in the second phase, the participants (both male and female) seemed to have the same power and participated equally in the discussion.
This can be attributed to the fact that community leaders who sit in development committees, development forums, executive councils and are familiar with procedures, formalities were present at the meeting. Harbemas' categories of rational-technical, moral-practical and aesthetic-expressive forms of knowledge were represented at the workshops. The most obvious forms of knowledge in these conversations are moral-practical: what was the right thing to do in certain circumstances.
It also assumes that individual stakeholders have the necessary skills to facilitate effective participation in discourse, although it goes without saying that debating and interpersonal skills vary from individual to individual. Participants in the second phase of the local development plan were not ready to participate and discuss due to limited knowledge and understanding of the process and technical jargon in the discussion. Some of them did not have the necessary skills and competences to involve planners and other participants in the discussion.
THE PLANNING WORKSHOPS
In terms of imagery and vocabulary, he was unlikely to differ from other participants in the non-native language group.
CONSENSUS BUILDING
There were many roles that counselors had to play simultaneously, depending on the context. They had to act as synthesizers of multi-sector interests and provide a strategic overview of the entire process. The reluctance of some participants to 'have their say' was one of the reasons for the failure of the consensus planning initiative.
The most important element in the failure of the consensus planning model was power relations. A recurring theme of communicative rationalist theory is the denial of a central or expert role for the planner in the arena of discourse, as the planner is believed to be tainted by the political power and trappings of the administrative elite. In general, the planner's role in these episodes was to act as a facilitator, coordinator, and resolve conflicts.
The work of planners takes place in conditions of increasing cultural diversity, so planners did not naively think that they could represent the interests of the public. Second, they argue that it is possible to minimize these distortions and thereby facilitate mutual assessment of the rationality of the participants' positions in communication over planning. In order to fully assess whether these are plausible in planning practice, the research assessed how planners in the LDP of an external Western operating entity approached the issue of reducing communication breakdowns and then identified, evaluated, listened and sought ways of translating. the wishes of predominantly disadvantaged communities into practical issues and planning policies.
THE ARENA OF THE DISCUSSION
According to Tewdwr-Jones and Thomas (1998), communicative planning theorists have argued for two main conclusions. I have also used Healey's useful list of questions or what Tewdwr-Jones and Thomas call 'dimensions' which Healey advances in order to be 'rationally communicative'. Healey claims that as public participation begins, individuals have a moral obligation to consider ('comprehensive ethics') who the members of the political community are, how they should access the arena to enable their views to be heard, and are evaluated. and whether they will be allowed to have a stake in the participatory process.
The second practical point is that the physical arena, within which inclusive discourse must take place, must not be fixed in one place or indeed "biased" in favor of the local authority. Planners within the local authority (consultants) recognized the need for communities to be seen to participate in the planning process without the institutional barriers that usually accompany local planning policy making. There was a crack in the power relations process or institutional structure within the Durban city council as the commissioned planners had no support from the resident planner - only the support of the politicians serving on the development committee.
The 'inclusive ethic' encouraged the planners to aim to be both spatially (geographically) representative and community (town) representative in deciding on a list of public meetings. The 'where' issue was dealt with simultaneously by ensuring that the open debates would take place in the heart of each community and away from local authority headquarters. Many of the remote communities in the Outer West are poorly served by public transport and the planners were reluctant to organize meetings away from the more populated hamlets for fear of creating an exclusionary ethos of meetings consisting exclusively of car owners.
THE STYLE OF THE DISCUSSION
The conversation was that of adversarial meetings as the planner was given the role of facilitator/authority who had to ensure formal fairness in terms of access to the debate, ensure language moderation - to ensure that the language was appropriate for meetings and designed to develop mutual understanding and cooperation within a community. These meetings invariably gave people an opportunity to discuss and listen; Discussants brought with them vocabularies and expressions that reflected their social standing, their professional background and their education. In a number of cases people talked over the heads of other participants about similar issues, but in different styles of expression.
Translations from English to Zulu for some common reference points allowed for common understandings between interlocutors. The procedure through which the discussion developed and the degree to which individuals were respected by other members of the meeting was an important issue. There was a time when one discussant physically removed the other from his seat because he was angry that the other participant had arrived late to the meeting and therefore did not deserve to sit in front of him.
It could be said that these debate makers did not want their role to translate into exclusionary politics. The creators of the discussion did not recognize the importance of the thesis put forward by Tewdwr-Jones and Thomas (1998), where they state that some individuals require an open discussion with each other, while some would prefer to present their arguments in different forms (written comments). as opposed to public speaking). Workshops and public meetings did not live up to this expectation, perhaps due to time constraints on the part of the planners.
THE SORTING OUT OF THE ISSUES AND ARGUMENTS
Tewdwr-Jones and Thomas (1998) argue that there must also be an acknowledgment that some people who may not be present at the public meeting will also have opinions.
TRANSLATING STRATEGIES INTO NEW DISCOURSES
SUBJECTING THE STRATEGY TO AGREEMENT AND CRITIQUE
The impression was created by white residents as important economic actors in the region and in the local economy (employers) that poor citizens (black) had to submit to big companies, that the dominant strategy for development should be local economic development are. development dominated by advanced industrial growth (industrialization). Industrialization was presented by the white planner as the only way out if the people of the area want to develop (lack of truth and sincerity). During the workshop, an expert in the field rejected the claim of the taxpayers' representative and stated that it was scientifically unproven.
Citizens' understanding was affected by the local council's failure to publish reporting documents in Isizulu, the local dominant language. There were no substantive errors in the plans in the draft development framework document. Most of the normative values in the development vision are contained in the strategic industrial plan of the area.
Paradigm shifts are dictated more by the political dispensations of the time as we have seen in the context of the Local Development Plan of the Outer West. This was proven by the way in which land use conflict was handled by the planners in the planning process. Power is an important factor in determining outcomes, as seen in the planning workshops discussed.
Consensus processes can be time-consuming and expensive, as the case study showed. Planners in the planning process had to draw equally on both technical and communicative rationality when drafting the Local Development Plan for the Outer West.
