SEA IN THE CONTEXT OF LANDTUSE PLANNING

With regard to the effects of the directive at the local levels, all the countries have hadsome experience of developing a tool to systematically assess the effects of strategic plans atthe municipal levels; Impact Assessment Sweden, Environmental Assessment in Iceland andSustainability Appraisal in England. From the review of the legal introduction of the SEAdirective to the three countries’ national planning systems, it is obvious that the systems areall undergoing periods of fundamental change. In each of the countries studied, the planninglegislation has either recently been revised or is currently under revision. The introduction ofthe SEA directive generally then coincides with those processes. In the planning theoryliterature a shift in emphasise in planning practice is identified, i.e. a move from rationalistdecision making to a communicative approach to planning. At the same time, new modes ofplanning are surfacing in the form of strategies, visions, partnerships, and other non-bindingmeasures as the guiding principles for municipal development. The changes facing statutoryland use planning are thus not only emerging through institutional measures, but also throughchanges in current practice. These changes correlate to the discussion in the planningliterature that highlights a shift form an administrative regulatory practice to non-statutory or‘negotiative’ initiatives, (Cars 1992) or as put by Healey (1997): “In many of Europe’s planningsystems, the formal machinery for articulating strategies has become discredited and formal systems have ceasedto be the key arenas and procedures for spatial strategy-making. This new impulse towards strategic planninghas however been taking place rather informally, beyond the formal arenas provided by the planning systemitself”. According to Emmelin and Lerman (2005) there has even emerged resistance to theformalised nature of planning, where the formal participatory elements in planning could beseen as a hindrance to strategic decision-making. This view is furthermore matched by arecent survey carried out by The National Board of Housing, Building and Planning toSwedish municipal planning authorities in 2006.8.3 Relevance for future applicationWith regard to the relationship between the existing context, the actual impacts of thedirective and the notion of ‘effectiveness’, the introduction of the SEA requirements intonational institutional framework is too recent for it to be possible to draw conclusions on theeffects of the implementation. Drawing conclusions on the actual contents of the legislationsthat make statutory interpretation of the SEA demands, the formal aims of SEA, illustrated inthe national legislation discussed in the licentiate thesis, do however reflect to a large degreethe aims of the SEA directive, with an emphasis on both environmental objectives and thepromotion of sustainable development. However, these objectives are sufficiently imprecisesuch that they could be interpreted in different ways in the different systems. Moreover,within the context of the national overviews it became clear that the introduction andimplementation of the directive would play a different role in the current reforms of thenational planning systems.Finally, it can be stated that the effects of the introduction of the SEA directive onexisting planning practice relate essentially to the underlying expectations in respect of thedirective, its relation to the existing context and the willingness to commit to its intentions. Ineffect; whether SEA shall be adapted to the prevailing planning practice by illustrating theenvironmental impacts of the proposals already decided, or whether the introduction of SEAis expected to contribute to a change in the existing planning practice.8.4 Challenges encountered in the researchThe information assembled from the different countries was not always comparable. This hasresulted in varying level of detail as well as different emphasis in the national chapters. For anexample limited academic research and evaluation results were available in the field of townplanning and environmental assessment regarding Iceland compared to the other countries.116