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Title (dcterms:title)
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Eng
Whose Shore? Assisting the Effects of Public Participation on Shorline Master Program Updates in Puget Sound
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Date (dcterms:date)
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2014
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Creator (dcterms:creator)
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Eng
Osterberg, Allison E.
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Subject (dcterms:subject)
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Eng
Environmental Studies
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extracted text (extracttext:extracted_text)
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WHOSE SHORE?
ASSESSING THE EFFECTS OF PUBLIC PARTICIPATION ON
SHORELINE MASTER PROGRAM UPDATES IN PUGET SOUND
by
Allison E. Osterberg
A Thesis
Submitted in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree
Master of Environmental Studies
The Evergreen State College
September 2014
©2014 by Allison E. Osterberg. All rights reserved
This Thesis for the Master of Environmental Studies Degree
by
Allison E. Osterberg
has been approved for
The Evergreen State College
by
________________________
Ralph Murphy, Ph.D.
Member of the Faculty
________________________
Date
ABSTRACT
Whose Shore? Assessing the Effects of Public Participation on Shoreline Master Program
Updates in Puget Sound
Allison E. Osterberg
Public participation is a mandated element of many environmental policy decisions, but
questions remain about how such processes influence the incorporation of public values
and science in decision making. Recent research has given credence to claims by
proponents that, when done correctly, public participation “improves the quality and
legitimacy of a decision, and builds the capacity of all involved to engage in the policy
process” (Dietz and Stern 2008). However, critics argue that public participation can
obstruct the incorporation of science into decisions, prolong the decision making process,
and increase costs without commensurable benefit.
In Washington State, a total of 260 communities are required to update their shoreline
land-use policies by 2014, in part to incorporate new ecological understanding about
coastal areas. Local governments are required to develop and implement a public
participation plan, but can choose a variety of methods. For the 46 cities and counties
bordering Puget Sound, these updates are viewed as an important step in the recovery of
the country’s second-largest estuary. This study compares results from public
participation processes and final shoreline master programs in Puget Sound communities.
I assess relationships between the 1) intensity, 2) breadth, and 3) method of the
participatory processes employed and the incorporation of public values and marine
shoreline science into final plans. This research shows considerable variation among
communities, both in the extent of their public participation efforts and in the regulatory
policies adopted for the protection of marine shorelines.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................................................ VI
LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................................................................. VII
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................................... VIII
A. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................... 2
Thesis Organization ............................................................................................................................... 4
Interdisciplinary Statement ................................................................................................................. 5
B. BACKGROUND .................................................................................................................................. 5
B.1 PUBLIC PARTICIPATION IN ENVIRONMENTAL DECISION MAKING ................................ 5
Goals of Public Participation ............................................................................................................ 5
Benefits and Criticisms of Public Participation......................................................................... 7
Critical Questions in Public Participation on Environmental Issues ............................... 9
Evaluating Participation: Examples ............................................................................................ 14
B.2 LAND-USE PLANNING, ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION, AND PUBLIC PARTICIPATION
.................................................................................................................................................................. 16
Role of Planning in Environmental Protection ....................................................................... 16
Public Participation and Land-use Planning........................................................................... 19
B.3 SHORELINE MASTER PROGRAM UPDATES ......................................................................... 21
History of the SMA and SMPs ........................................................................................................ 21
Shoreline Planning and Coastal Zone Management............................................................. 23
SMP Update Process .......................................................................................................................... 24
Public Participation Guidelines .................................................................................................... 25
No Net Loss and Policies Protecting Marine Shorelines .................................................... 27
C. METHODS ..........................................................................................................................................34
C.1 RESEARCH QUESTIONS & HYPOTHESES .............................................................................. 34
C.2 STUDY SAMPLE SELECTION .................................................................................................... 38
C.2 DATA AND METHODS ................................................................................................................ 40
Content Analysis ................................................................................................................................... 42
SMP Documents ................................................................................................................................... 45
Interviews ................................................................................................................................................ 45
C.3 CRITERIA FOR ANALYSIS ......................................................................................................... 47
Public Participation Process .......................................................................................................... 49
Plan Quality: Public Values ............................................................................................................ 51
Plan Quality: Environmental Protection ................................................................................... 52
Context Variables ................................................................................................................................ 57
Comparison of Participatory and Ecological Scores ........................................................... 57
D. ANALYSIS & RESULTS ................................................................................................................58
D.1 ANALYSIS OF PARTICIPATION PLANS .................................................................................. 58
D.2 ASSESSMENT OF UPDATED SHORELINE MASTER PROGRAMS ..................................... 63
Environment Designations ............................................................................................................... 64
Buffers and Setbacks........................................................................................................................... 66
Shoreline Modifications .................................................................................................................... 67
Ecological Scores................................................................................................................................. 71
D.3 COMPARISON OF PARTICIPATORY AND ECOLOGICAL SCORES .................................... 72
iv
D.4 ANALYSIS OF INTERVIEWS ...................................................................................................... 74
Important Shoreline Issues............................................................................................................... 75
Opportunities for Participation & Learning ............................................................................ 76
Public Values & Shoreline Protection in Final SMP ........................................................... 78
Lessons Learned ................................................................................................................................... 80
E. DISCUSSION ......................................................................................................................................85
How much variation is there among SMP public participation efforts? ...................... 85
How well do updated SMPs incorporate policies that protect marine shorelines? . 88
How well do updated SMPs incorporate public values?..................................................... 91
Does public input influence the strength or weakness of plans for shoreline protection and
restoration? ............................................................................................................................................ 93
Do some types of participatory processes work better? ...................................................... 96
F. CONCLUSION ...................................................................................................................................97
Opportunities for Future Research............................................................................................... 99
G. BIBLIOGRAPHY........................................................................................................................... 101
APPENDICES ....................................................................................................................................... 104
APPENDIX 1. SMP JURISDICTION TABLE ................................................................................. 104
APPENDIX 2. INTERVIEW QUESTIONS ....................................................................................... 106
Questions for Planners ....................................................................................................................106
Questions for Participants .............................................................................................................107
v
List of Figures
Figure 1. Primary Contradictions Among Common Planning Goals
19
Figure 2. Shoreline Jurisdiction in Marine Waters
22
Figure 3. Shoreline Environment Designations for City of Anacortes
30
Figure 4. Shoreline Environment Designations for City of Mukilteo
30
Figure 5. Number of Jurisdictions in Study, Based on Stage in SMP Process
39
Figure 6. Frequency Distribution of Participatory Scores
63
Figure 7. Frequency Distribution of Ecological Scores
72
Figure 8. Comparison of Participatory and Ecological Scores
73
Figure 9. Important Shoreline Issues for Planners and Participants in Three Focus
Communities
Figure 10. Contradictions in Shoreline Master Programs
75
94
vi
List of Tables
Table 1. Potential Benefits and Drawbacks of Public Participation
8
Table 2. Public Participation Spectrum
13
Table 3. SMP Update Phases
24
Table 4. Variables Measured for Analysis of Shoreline Master Program Updates
48
Table 5. Example Calculation of Participatory Score
50
Table 6. Key for Setback Scores
54
Table 7. Example Calculation of a Setback Score
54
Table 8. Key for Armoring and Overwater Structure Scores
55
Table 9. Example Calculation of Armoring and Overwater Scores
56
Table 10. Example Calculation of Ecological Score
56
Table 11. Public Participation Plan Analysis
60
Table 12. Number of Puget Sound Communities that Use Each Standard Environment Designation in their
SMP (out of a total of 23 with locally approved SMPs)
64
Table 13. Non-standard Environment Designations Identified in SMPs for 23 Puget Sound-bordering
Jurisdictions
65
Table 14. Total Setback Width Regulations by Environment Designation
67
Table 15. Regulations for Shoreline Armoring in 23 Puget Sound SMPs
68
Table 16. Regulations for Overwater Structures in 23 Puget Sound SMPs
70
vii
Acknowledgements
This work would not have been possible without the support, patience, and
encouragement of many. My deepest thanks to the many people who volunteered their
time and thoughts in interviews for this study, especially to the planners I spoke with who
were so generous with their experience. In particular, I would like to thank Cedar Bouta
at the Washington State Department of Ecology for answering multiple rounds of
questions, directing me to new contacts, and clarifying the subtleties of the SMP update
process.
I would like to thank my intelligent and talented cohort in the MES program – you will
go on to great things! – and to thank all the instructors and staff who give so much to the
program, especially Gerardo Chin-Leo, Gail Wootan, and Craig Partridge, who planted
the seed for this study. I am forever grateful to my reader, Ralph Murphy, whose good
humor, informed interest in my topic, and repeated reminders that “you have a good
thesis” kept me going.
Lastly, I am so very, very thankful for the love and support of my parents, Judith and
Jerre Smith, who raised me to love learning and the shoreline; to my husband, David,
who shares this with me; and to the guiding hand of something that pushes me forward.
viii
A. INTRODUCTION
Puget Sound, the second largest estuary in the United States, features nearly 2,500 miles
of shoreline – every inch of it highly desirable real estate to the organisms, many of them
human, who live along it. The shoreline supports a wide range of important ecological,
recreational, and economic services; yet these competing uses place stress on the coastal
ecosystem as a whole.
When Washington enacted the Shoreline Management Act of 1971 (SMA) (RCW
90.58), it became one of the first states in the nation to attempt a systematic approach to
coastal development. The act explicitly prioritizes statewide interests over local interests,
and seeks both to preserve traditional water-dependent uses and to secure protection of
the natural character and ecology of the shoreline, as well as public access to it, in the
face of increasing development pressures. Local governments must develop a Shoreline
Master Program (SMP) that accounts for uses within the 200-foot management zone
along coastal areas, lakes, rivers, and wetlands included under the measure.
More than 40 years after the SMA’s initial passage, development along Puget
Sound has continued to significantly degrade the shoreline environment. Overall, the
shoreline has been straightened and simplified, with more than 700 miles armored with
hard structures that disrupt ecological connections and exacerbate the loss of beach
sediment. Urbanization of coastal areas has contributed to a precipitous loss of critical
habitat, including 73 percent of historic salt marsh, 33 percent of eelgrass beds, and more
than 90 percent of tidally-influenced wetlands (PSP 2012a, Simenstad 2011).
Recognizing that many jurisdictions had not updated their shoreline regulations
since the 1970s, Washington State adopted new guidelines in 2003 that require a total of
2
260 towns, cities, and counties to update their SMPs by 2014. These guidelines better
reflect new understanding of shoreline ecology and the potential negative impacts of
development on coastal processes. For the 46 cities and counties that border Puget Sound,
these updates are viewed as an important step in regional recovery efforts (PSP 2012b).
The update process has rekindled a long-simmering debate about who owns
Washington’s shoreline and who should have a say in how it is used, a debate that has not
infrequently landed in the courts. These debates often are characterized as pitting private
property interests against “big government” environmentalists, but such a polarized
vision leaves little room to consider the subtleties of the relationship between
communities and their shorelines.
The Shoreline Management Act notes that local governments “…shall not only
invite but actively encourage participation by all persons and private groups and entities
showing an interest in shoreline management programs” (RCW 90.58.130). Under the
updated guidelines, jurisdictions are required at a minimum to develop a public
participation plan 1 and hold one public hearing. However, public engagement efforts can,
and often do, extend far beyond these minimum requirements, and local governments are
incorporating a range of participation methods into their planning processes, including
citizen advisory boards, public workshops, citizen committees, and various outreach
platforms.
This variation makes the SMP update process a prime platform to consider
questions about the role of public participation in environmental decision making. A
2008 report by the National Research Council concluded that, “research on the public
1
Only jurisdictions planning under the Growth Management Act (36.70A) are required to develop a public
participation plan, but this filter includes all areas bordering Puget Sound considered in this research.
3
participation process has lagged far behind the need” and identified a particular desire for
additional “quasi-experimental” studies that compare the effects of different public
participation processes within the same organizational context (Dietz and Stern 2008).
This thesis aims to address this need and considers the following research questions:
1. How much variation is there among SMP public participation plans, in terms of
the objectives of public involvement, the number of techniques employed, and the
number of participant groups targeted?
2. To what extent do updated SMPs contain policies that aim to preserve marine
ecosystem functions, protect saltwater habitat, and limit shoreline modification?
3. How well do updated SMPs incorporate public values expressed through the
public participation process?
4. Does public input influence the strength or weakness of plans for shoreline
protection and restoration? Do some types of processes work better?
Thesis Organization
Section B provides background on three key context areas, and includes literature
reviews of research related to public participation in environmental decision-making and
the role of land use planning in environmental protection, as well as how these two fields
come together in the context of the Shoreline Master Program updates. Section C
describes the research methods, sample area, and variables used in this analysis. Section
D includes the results of the analysis and interviews, while Sections E and F consider a
broader discussion about the results in relation to the research questions and conclusions.
4
Interdisciplinary Statement
Calls for increasing public involvement in decision making on topics as varied, and as
technical, as food security and climate change adaptation indicate that public
participation will continue to play a central role in many types of environmental policy
discussions, despite the impression held in some sectors that such processes are onerous
or wasteful of limited resources. This thesis investigates central questions about how our
society makes decisions that shape the future of coastal areas, and how we reconcile
competing visions for economically and culturally valuable places. In doing so, this
research draws from multiple disciplines of social and physical science, including marine
and nearshore ecology, land-use policy, governance analysis, and democratic theory.
Fundamentally, this thesis considers how science does (and should) guide policy
decisions, and to what extent such science-based decisions can remain compatible with
the principles of a democratic society.
B. BACKGROUND
B.1 Public Participation in Environmental Decision Making
Goals of Public Participation
One of the foundational principles in a democratic society is that people who are affected
by the policies of a government have the right to have a say in its decision-making
process. The traditional method of exercising this right is to vote directly on the issue (or
to elect a representative who represents your vote), and people also may express their
5
opinions by forming interest groups, lobbying decision makers, holding demonstrations,
and taking judicial action. Public participation 2, as used herein, is defined less broadly
and includes any:
organized processes adopted by elected officials, government agencies, or
other public- or private-sector organizations to engage the public in
environmental assessment, planning, decision making, management,
monitoring, and evaluation. (Dietz and Stern 2008)
These processes are supplemental to voting, but take place in an institutional context and
are administered by the agency or sponsor charged with developing the decision or
policy. The mechanisms of participation include a variety of formats – such as hearings,
workshops, surveys, comment periods, advisory groups – but all provide members of the
public with some access to the decision making process.
In recent decades, theorists have put forward the claim that public participation
serves more than just a normative function within a democratic society; public input, it is
argued, brings essential information to the decision-making process, increases the
legitimacy of decisions, and reduces conflict when policies are implemented (Fiorino
1990). Proponents of deliberative democracy contend that reasoned argument and public
deliberation on contentious issues lead to better general understanding of complex issues,
to the evolution of shared social values, and to policies that are more in line with the
public interest (Baber and Bartlett 2005; Meadowcroft 2004; Parkins and Mitchell 2005;
Pelletier et al. 1999).
Drawing on this considerable body of research, a National Research Council
report on the role of public participation in environmental decision making concludes that
2
Although some researchers distinguish them, the terms “public involvement” and “public engagement”
here are used synonymously with public participation.
6
“the goal of participation is to improve the quality, legitimacy, and capacity of
environmental assessments and decisions” (Dietz and Stern 2008).
•
Quality: Participation improves the quality of decisions by identifying and
incorporating the interests and concerns of those affected by the policy,
the range of possible decisions and actions that could be taken as well as
the potential effects of those actions, and new information and methods
relevant to the decision.
•
Legitimacy: Participation improves the legitimacy of decisions by ensuring
affected parties perceive the process as fair and competent.
•
Capacity: Participation improves capacity by ensuring participants –
including officials and technical experts – become better informed and
more skilled at engaging in public discourse, come to appreciate the
diversity of values and concerns that others bring to the issue, and develop
a common understanding of the technical and organizational constraints
and opportunities that frame the decision.
Benefits and Criticisms of Public Participation
When properly executed, supporters of public participation say it can lead to substantially
better decisions as well as increased trust and understanding among parties, thereby
increasing the likelihood of compliance and reducing the likelihood of protracted court
battles. However, critics find that in too many cases, public participation amounts to little
more than a formal requirement that takes considerable time and resources without
providing real influence over a decision. In other cases, it may devolve into political
manipulation by interest groups that dominate the discussion or seek to slow or weaken
7
decision making. Some methods of public participation have been criticized for not
providing thoughtful opportunities for social learning and consensus-building,
meaningful integration of public opinion into final policies, or for inadvertently
restricting the participating “public” to the usual, well-informed stakeholder advocates
(Meadowcroft 2004; Irvin and Stansbury 2004; Holden 2011; Innes 2010).
Environmental decisions often are based on complex technical information with
substantial uncertainty; if the public incorrectly or incompletely interprets this
information, participation may lead to the development and adoption of substantially
worse outcomes (Dietz and Stern 2008; Steel and Weber 2001; Webler and Tuler 2006).
A summary of the potential benefits and drawbacks of public participation is shown in
Table 1.
Table 1. Potential Benefits and Drawbacks of Public Participation 3
Potential Benefits of Public Participation
Improved quality of environmental policy
decisions, because better informed by
public knowledge and concerns
Improved legitimacy of policy decision;
improved trust between public and
government officials and easier
implementation
Increased capacity of participants to
understand complex issues and engage in
informed public discourse; decreased cost
of implementing decision
3
Potential Drawbacks of Public
Participation
Worse quality of environmental policy
decision; process influenced by dominating
interest groups or ill-informed participants
Decreased trust and increased hostility
between public and government;
participation efforts are merely ornamental
and do not influence decision
Decreased interest (participation fatigue) in
public decisions; process is timeconsuming, costly, and dull for both
participants and convener; costs not worth
the limited benefits
Sources: Dietz and Stern 2008; Irvin and Stansbury 2004; Holden 2011; Innes 1995
8
Critical Questions in Public Participation on Environmental Issues
In assessing the role of public participation in local shoreline programs, it is worth
considering several critical questions (or dimensions) of public participation (Fung 2006;
Dietz and Stern 2008):
•
Who participates?
In theory, participation enables the development of an informed citizenry and the
transmutation of the will of the people into public policy. Therefore, practitioners are
encouraged to maximize the breadth of participants involved in any process. In practice,
the “public” of public involvement rarely represents the entire populace. While managers
and planners can increase the number of people who take part through the design of a
participation process, members of the public have limited interest and resources
(including time) to devote to any public decision. Even a participation process that uses
best practices to maximize public involvement will never generate complete participation
from community members. As stated by practitioner James Creighton:
The reality is that people participate when they perceive themselves to
have a significant stake in the decision being made. That stake may be
rooted in economics, use, or other direct impacts, or it may be rooted in
values or philosophy. But people don’t participate unless they perceive
their interests or values to be affected. (Creighton 2005)
This means that the public that does show up can be considered the “interested public”
rather than the general public. Individual participants are more likely to act, and have
their contributions considered, as representatives of their respective interest groups (or to
use a common term, as stakeholders) than as a common citizen (Sabatier and Shaw
2009). A process is more participatory not only when it engages more people, in sum, but
9
when it engages more types of people, who represent a broader range of interests and
perspectives in the community.
•
When do they participate?
The public may be engaged to different degrees at different stages of the policy process.
For example, an agency may conduct a survey to gauge public opinions prior to
beginning development of a policy, may gather information and feedback to inform a
technical analysis midway through the process, or may take comments on a developed
policy at a public hearing. Early participation allows community input to be integrated
into the planning process, influencing policies and decisions as they are drafted, but at
this stage, that input tends to be abstract. Input given later in the process tends to be
specific and reactionary, for instance feedback on a draft policy, and though it may lead
to changes in the final decision, it is less likely to prompt a complete rethinking (Brody,
Godschalk, and Burby 2003). In general, a process is considered more participatory as it
engages the public earlier in the policy process and at more steps along the way to a
decision (Dietz and Stern 2008).
•
What are the goals of participation?
Sponsors of a participation process (such as a local government or state agency) may
have various expectations about what they gain from involving the public in a policy
decision, and there has been considerable debate about what the goals of public
participation should be. Specific objectives may include complying with state or federal
requirements, learning about citizen preferences, informing citizens about the decision,
educating citizens about the subject under discussion, identifying public concerns,
gathering local knowledge and experience, encouraging citizen influence in decision
10
making, and mobilizing a constituency that will support the proposed plan during
implementation (Brody, Godschalk, and Burby 2003). Identifying the goals of
participation helps determine the kind of process needed; higher-order goals tend to
require more participatory processes.
•
What is the format and intensity of participation?
Public participation includes a diverse range of activities that vary in the level of
involvement they require from participants. Citizens may participate minimally by
learning about a decision at an open house presentation, filling out a survey, or sending a
written comment. At the other end of the spectrum, they may take part in highly
interactive work groups that meet repeatedly or be tasked with evaluating the merits of
different proposed scenarios – efforts that may require extensive participant and staff
time. The participation process may be limited to a single meeting or may stretch over
years (Dietz and Stern 2008). Members of the public also differ in the amount of effort
they are willing and able to invest in a participatory process (Irvin and Stansbury 2004).
While research has not found direct evidence that any single type of participation method
will lead to the best result, in general, processes that incorporate more, complementary
types of participation tend to draw more participation from more groups within a
community (Brody, Godschalk, and Burby 2003; Fung 2006).
Rowe and Frewer (2005) distinguish public engagement methods based on the
flow of information, where public communication involves the transfer of information
from the process sponsor to the public, public consultation involves the transfer of
information from the public to the sponsor, and true public participation involves a twoway exchange, or dialogue (Rowe and Frewer 2005).
11
•
How influential is participation?
It is also essential that the convener of a public participation process understands, and
clearly communicates, the influence that public input will have on a final decision. This
dimension is tied closely to the goals of the process, and can range from low to negligible
influence, if the agency is only seeking to fulfill a statutory mandate, to situations in
which stakeholder or citizen recommendations have real authority that helps determine
the final decision (Fung 2006). The organization sponsoring a process should only invite
the level of input that it is prepared to use; when participants spend time and resources
developing feedback that agencies do not intend or do not have the authority to use, the
agency may undermine the decision itself and lose trust within the community on future
decisions (Creighton 2005; Fung 2006).
The International Association of Public Participation uses five categories to
delineate increasing levels of responsibility in public involvement and aligns these with
goals and methods: inform, consult, involve, collaborate, empower (IAP2 2007). Table 2
is adapted from that organization and from a similar schematic developed by the
Washington Department of Ecology for the SMP update process, but includes an
additional level for compliance (Washington State Department of Ecology 2011).
12
Table 2. Public Participation Spectrum
Increasing Level of Public Influence 4
Comply
Inform
Consult
Involve
Collaborate
Empower
Public
participation
goal
To fulfill the
requirements
of a state or
federal
mandate.
To provide the
public with
balanced and
objective
information
and assist
them in
understanding
the problem,
opportunities,
and/or
solutions.
To obtain
public
feedback on
analysis,
alternatives,
and/or
decisions.
To partner with
the public in
every aspect of
the decision,
including
development of
the preferred
alternative.
To provide
information
necessary for
making the
final
decision.
Flow of
information
Example
methods
-
sponsor
public
sponsor
public
To work
directly with
the public
throughout
the process,
and to
ensure that
concerns
and
aspirations
are
understood
and
considered.
sponsor
public
sponsor
public
sponsor
public
Public
hearing,
public notice
Website,
newsletter,
open house,
public
meeting
Workshop,
community
or
stakeholder
meeting
Stakeholder
advisory group,
technical
advisory group
Citizen juries
Examples of
stakeholders
in SMP
process
Washington
Department
of Ecology
General public
Written or
email
comment,
survey,
public
hearing
All
interested
parties
Important
interest
groups,
affected
parties
Planning
commission,
key community
representatives
Elected
officials (city
or county
council
members),
Washington
Department
of Ecology
•
How should public participation be integrated with scientific information?
A final consideration is that the role of public participation can be especially
tricky in environmental decisions, which often are based on complex technical
information (and statutorily so, when the use of best available science is required
by mandate). Members of the general public rarely arrive to a new subject with
the expertise to thoroughly understand the specifics and uncertainties of the
science, or with the time and energy to invest in coming to that understanding.
4
Source: adapted from Washington State Department of Ecology 2011
13
The public does have the ability to understand the effects of different scenarios on
the issues they value, and may bring important first-hand knowledge about the
location or activities affected by the decision. According to Dietz and Stern
(2008), scientific expertise and public participation should be reinforcing, rather
than adversarial:
Scientists are usually in the best position to identify and
systematically consider the effects of environmental processes and
actions. However, good scientific analysis often requires
information about local context that is most likely to come from
people with close experience with local conditions…. The public
cannot make good value judgments without good science, and
scientists cannot do good decision-oriented analysis without public
input. (Dietz and Stern 2008)
Challenges to integrating science into public participation include ensuring the
information is available at the time of the process and adequate to understand the
issue, ensuring it is accessible to participants, and communicating the science in a
way that is perceived as trustworthy and that neither overestimates nor
underestimates the uncertainty of the data available.
Evaluating Participation: Examples
Researchers have conducted numerous evaluations of public participation in
specific environmental contexts, including case studies and comparative research,
and experienced practitioners have written guidance on how to evaluate public
participation. Beierle and Cayford (2002) conducted the most extensive metaanalysis to date, synthesizing data from 239 published case studies of public
participation in environmental decisions and evaluating the extent to which each
effort achieved five social goals. They found that public participation “made or
14
substantially changed decisions” (in 58 percent of cases), increased the
substantive quality of decisions (in 68 percent of cases), resolved conflict (in 61
percent of cases), “built trust in the process” (in 45 percent of cases) and
“educated and informed the public” (in 78 percent of cases). They also found
there often were tradeoffs and interaction among goals, and questioned whether
certain process attributes might be more likely to lead to successful outcomes
(Beierle and Cayford 2002).
In 2008, the National Research Council released a report that assesses
whether and under what conditions public participation can achieve the goals
detailed above (quality, legitimacy, and capacity) (Dietz and Stern 2008). The
report includes many recommendations for managing a public process and ways
to diagnose likely difficulties that arise from the context of the decision.
There are fewer examples of evaluation of public participation specific to
coastal, marine, or estuarine issues. Ernoul (2010) found that although active
public participation is cited as an important aspect of Integrated Coastal Zone
Management (ICZM), other contextual factors were more significant in ensuring
the long-term sustainability of programs.
In evaluating public involvement in the planning of marine protected areas
in California, Dalton identifies the following process elements as contributing to a
successful participatory process: Active participant involvement, decisions based
on complete information, positive participant interactions, fair decision-making,
efficient administration (Dalton 2005).
15
B.2 Land-Use Planning, Environmental Protection, and Public
Participation
Role of Planning in Environmental Protection
The patterns of human development – including the placement and density of
homes, industrial development, services, and roads – have a profound impact on
both the social and ecological resources of a place. Land-use decisions, planned or
otherwise, affect the character of communities and planning directs the way those
communities grow, change, and interact over long time spans. As such, these
decisions involve numerous, sometimes contentious interests with conflicting
values and visions for the space they share. Within this context, the multi-faceted
role of a master plan, such as those developed though the shoreline master
programs, is described well by Berke, Godschalk, and Kaiser:
The core purposes of a plan are to offer a consensus-based
community vision for future development; provide facts, goals, and
policies for translating this vision into a land use pattern; inject
long-range considerations into short-range actions that promote a
future land use pattern that is socially just, economically viable,
and environmentally compatible; and represent a “big picture” of
the community that is related to broader regional (and potentially
global) trends. (Berke, Godschalk, and Kaiser 2006)
In considering the question, what makes a good master plan?, William Baer
identifies eight concepts of the role of the plan in public discourse (Baer 1997).
These include several iterations that apply to the shoreline master planning
process in Washington state, including:
•
plan as vision of a preferred future
•
plan as blueprint
16
•
plan as land use guide
•
plan as remedy for past destructive or inequitable use
•
plan as an expression of community discourse, for which the process of
planning is just as important as the plan itself
•
plan as a response to state and federal mandate
These concepts can sometimes clash: A plan that is viewed as an aspirational
vision by one party may be seen as impractical by the party charged with
implementing the plan as a land-use guide or noncompliant by the party
evaluating it against a mandate. Contradicting visions for the role of the SMP
have played out frequently in update processes to date and can lead to significant
delays and controversy (Carson 2007; Batcheldor 2012; Dunagan 2012; Hiegler
2012). Some researchers have argued that because a plan includes both a vision
and the strategies for achieving that vision, it should be considered as a
“communicative policy act” (Norton 2008; Innes 1995). This means that the
articulation of that shared community vision can be distinguished, and judged
separately, from the strategies and actions included in the plan. A plan can be
judged on its ability to convey that information (based on factors such as its
comprehensibility, accuracy, legitimacy, and sincerity), just as it can be judged on
the quality of the strategies it contains.
Land-use planning at the local level has been cited as critical to preserving
biodiversity and protecting environmental resources (Beatley 2000). According to
Samuel Brody, this is because:
17
The factors causing ecosystem decline, such as rapid urban development
and habitat fragmentation, occur at the local level and are generated by
local land use decisions…. As a result, some of the most powerful tools
that threaten or protect natural habitats are in the hands of county
commissioners, city councils, town boards, local planning staffs, and the
participating public. (Brody 2003)
Technical information – including species and habitat maps, monitoring
data, demographics, and complex model results – provides a strong foundation in
the development of a master plan. Increasingly, planners are expected or required
by law to use “best-available science” in their decision making. However, other
contextual factors ensure that science and other information is applied unevenly,
even across communities planning under the same guidelines. In a review of the
incorporation of best available science in Critical Area Ordinance updates in
Washington state, researchers determined that the role of science and political
influence differs by jurisdiction size (Francis et al. 2005). Small communities (130,000) relied heavily on scientific information provided by state agencies and
non-peer reviewed information; medium-sized communities (30,001-100,000)
relied on locally produced information and were more swayed by political
influence; while large cities (>100,000) often generated their own peer-reviewed
scientific information.
As shown in Figure 1, the master plan must contend with tensions between
three objectives: economic growth, equitable sharing of opportunities, and
ecological sustainability (Berke, Godschalk, and Kaiser 2006; Campbell 1996).
18
Figure 1. Primary Contradictions Among Common Planning Goals. Adapted from:
Berke, Godschalk, and Kaiser 2006; Campbell 1996
The “development conflict” arises from competing needs to protect the
environment and improve quality of life for poor and otherwise disadvantaged
populations within the community. The “resource conflict” arises from competing
claims on natural resources, particularly from growth. The “property conflict”
arises from competing claims on land to be used for either private or public
benefit. Planners must consider and contend with the relative claims raised by all
these conflicts as they develop a master plan.
Public Participation and Land-use Planning
As indicated above, public participation is a mandated step in many
environmental decisions, and this holds especially true in land-use planning,
including the development of master plans. Burby (2003) suggests that plans
developed with broad stakeholder involvement are stronger in content and easier
to implement because they incorporate greater local understanding and create
ownership of the plan among the general public. Despite these suggested benefits,
19
many planning efforts are generated by technical experts, or are dominated by an
“iron triangle” of local government officials, local business and development
interests, and neighborhood associations, with little meaningful input from other
citizen voices (Burby 2003).
In one of the grandest attempts to evaluate public participation in land-use
planning processes, a team of researchers compiled a dataset that compares
growth management plans in 10 states (including Washington) (Brody,
Godschalk, and Burby 2003). They found that the strong public participation
requirements included as part of Washington’s Growth Management Act –
including the requirement that citizen involvement be “early, often, and
continuous” – leads to participation that targets more stakeholder groups and
employs more techniques when compared with efforts in other states. The
researchers also found that across all programs, processes that emphasized a
greater number of objectives (particularly a learning objective), incorporated more
types of meetings, employed processes that empowered participants in a decisionmaking capacity, or used a visioning exercise had a greater level of citizen
involvement. Communities were less successful at engaging the public when they
relied on a single process:
While a formal public hearing was the most popular participation
technique among the local governments in our sample,
jurisdictions that made this a central feature of their public
involvement efforts obtained less participation than those that
focused on other participation techniques. (Brody, Godschalk, and
Burby 2003)
20
Brody (2003) built on this research further to test the hypothesis that broad
representation of stakeholders in the planning process would lead to higher
quality plans that better incorporate an ecosystem-based management framework.
He evaluated 30 city and county comprehensive plans in Florida, and found that
“despite a strong theoretical justification for broad stakeholder participation…
simply having a wide range of participants present in the planning process does
not guarantee higher quality plans.” Brody speculates that as additional groups are
included in the planning process, the need to address competing interests may
ultimately compromise the quality of the final plan itself. By contrast, he found
that the presence of specific stakeholder groups can have a marked effect on the
quality of the plan – notably, that participation by environmental NGOs and
resource-based industry groups were associated with a statistically significant
improvement on the quality of the final plans.
B.3 Shoreline Master Program Updates
History of the SMA and SMPs
The Shoreline Management Act of 1971 (RCW 90.58) was passed by the
Washington state legislature in that year and approved by voter referendum in
1972. The measure was intended to respond to concerns that Washington’s
shoreline was being developed too quickly and in a piecemeal and potentially
destructive fashion, as well as to fears that public access to shorelines would be
blocked by private property owners. In the act, the Legislature recognizes the
need to balance various uses of the shoreline, stating that: “coordinated planning
is necessary in order to protect the public interest associated with the shorelines of
21
the state while, at the same time, recognizing and protecting private property
rights consistent with the public interest.” State guidelines developed for
implementing the SMA (WAC 173-26) outline three overarching policy goals:
•
Allow economically productive uses that depend on shoreline location
(water-dependent uses)
•
Preserve and enhance public access and recreation use
•
Protect and restore the ecological functions of natural shorelines
Under the guidance of the Department of Ecology (Ecology), local
governments must develop a Shoreline Master Program (SMP) that accounts for
all uses that occur within the 200 feet inland of the Ordinary High Water Mark
(OHWM) as well as in marine aquatic areas out to the jurisdictional border (See
Figure 2).
Figure 2. Shoreline Jurisdiction in Marine Waters
These programs must be approved both locally, by the city or county
government, and at the state level, by Ecology. This two-tier approach makes the
SMP process markedly different from Washington’s other major land-use
planning law, the Growth Management Act (GMA). A comprehensive plan
22
developed under GMA, although mandated in many communities, requires only
local approval.
Shoreline Planning and Coastal Zone Management
The Shoreline Management Act serves as the foundation of Washington’s Coastal
Zone Management Program (CZM) in its 15 coastal counties (including the 12
counties that border Puget Sound). The CZM is a voluntary state-federal
partnership administered by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA). According to the 1992 Coastal Status Report, of
Washington’s more than 3,000 miles of tidally influenced shoreline, just 31
percent is in public ownership, compared with an average of 50 percent across 29
coastal states.
Because such a large percentage of the nation’s coastline is
privately owned, protecting private property rights in the
regulation of coastal land and water uses is of paramount
importance in the development and implementation of coastal
management tools. (Bernd-Cohen and Gordon 1999)
As part of an evaluation of the effectiveness of CZM programs conducted in the
1990s, Bernd-Cohen and Gordon (1999) identified 25 tools and processes that
states employ to protect shoreline functions, including the use of coastal
development setbacks and construction control areas, shoreline stabilization
regulations, access restrictions, critical habitat protections, permit tracking, and
land acquisition programs. Washington’s program was found to employ 15 of
those tools and is one of few states that mandate planning at the local, rather than
state level and to combine this planning with local permitting.
23
SMP Update Process
Although the Shoreline Management Act had some moderating effect on
shoreline development, by the 1990s, the cumulative impacts of several decades
of growth were apparent in the continued degradation of water quality and loss of
natural beach habitat and public access to the shoreline. Despite significant
advances in scientific understanding of shoreline ecology and the passage of the
Growth Management Act (GMA), most jurisdictions had not updated their SMPs
since the 1970s. The State legislature in 1995 asked Ecology to update its
guidelines and integrate shoreline policies under the GMA, and after several
rounds of negotiation with stakeholder groups, new requirements were released in
2003 that require all communities to update their local SMPs by 2014.
The update process requires a number of products in addition to the final
planning document and takes several years to complete (see Table 3). Ecology
provides both technical assistance and grant assistance to local governments
during the update process; grant recipients have additional update requirements
that are not required under the SMP guidelines.
Table 3. SMP Update Phases
Phase 1
Phase 2
Phase 3
Phase 4
Phase 5
Phase 6
Identify preliminary shoreline jurisdiction and create public
participation plan
Conduct shoreline inventory and analysis and shoreline
characterization and use analyses
Develop environment designations, policies and regulations,
cumulative impacts analysis
Develop restoration plan, revisit Phase 3 products
Local approval
State approval
24
Public Participation Guidelines
The SMP guidelines require local governments planning under GMA to prepare a
public participation plan that identifies how the county or city will ensure:
…early and continuous public participation through broad
dissemination of informative materials, proposals and alternatives,
opportunity for written comment, public meetings after effective
notice, provision for open discussion, and consideration of any
response to public comments. (WAC 173-26 2011)
Ecology recommends that public participation efforts identify key stakeholders
and opportunities for the public to learn about the SMP and provide input, and
articulate the various roles of the public, elected officials, and any advisory
groups that are a part of the process. In its handbook, Ecology identifies 45
potential stakeholder groups, including shoreline property owners, shoreline
recreational user groups, local and regional organizations, tribes, and state
agencies (Washington State Department of Ecology 2011).
Local governments must solicit comments from the public on a draft SMP
prior to local approval, at a minimum by holding one public hearing. They must
engage any local, state, or regional agencies, tribes, or other persons with an
interest in shorelines and maintain a list of “interested parties” as well as a record
of any comments submitted during the SMP update. Once the SMP has been
locally adopted and turned over to Ecology for evaluation, Ecology holds its own
comment period and may hold an additional public hearing if state managers
determine that the public process was insufficient, that there may be remaining
controversy, or that some interested parties were not heard during the local
process (Bouta, personal communication, March 23, 2012).
25
Although the public participation plan is a required element of the SMP
update, Ecology does not conduct an extensive review of this plan as part of their
evaluation. Rather, local governments meet the requirement as long as they have a
plan and it seems to include a reasonable proposal for outreach with the public.
The agency can and does provide recommendations to local planners on ways to
improve their public outreach strategies, but cannot require any additional
measures other than the minimal elements included in the guidelines.
Several aspects inherent in the SMP update process increase the difficulty
local governments face in hosting the public participation process (Dietz and
Stern 2008). First, because the final decision-making authority is shared between
the local governments and the state, there may be a lack of clarity on the purpose
of the process and the timeline required to come to a decision. Second, the strict
directives provided in the SMP guidelines significantly reduce the openness of the
decision process – without clear guidance on these limits, participants may come
to a consensus that cannot be allowed into the final plan. Third, the geography of
some areas (such as San Juan County, which consists of multiple islands served
by limited ferry service) may limit the inclusiveness of the process as distance and
travel routes make it difficult for members of the public to attend events. Fourth,
in communities where stakeholders are unorganized or hard to reach by the usual
communication tools (public notice, public meetings, etc), the discussion may not
be truly representative of the range of public values that exist in the community.
All of these challenges can be overcome to some extent in the design of the public
process, through the selection of participation methods, and through
26
communication about the process, but whether they are addressed in practice
often depends on the experience of the planners involved and the resources and
staff available.
No Net Loss and Policies Protecting Marine Shorelines
The 2003 SMP guidelines were the first state rule to incorporate the standard of
“no net loss” as a measure for environmental protection. Any shoreline
development – be it a new housing complex, a shipping terminal, or a waterside
trail – can be expected to have some impact to ecological function. No net loss, as
a concept, allows planners to balance the three competing goals outlined in Figure
1 above (page 19) – by holding that although development patterns may change,
and new development occur, the overall condition of shoreline functions must
remain the same as the SMP is implemented. Impacts from new development
should be minimized through site design, and those impacts that cannot be
avoided should be mitigated or restored, either on the same site or nearby
(Washington State Department of Ecology 2011).
Ecology has developed several potential indictors for measuring no net
loss in marine ecosystems included in the SMPs. These include the linear length
of hard shoreline structures, such as bulkheads, seawalls, revetments, and groins 5;
linear length of marine riparian vegetation buffer; acres of permanently protected
areas; the number of new piers, docks, and floats; the number of shellfish acres
closed by water quality issues; the area of impervious surface within the 200-foot
5
Bulkheads and seawalls are vertical walls, with bulkheads generally distinguished because they
are designed to retain soil or fill; revetments are hard protection placed on the surface of a slope;
groins are structures built perpendicular to a shoreline to disrupt the alongshore drift of sediment.
27
shoreline zone; the percent cover of invasive species in riparian zones; and the
area of seagrasses and kelp.
Local governments use information gleaned from an extensive inventory
and characterization of their shorelines to classify different areas in environment
designations based on their current use patterns and physical character. The SMP
guidelines recommend a system of six classifications, with the following
descriptions:
1. High-intensity. To provide for high-intensity water-oriented commercial,
transportation, and industrial uses while protecting existing ecological
functions and restoring ecological functions in areas that have been
previously degraded.
2. Shoreline residential. To accommodate residential development and
appurtenant structures and to provide appropriate public access and
recreational use.
3. Urban conservancy. To protect and restore ecological functions of open
space, floodplain, and other sensitive lands where they exist in urban and
developed settings, while allowing a variety of compatible uses.
4. Rural conservancy. To conserve existing natural resources and valuable
historic and cultural areas in order to provide for sustained resource use,
achieve natural floodplain processes, and provide recreational
opportunities.
5. Natural. To protect those shorelines that are relatively free of human
influence or that include intact or minimally degraded shoreline functions
intolerant of human use.
6. Aquatic. To protect, restore, and manage the unique characteristics and
resources of the ordinary high water mark.
28
Although the SMP guidelines encourage the use of these six standardized
designations, communities also have the option to create additional or alternative
designations if they feel these six do not adequately capture local conditions.
Cities and counties have exercised this option to slightly modify the standard
designations (for example, renaming High-Intensity as Urban, or combining the
Urban and Rural Conservancy designations). Some jurisdictions have created
entirely unique, special designations for historic waterfront areas, or sections of
shoreline that are dominated by a particular use, such as a mining operation or a
large park (see Figure 3. and Figure 4. for examples from Anacortes and
Mukilteo).
The creation of special designations can help to customize an SMP, so that it
is more specific to the community and its particular vision for its shoreline, but, as
discussed below in the results section, it is harder to compare these areas among
different communities and makes it more difficult for state regulators and
outsiders to determine what regulations are appropriate within that specially
designated area.
29
Figure 3. Shoreline Environment Designations for City of Anacortes. This map detail
from Anacortes’ SMP shows the use of standard designations, including Shoreline
Residential and Natural, as well as the use of several slightly modified designations,
including Conservancy, and Urban.
Figure 4. Shoreline Environment Designations for City of Mukilteo. This map detail
from Mukilteo’s SMP shows the use of several unique Environment Designations,
including Urban Waterfront, Urban Waterfront Park, and Urban Railroad.
30
Once the segments of its shoreline are categorized, the jurisdiction then sets
management policies that regulate shoreline uses within each environment
designation. The goal is to allow only those uses that are compatible with and
appropriate to the existing condition of that shoreline area, and to identify where
certain uses may require special permitting and review or be prohibited outright.
The list of uses covered in SMPs includes everything from agriculture and
commercial development to parking and utility placement, as well as rules for
how development that is allowed must be designed. Below, I highlight a few
policies that pertain to the protection of marine shoreline functions:
•
Marine riparian vegetation buffers. The loss of native vegetation along the
shoreline can lead to increased temperature and erosion and reduce the
amount of organic matter that falls into the beach intertidal area – effects
that can harm nearshore-dependent creatures like forage fish and salmon.
Jurisdictions can set minimum buffer widths along shorelines, within
which vegetation must be maintained – many cities and counties
incorporate the buffers set in their Critical Area Ordinances into their
SMPs.
•
Development setbacks. Setbacks are recognized as a key regulatory tool
because they “provide a clear signal to landowners that the area seaward
of the setback is off-limits to certain development and, therefore, a
resource protection area” (Bernd-Cohen and Gordon 1999). Minimum
setback standards require that structures, including homes, not be built
right up to the shoreline, where they may eventually require protection in
31
the form of shoreline armoring. In the SMPs, water-dependent uses are
generally and water-oriented uses are sometimes exempt from setbacks.
•
Shoreline armoring or shoreline stabilization. Shoreline armoring helps
protect property and infrastructure by replacing a dynamic, shifting beach
environment with a stable structure – such as a concrete wall. Hard
armoring can alter beach sediment and wave dynamics and exacerbate
erosion as it cuts off a natural source of sediment. Local governments can
prohibit or limit the construction of new armoring in their SMPs or require
that property owners consider soft stabilization measures. The SMP
guidelines exclude single-family homes from these regulations, and
armoring may be allowed when the owner can prove the property is at risk
by providing a geotechnical report.
•
Over-water structures. The proliferation of over-water structures,
including docks and piers, can alter beach sediment patterns and shut out
light needed by benthic organisms and aquatic plants like eelgrass. Local
governments can prohibit or limit the number of new over-water
structures, for example, by allowing only community docks rather than
docks for single-family use.
A hypothetical example may help to illustrate the relationship between
shoreline environment designations and shoreline use policies. A property owner
whose land is located in a length of shoreline designated as High-Intensity or
Urban may be allowed to develop closer to the shoreline, with only a 25- or 50-
32
foot building setback, may be allowed to protect that development with hard
armoring, and may have few requirements on the amount of vegetation that needs
to be maintained in that setback area – all because the surrounding area is already
heavily developed. He may be prohibited from building a new dock that might
impede boat traffic. If instead the same size property is located in an area
designated Conservancy, he may be prohibited from building closer to the
shoreline than 150 feet, and may be required to leave the native vegetation in that
shoreline buffer in place. He may be encouraged to work with other neighbors to
build a community dock, rather than his own, and may not be allowed to build a
new bulkhead without proof that his structure is at imminent risk from erosion.
Once a locally approved SMP comes to Ecology for review, the department
goes through a checklist to ensure all the required elements are present, and
evaluates whether the plan meets the no net loss standard. The process for
determining whether a plan will achieve no net loss is subjective. According to
Cedar Bouta, an Environmental Planner with Ecology, “There is an assumption
that if they’ve done the work, and if all the pieces are there, then it should add up
to no net loss. But we won’t know, so they also have to have a way to go back
over time” (Bouta, personal communication). The strength of the plan, in the
protection that it provides to marine shoreline functions, resides in the attention
that is given to how shorelines are designated, and what uses are allowed or
prohibited within those designations. 6
6
This glosses over the issues of implementation and enforcement of the plan, once it is approved,
which arguably have a greater impact on the long-term protection of shorelines. Those aspects of
shoreline master planning, though very important, are beyond the scope of this research effort.
33
C. METHODS
C.1 Research Questions & Hypotheses
As outlined in the previous two sections, public participation plays an important
role in environmental decision making and in the development of land use plans,
and has the potential to improve both their substance and legitimacy, if the
participation process is designed and managed in a way that enables public
feedback to truly inform management decisions. However, the role of public
participation can be complicated when the subject under consideration is a
complex technical issue, and when the science contradicts the values held by
those who participate.
The update of shoreline master plans in Washington State provides a unique
opportunity to investigate this dynamic: local jurisdictions are required both to
solicit public input and to meet technical state standards for no net loss in the
shoreline environment. Further, though cities and counties that undertake the
update are obliged to engage a broad range of community members in the SMP
update process, how they go about doing so is not dictated beyond the
requirement to hold a single public hearing. Each community can design its public
participation effort as it sees fit.
In this sense, the update process can be considered an ideal setting for the sort
of “quasi-experimental” study called for by the National Research Council in their
2006 panel report (Dietz and Stern 2006). Such was the inspiration for this
research effort: because all SMPs must meet the same state guidelines, this
presented an opportunity to explore the different approaches to public
34
participation taken by communities, and then to investigate whether these
approaches led to any discernable variation in the substance of the final SMPs.
Would jurisdictions only meet the minimum standards for public engagement (a
single public hearing), or would they do more to bring broad community input
into the process? Would that participation effort be treated mostly as a formality,
and the policies of the SMP a foregone conclusion, or would public values
expressed through that process substantially change the SMPs that emerge? Most
importantly, would the updated plans truly provide greater ecological protection
of shorelines and support ecosystem recovery efforts, as promised? How would
those greater protections mesh or conflict with the public’s vision for shoreline
use?
The data and information collected as described below were analyzed to
address the following research questions:
1. How much variation is there among SMP public participation plans, in
terms of the objectives of public involvement, the number of techniques
employed, and the number of participant groups targeted?
2. To what extent do updated SMPs contain policies that aim to preserve
marine ecosystem functions, protect saltwater habitat, and limit shoreline
modification?
3. How well do updated SMPs incorporate public values expressed through
the public participation process?
4. Does public input influence the strength or weakness of plans for shoreline
protection and restoration? Do some types of processes work better?
35
The latter two of these questions address the goal, identified above, that public
participation should improve the quality of environmental decisions (Dietz and
Stern 2008). In the context of the SMP updates, the quality of the final plan can be
judged from two aspects 7: first, as the extent to which the SMP includes and
reflects information, decisions, and solutions that are relevant and workable in the
community where it will be implemented; and second, the extent to which the
policies included in the SMP actually support the ecological protection of
shorelines. In the first instance, a “good” or high-quality plan is one that delivers a
“consensus-based community vision” as described earlier by Berke, Godschalk,
and Kaiser (2006), while in the second, a “good” plan is one that delivers the
greatest environmental protection according to science, whether or not that is in
the interest of the community itself.
These two definitions of plan quality may be complimentary, if the
community has a vision of environmental protection, but they are not necessarily
so – a planning process that successfully engages a broad range of competing
interests can result in a plan whose environmental strength is diluted through
compromise. Brody (2009) found that “despite the strong theoretical justification
for broad stakeholder participation… simply having a wide range of participants
present in the planning process does not guarantee higher quality plans [that meet
the standards of ecosystem-based management].” This outcome led him to
suggest:
It may be that planners could have to make a choice between
generating high-quality environmental plans or generating plans
that will be supported and implemented in the future.
7
At least.
36
In the case of the shoreline master program updates, planners may have to make a
choice between fully integrating the public values gathered through the
requirements for “early and continuous” public participation 8, and generating
plans that meet the no net loss environmental standard set by state guidelines. The
motivation for this study was to investigate whether such a conflict exists.
To determine whether public participation affects the quality of shoreline
master programs, particularly the strength or weakness of those plans regarding
marine shorelines, I proposed to test the following two hypotheses:
Hypothesis 1: A more participatory public process will result in a plan that
better incorporates public values.
Hypothesis 2: A more participatory public process will result in a plan that
is less protective of marine shorelines and saltwater habitats.
In this analysis, a more participatory public process is defined as one that requires
more intense participation, involves broader representation from the community,
and incorporates a greater number of participation formats or methods. As
discussed above, a process with these facets may be more time- and resourceintensive, but could yield a decision that is more reflective of the public’s
concerns and interests, and thus will be easier to implement (Dietz and Stern
2008; Beierle and Cayford 2002). However, a more participatory process may
introduce concerns from stakeholders impacted by environmental regulations that,
8
As discussed earlier, in theory, a plan that fully integrates public input would have greater
legitimacy with the public, and therefore would have greater support in the community.
37
when considered in the public process, may lead to compromises or exceptions to
strict guidelines that weaken the overall environmental protectiveness of the
policies (Dietz and Stern 2008; Irvin and Stansbury 2004).
C.2 Study Sample Selection
This study considered the 46 local jurisdictions (12 counties, 34 cities and towns)
in Washington State that have marine shoreline bordering Puget Sound and that
are required to update their shoreline master program by 2014. 9 The author visited
the website and/or directly contacted the planning or other relevant department of
each jurisdiction to assess the current status of the SMP update and gather
relevant documents.
Based on this information, the jurisdictions could be placed in three tiers,
depending on how far along in the process they were (see Figure 5):
1. Puget Sound-bordering jurisdictions with a completed public participation
plan (Total: 46).
2. Of those 46, jurisdictions with a locally approved draft plan, as of
December 1, 2012 (Total: 23).
3. Of those 23, jurisdictions with a state-approved final plan, as of December
1, 2012 (Total: 10).
9
The city of Everett borders Puget Sound, but under an agreement with the state, is not required to
update its SMP by 2014, and so is not counted here.
38
Completed
participation plan:
46
Locally-approved SMP:
23
State-approved SMP:
10
Figure 5. Number of Jurisdictions in Study, Based on Stage in SMP Process.
Although many facets of the SMP update processes could be studied by a
review of documents from the jurisdictions included in the study (as further
detailed in the following section, C.2), the author determined that a more nuanced
view of the particular challenges of the SMP update process could by gained by
focusing on a few example communities. This study focused in greater depth on
the SMP update process for three communities: Anacortes, Mukilteo, and
Tacoma. These three communities were selected to represent a geographic and
demographic range, and based on the availability of key documents and interview
subjects. 10 Two focus communities had completed their SMP process and
received state approval (Anacortes and Mukilteo) and one had a locally approved
plan but was awaiting state approval, as of December 1, 2012 (Tacoma).
Collectively, the three communities represent a diversity of shoreline issues,
approaches to the SMP update, and approaches to public participation.
10
Several additional communities were initially considered to be included as case studies, but the
planners involved in the update either had left their job or did not respond to requests for an
interview.
39
Appendix 1 includes a table of the SMP status and demographic
information for all communities within the study population.
C.2 Data and Methods
The SMP update process spans several years, and the associated public
participation processes take place over that entire period, thus it was not feasible
within the time constraints of this thesis to follow each SMP process in real time.
Much of that effort is documented and, thanks to Washington state’s robust public
records rules, available for review. Local jurisdictions must retain records, not
only of the plans they develop, but of all the public comment on those plans.
Public meetings in which officials discuss the SMP update and take public
comment are often recorded (audio and/or video), and meeting minutes or
summaries often are available. Some jurisdictions go further, organizing feedback
on a plan into a spreadsheet form called a comment matrix that also tracks the
jurisdiction’s response to the feedback, including whether or not a change was
made to the plan. In addition, the state SMP guidelines require that local
jurisdictions compile a list of “interested parties” that includes all those people
who are interested in receiving information about the SMP update.
Because of these practices, there is a wealth of information available to
researchers interested in public decision-making, much of it available from the
jurisdiction’s website or by request to the planning department. For this study, the
author downloaded or requested copies of the SMP public participation plan for
all 46 Puget Sound-bordering communities undergoing the SMP update, and
received 38. From communities that had a locally or state-approved SMP, the
40
author additionally requested copies of draft and final SMPs, as well as the list of
interested parties and any comment matrixes, public meeting summaries, or other
public comment documents related to the SMP update. The quantity and quality
of public comment information varied considerably among communities.
Although these documents provide an empirical view of public
participation in various SMP update processes, this picture is limited to what was
physically recorded. Although all communities retain some record of public
comment, there is a great deal of variation in whether (and how well) they
document how public input was considered or incorporated in the development
and revisions of the SMP. This is particularly true for early stages of SMP
development, when public input is more likely to concern high-level values that
form the philosophical backbone of the SMP, rather than specific text revisions
that arise as later drafts of the SMP are released.
In addition, publicly-available documents alone could not adequately
capture the local context in which these SMP updates occur. Planning processes
never play out in isolation, and factors such as the general level of engagement in
the community on public matters, the history of trust among different stakeholder
groups and the local government, experience of planning staff, or whether it is an
election year for local officials can influence both how planners design a public
process and how that input is integrated into any final decisions. Because of these
considerations, the author determined that interviews with key players in the SMP
updates could provide additional detail and context about both the SMP update
process in general and within the specific focus communities.
41
Data for this study were obtained through content analysis of key
documents and of transcripts from targeted interviews with participants in an
SMP public process. This method is described below. By taking a two-pronged
approach that combined the analysis of objective and subjective data, the author
attempted to investigate both the substance of how public input influenced SMP
development, as well as how participants and planners viewed that process and
their own role within it.
Content Analysis
Since the 1950s, content analysis has been favored as a research technique for
drawing conclusions from texts or recorded messages, such as books, speeches,
historical documents, newspaper articles, interviews, advertising, or any other
type of media. Content analysis is defined as:
A set of methods for analyzing the symbolic content of any
communication. The basic idea is to reduce the total content of a
communication…to a set of categories that represent some
characteristic of research interest. (Singleton and Straits 1999)
To conduct a content analysis, a researcher develops a set of codes or categories
to describe the content of the text, and uses those codes to make inferences about
the message in the text itself, its creator or intended audience, and/or the culture
from which it emerged. Because of its flexibility, content analysis has been
applied in a wide range of fields, including to detect bias or propaganda in the
media, to study shifts in public opinion, or to track the evolution of an idea. Of
relevance to this study, content analysis is a technique used both by public
participation practitioners (i.e., to detect and track the frequency of themes in
42
public comment on a controversial decision, see Creighton 2005) and by
researchers interested in evaluating land use master plans (Brody 2003; Berke,
Godschalk, and Kaiser 2006).
Content analysis, as characterized by Berg (2001) blends elements of
quantitative and qualitative data analysis. For both types of content analysis, the
unit of analysis depends on the subject matter – a word, phrase, theme, or concept.
In its quantitative form, sometimes referred to as conceptual or thematic analysis,
a unit is identified and its existence or frequency in the text is counted or ranked.
Those counts then can be analyzed using simple descriptive statistics (mean,
median, spread) or more complicated multivariate or clustering statistics,
depending on the data available and the research question. Although quantitative
content analysis provides useful, comparative information, it can be reductive –
by reducing a complex human expression to frequency counts, the researcher may
overlook its broader meaning. Content analysis also is used to investigate more
widely the relationships among concepts in a text – this qualitative form is
sometimes called relational analysis (Busch et al. 1994).
The heart of a content analysis hangs on the development of codes to
categorize the data. These codes can be identified a priori, based on an
understanding of the subject matter being studied, or they can emerge through
examination of the data – often, researchers use a combination of preexisting and
emergent themes. Categories must be independent, mutually exclusive, and
exhaustive – that is, they must cover all relevant aspects of the data without
overlapping.
43
Advantages of using content analysis as an investigative method include
that it is (mostly) unobtrusive and makes use of easily accessible data (such as
public records), and that it enables efficient and systematic study of processes that
occur over long periods of time and involve large volumes of data (Berg 2001).
These factors made this method well suited for the study of public participation
processes in Washington’s SMP updates.
The disadvantages of content analysis include that it can be very time
consuming to appropriately categorize and code large amounts of material, and
that the researcher is limited to using available, recorded messages or documents.
Quantitative conceptual analysis in particular is criticized for reducing the
substance of a text to word counts, and for disregarding the context in which a
document was produced and the effect it may have on its audience (Busch et al.
1994, Berg 2001). Further, while content analysis can track the proportion and
frequency of a concept or term, it is not effective at determining causal
relationships, and the researcher must be careful not to infer causation when there
is only correlation.
The process of defining categories and codes is subjective, and raises
issues of reproducibility in studies that rely on content analysis. Assessment
reliability is another common issue in content analysis and concerns the consistent
interpretation and use of terms and concepts throughout a study, particularly when
the analysis is completed by different people who may make different judgments
on the application of codes and themes. This issue was addressed in part for this
44
study because all analysis was conducted by a single coder, the author (Norton
2008).
SMP Documents
Key documents gathered for the content analysis included public participation
plans, draft and final shoreline master program plans, and lists of “interested
parties” for each jurisdiction. For the focus communities, additional documents
included public comments, public meeting summaries, and public comment
response matrixes that demonstrate how the local government responded to each
comment. These documents were analyzed, or coded, according to an evaluation
protocol to identify the variables described below in section C.3.
Availability and interpretation of documents turned out to be a greater
challenge than anticipated at the start of this study. Public participation plans were
acquired from 38 of the total 46 SMP communities that ought to have completed
them. Comment matrixes were only available from a few communities, and
without this kind of documentation, it was difficult to track how individual public
comments (many of which were recorded and available) may have been
integrated into SMP plans. This lack of quantifiable information made it difficult
to calculate how public values were incorporated into the final SMPs.
Interviews
Between June and December of 2012, the author conducted 15 semi-structured
interviews with individuals who had participated in one or more SMP update
processes. Interview subjects included local planning officials involved in the
SMP update in one of the three case study communities, participants in those
45
processes who represented different potential public values (environmental,
business, property rights, recreation), as well as representatives from regional
stakeholder groups that provided input to multiple program updates. In addition,
the author conducted one background interview with a representative from the
Department of Ecology.
Interviews were conducted in-person and by phone. They lasted between
12 to 90 minutes and were recorded with the permission of interviewees, and later
transcribed by the author. Interviewees were asked a mixture of open-ended,
yes/no, and scale questions (rank 1-5), including:
•
what led them to participate in the SMP update process,
•
what they thought were the most important shoreline issues in their
community,
•
whether they had learned anything new about shoreline science or
views in their community by participating,
•
how well they thought the approved SMP reflected the public values
raised during the process,
•
how well they thought the approved SMP protected marine shorelines
and saltwater habitats, and
•
what they thought could have been improved about the process.
Local planners were asked additional questions about:
•
the city or town’s goals for public participation,
•
whether specific interest groups were targeted for participation,
•
whether the participation strategy changed during the planning
process,
•
how public input was incorporated into the SMP, and
•
what existing shoreline issues preceded the SMP update.
The complete list of interview questions is available in Appendix 2.
46
To analyze the interview data, each interview was transcribed from the
audio recording and notes. A thematic code was developed for specific concepts
and keywords that came up either in response to each question, or in the general
conversation. These codes were used to assess the frequency of different themes
and keywords that arose during the interviews.
For example, in reviewing responses to the question, What do you think
are the most important issues related to shoreline use in your community?, several
common themes came up repeatedly, including:
•
working waterfronts
•
public access
•
restoration
•
recreation and tourism opportunities
•
economic development
•
property rights
•
permitting concerns
Quotations from interview subjects that mentioned these concepts were collected
under each theme to be used in the analysis discussed in Section D.3. For
responses to yes/no or scale questions, such as, How well does the final SMP
reflect public values raised during the update process, on a scale of 1-5?, it was
possible to compare and analyze both the numeric responses, and any themes that
came up as the subject elaborated on their answer.
C.3 Criteria for Analysis
Several dependent, independent, and context variables were defined and measured
to conduct the analysis. A summary is given in Table 4, with each variable
described in detail below.
47
Table 4. Variables Measured for Analysis of Shoreline Master Program
Updates
Variable Name
Public Participation
Intensity
Type
Measurement
Source
Independent
# of objectives* 11, # of meetings
Breadth
Independent
# of groups targeted*, # of
contacts
Process type
Independent
Participatory Score
Independent
Stage (1-3) of initial
participation*, # of methods
used*, types of methods used
Average of the Intensity,
Breadth, and Process type
scores*
% comments incorporated,
interview scale ranking (1-5), # of
unique environmental designations
Participation
plan, public
records
Participation
plan, public
records
Participation
plan, public
records
Plan Quality: Public
Values
Dependent
Plan Quality:
Environmental
Protection
Setbacks
Armoring
Overwater
structures
Ecological Score
Dependent
Interview scale ranking (1-5)
Public
comments, final
plans,
interviews
interviews
Dependent
Dependent
Dependent
Setback (ft) *
Whether permitted*
Whether permitted*
Final SMPs
Final SMPs
Final SMPs
Dependent
Average of the Setback,
Armoring, and Overwater
structures score*
Independent
Independent
Independent
Independent
Independent
Independent
Independent
Population
Population density
Population growth, 1990-2010
Median home value
Median income
Miles of shoreline
Port district
Context Variables
Community resources
Density
Development demand
Wealth
Wealth
Shoreline concern
Port concerns
US Census
US Census
US Census
US Census
US Census
n/a
WPPA
11
Measurements that are marked as bold* indicate those that were used in the calculation of the
Participatory and Ecological Scores and statistical analysis.
48
Public Participation Process
I measured attributes of the public participation process mainly through a review
of the public participation plans, and, where available, from information on the
actual processes employed. Although I recorded each attribute for each
jurisdiction whenever available, not all variables were used in the final analysis.
My goal was to develop measurements that represented the intensity, breadth, and
methods employed in each jurisdictions participatory process.
Indictors of intensity included the total number of objectives identified in
the participation plan (up to a maximum of seven: comply, inform, consult,
educate, involve, collaborate, empower [for descriptions of each objective, see
Table 2]) and the total number of meetings planned and actually held. To create a
single Intensity score, I divided the number of objectives identified in the
participation plan by the maximum number noted for any single plan (6).
Indicators of breadth included the total number of groups identified in the
participation plan, the number of contacts on the final “interested parties” list, and
the total number of comments submitted. To create a Breadth score, I divided the
number of groups identified in the participation plan by the maximum number
noted for any single plan (129).
Indicators of the process type included the stage at which citizens were
first involved in the process (3=preplanning, 2=planning, 1=postplanning), the
total number of participation methods used, the kinds of methods used (inform,
consult, educate, involve, collaborate, empower), and whether a Citizens
49
Advisory Committee 12 (CAC) or Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) was
formed for the planning process. I calculated a Stage score, using the stage
ranking divided by three, as well as a Process score, which noted the number of
participation formats identified in a public participation plan divided by the
maximum listed in any plan (22).
To develop a Total Participatory Score, I took an average of the Intensity,
Breadth, Stage, and Process scores for each jurisdiction. An example of this
calculation for the city of Anacortes is included below, in Table 5.
Table 5. Example Calculation of Participatory Score
ANACORTES
# of objectives
Max # of objectives
Intensity Score
Intensity
4
/6
0.67
Breadth
# of groups
26
Max # of groups
/129
Breadth score
0.20
Stage
3
Max stage
/3
Stage Score
1
# of formats
10
Max # of formats
/22
Process Score
0.45
Process
Sum of Scores
2.32
/4
Participatory
Score
0.58
12
This refers to a citizen or stakeholder committee that is distinct from the planning commission.
50
Plan Quality: Public Values
As a part of this study, I intended to assess how well a jurisdiction incorporated
public values into its SMP by reviewing public comments submitted on the draft
plans and whether these comments led to changes in the plans. In communities
that provided a clear responsiveness matrix that summarized comments and how
they were addressed, I could assess whether each comment was incorporated in
full, incorporated as a compromise, or rejected.
Unfortunately, detailed responsiveness matrixes were not available for
many communities, and even where they did exist, could not be considered as
inclusive of all public input made throughout the update process. For example,
public input gathered at earlier stages of the update process, including during
visioning sessions, typically is abstract, and its influence on the developed
document is harder to track than a specific change that may be requested in a draft
document. These early comments, however, may do more to influence the overall
tone and shape of the document, and the values it represents, than a more specific
comment, which results in a smaller, cosmetic adjustment. I considered two
alternative factors for this category, including whether a local government
developed one or more distinct environment designations. As discussed above, a
jurisdiction may develop a unique environment designation to account for some
valued characteristic of its shoreline that is not well described by the standard six
classes. A community that values its marine industry may create a “Maritime”
designation, while one with a historic downtown may create a “Historic
Waterfront” category, and thus incorporate that community priority into the plan.
51
This variable was one I could track for all SMPs, but was rather limited as a proxy
for the incorporation of public values into SMPs.
In addition, I looked to information gathered from interviews, particularly
whether planners and participants felt the final plans incorporated public values
(and how they ranked them on a scale of 1 to 5), and whether planners could
articulate examples of how public input had changed the SMP. This information
was both subjective (in that it relied on how well subjects thought public values
were reflected in the final plans) and very limited (because it was only available
for the three focus communities in which I conducted interviews).
Ultimately, I was not able to quantitatively assess how well public values
were incorporated into SMP updates, or whether different participatory processes
had any effect on that transfer. This means I was not able to test Hypothesis 1: “A
more participatory public process will result in a plan that better incorporates
public values.” However, the interviews and documents reviewed provided some
context for this question, as discussed more fully in the Discussion section.
Plan Quality: Environmental Protection
I evaluated the quality of the SMP in protecting marine shoreline functions and
saltwater habitat by considering the regulations described in the final plan for four
critical policies: marine vegetated buffers, development setbacks 13, shoreline
armoring and hard stabilization 14, and overwater structures, specifically docks and
piers. To make these policies comparable across different SMPs, it was important
13
Where different setbacks were set for different uses, I used the setback for single-family
residential development.
14
Where different regulations were set for different types of shoreline armoring, I used the
regulation on bulkheads.
52
to break them out by environment designation (for example, comparing setback
requirements in an Urban area to other Urban areas, rather than to Natural or
Conservancy areas). For each draft or final SMP, I recorded the following:
•
whether vegetated buffer requirements were included (Y/N);
•
the length of the buffer and/or setback 15 for each environment designation;
•
whether shoreline armoring was considered a permitted, conditional, or
prohibited use, within each environment designation; and
•
whether docks and piers were considered a permitted, conditional, or
prohibited use, within each environment designation.
Where the program indicated a variety of lengths or use regulations within a
designation, I used the least protective one for comparative purposes. I also noted
the exceptions to these regulations included in the plan. As described above, the
use of non-standard environmental designations was noted, and I recorded the
regulations for each policy within these special designations, but they were not
strictly comparable to one another.
To develop a summary score for the environmental protectiveness of the final
plan that would be comparable to the Participatory scores, I combined information
about the different policies in each SMP. To create a Setback score, I scored each
environment designation (1-9), based on how protective the setback was, as
detailed in Table 6.
15
Some jurisdictions apply a setback from a buffer; in these situations I calculated the total
setback as including both regulations, such that an area with a 150-foot buffer and a 10-foot
setback was noted as a 160-foot total setback. In jurisdictions that do not treat setbacks in addition
to buffers, the total setback is equal to the standard setback, even if a buffer is incorporated within
that area.
53
Table 6. Key for Setback Scores
Setback Width (ft)
200+
175-199
150-174
125-149
100-124
75-99
50-74
25-49
1-24
Score
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
Since each jurisdiction could have a different number of environment
designations, I took the sum of these setback scores, then averaged that number
by the number of environment designations used by the jurisdiction. I divided this
average by the maximum possible setback score (9) to calculate the final Setback
score. This process is demonstrated with an example for one city in Table 7.
Table 7. Example Calculation of a Setback Score
ANACORTES
Environment
Designations (ED)
Setback (ft)
Score
High-Intensity/Urban
25
2
Shoreline Residential
60
3
Urban Conservancy
n/a
n/a
Rural Conservancy
100
5
Natural
200
9
SUM
19
/# of Standard EDs
/4
Setback Average
4.75
/Max Score
/9
Setback Score
0.53
54
In a similar vein, I calculated an Armoring Score by looking at whether
hard armoring (particularly bulkheads) were permitted, conditionally permitted, or
prohibited within each environment designation, and assigning a score as outlined
in Table 8.
Table 8. Key for Armoring and Overwater Structure Scores
Use Permission
Permitted
Conditionally permitted
Prohibited
Score
1
2
3
Similar to the Setback score described above, I took the sum of these
scores, divided it by the number of standard environment designations used by the
jurisdiction to get an average score, then normalized this number by dividing it by
the maximum possible amount (3). An identical calculation was performed to
calculate a score for Overwater structures (docks and piers). An example of these
calculations is provided in Table 9.
55
Table 9. Example Calculation of Armoring and Overwater Scores
ANACORTES
Environment
Designations (ED)
Armoring
Score
High-Intensity/Urban
Permitted
Shoreline Residential
Urban Conservancy
Rural Conservancy
Natural
Aquatic
Score
1
Overwater
structures
(docks/piers)
Permitted
Conditionally
permitted
n/a
2
Permitted
1
n/a
n/a
n/a
Conditionally
permitted
Prohibited
Permitted
2
Prohibited
3
3
1
Prohibited
Permitted
3
1
1
SUM
/# of Standard EDs
9
/5
9
/5
Average
/Max Score
1.8
/3
1.8
/3
Score
Armoring
Score
0.60
Overwater
Score
0.60
Finally, I calculated an Ecological score by taking the average of the three
scores (Setback score + Armoring Score + Overwater score/3). An example
calculation is provided in Table 10.
Table 10. Example Calculation of Ecological Score
ANACORTES
Setback Score
Armoring Score
Overwater Score
0.53
0.60
0.60
Ecological Score
0.58
56
For this category, I gathered additional context from the interviews,
particularly from planner and participant perspectives on how well they thought
the adopted SMP protects marine shorelines and saltwater habitat.
Context Variables
I considered several demographic and geographic variables that could reasonably
be expected to have an impact on plan quality as great or greater than public
participation (Berke, Godschalk, and Kaiser 2006; Brody 2003). Values for
population, population density, population growth between 1990 and 2010,
median income, and median home value (a proxy for wealth) were gathered from
2010 US Census estimates. 16 Finally, I recorded whether or not the jurisdiction
was a port district, using the directory of the Washington Public Ports Association
(WPPA 2012). Ports are often major landowners and economic drivers along a
shoreline, and may be involved in both industrial use of marine areas and
restoration projects. Information on these variables is included in Appendix 1.
Ultimately, I did not use these in my analysis, but they could be useful for future
research that considers what other factors may contribute to the success of a
participatory process.
Comparison of Participatory and Ecological Scores
The Participatory and Ecological scores described above were calculated in order
to test Hypothesis 2: “A more participatory public process will result in a plan that
is less protective of marine shorelines and saltwater habitats.” It turned out that
16
I thought that total miles of marine shoreline might be an important context variable, but was
unable to isolate this information in time for the analysis.
57
only a small data set could be assembled for this test. Several communities did not
include information in their SMPs that was needed to calculate the Ecological
score 17. For others, participation plans were not available, which meant that no
Participatory score could be calculated. In the end there were only 17 matched
pairs of Participatory and Ecological scores.
To examine whether there was any association between a local
jurisdiction’s participatory process and how well (or poorly) its SMP protects
ecological functions, I analyzed the correlation between the two scores using a
Spearman’s ranked correlation. This test was selected to account for the small
sample size and skewed distribution of the Participatory scores, as will be shown
in Section D.2. The Spearman’s rank-order correlation is a nonparametric test that
measures the strength of association between two variables. Statistical analyses
and the corresponding graphics included below were developed using the R
statistical language and environment (R Core Team 2014).
D. ANALYSIS & RESULTS
D.1 Analysis of Participation Plans
According to the measures outlined in their public participation plans, local
governments are using a variety of approaches to gather public input; all plans
reviewed go beyond the minimum requirement of a single public hearing. Out of
the total possible 46 communities, I was able to obtain 38 public participation
17
A few jurisdictions, including Mukilteo and King County did not assign policies such as setback
lengths by environment designation – this made it impossible to compare them with the other SMP
communities.
58
plans (83% of study area), which ranged in length between 1 and 40 pages
(median length = 7 pages). Not all plans addressed all indicators. A summary of
this analysis is included in Table 11.
Intensity. Out of a total of seven objectives for public participation
(comply, inform, consult, educate, involve, collaborate, empower), local
governments note an average of four. While a high percentage of jurisdictions aim
to involve (92%), inform (89%), and consult (89%) the public, fewer emphasize
educating (42%) or collaborating (18%) with the public as a key goal. Less than
half of the plans included an estimated total number of meetings (n=19), and the
average number of meetings projected (14) is likely an underestimate of the
number of meetings that were actually held based on interviews with planners.
Among those plans that included timelines for completing the SMP (n=19), the
estimated length of the update was just over two years (27 months – again, a
likely underestimate given how long many SMP updates have extended beyond
their original deadlines).
Breadth. Local jurisdictions identified an average of 31 groups for
participation, but this figure varied widely, from a low of 12 groups (Blaine) to a
high of 129 (San Juan County). This average is slightly less than the number of
suggested groups identified by Ecology (45), and the median number of groups
identified is somewhat lower (24). Key stakeholders were identified in many
plans: 90 percent listed a government agency (federal, state, or local), while
property owners (87%) and tribes (84%) were also well represented, as were
business interests (71%). Fewer plans identified environmental groups (66%) and,
59
surprisingly, only 34 percent of plans targeted recreational users. Most plans
(63%) listed additional groups for participation, including educational or military
institutions, public utility districts, or regional transportation organizations like
the BNSF Railway Company.
Table 11. Public Participation Plan Analysis
Average
Min
Max
4.08
1
6
13.79
2
48
31
12
129
1.54
2
1
14
3
22
Inform (ex. website, newsletters, public notice,
email listserv)
Consult (ex. written or online comments)
8
1
14
4
1
7
Involve (ex. stakeholder meetings, forums,
field tours)
Collaborate (ex. CAC, TAC, workshops)
2
1
5
1
0
3
Empower (ex. binding vote)
0
0
0
INTENSITY
Number of participation objectives, out of
possible 7 (n=38)
Number of meetings planned (n=19)
BREADTH
Number of groups identified for participation
(n=38)
Government (federal, state, local)
90%
Property owners
87%
Tribes
84%
Business
71%
Environmental interests
66%
Recreational users
34%
PROCESS
Stage public involved (1=early, 2=mid, 3=end)
(n=37)
Number of participation formats (n=38)
Process type. The public were first invited to participate relatively early in
the update process (average stage of 1.5, where 3=early, 2=midway; 1=end), and
were granted a wide range of opportunities to both learn about the process and
provide input. In their participation plans, local governments proposed using an
60
average of 14 different participation formats, ranging from a minimum of three
methods to a maximum of 37. They used the greatest number of formats to inform
the public about the SMP update (average of 8), and consecutively fewer formats
to consult (4), involve (2), or collaborate (1).
As noted above, jurisdictions list multiple approaches for communicating with
the public in their participation plans. Out of the 38 participation plans reviewed,
the most commonly referenced methods to inform the public about the SMP
update were through: 18
•
a website (89% of jurisdictions)
•
legal notice (74%)
•
mailings (74%)
•
public meetings, including planning commission and city or county
council meetings (68%)
•
open houses (66%)
•
press releases (61%)
•
newspaper, advertisement or article (55%)
•
newsletter, print or electronic (42%)
Less commonly mentioned methods for informing the public included
developing specialized publications like fact sheets, posting flyers on community
boards, including an insert with utility bills, hosting an information booth at
community events, or employing media outlets other than the newspaper,
18
These methods are not mutually exclusive. For example, 89 percent of the 38 jurisdictions with
public participation plans noted they would use a website to communicate information about the
SMP to the public, and they may also have included a combination of mailings, public meetings,
newsletters or other methods.
61
including television, radio, blogs, and social media. Only one community
explicitly noted its intention to develop materials in a language other than
English.
For consulting or gathering feedback from the public, the method most
frequently noted was hosting a public hearing (84% of jurisdictions) – a result that
is not surprising since this is the only method required under the state guidelines.
Nearly half of jurisdictions planned to employ a citizen’s advisory committee
(47%) that was separate from their planning commission, while 42 percent
indicated they would engage a technical advisory committee.
This analysis must be accompanied with a caveat: Although public
participation plans are considered here as a proxy for the public participation
process, they represent only a local government’s intentions rather than what was
actually implemented. Further review of public documents and interview
responses indicate that while local planners tended to follow their participation
plan overall, they often had to decrease the number of formats used, due to a
shortage of funding, and increase the total number of meetings needed, due to the
complexity of the SMP discussions and changes in personnel over the course of
the update.
Participatory Scores
As described above in the Methods section, I calculated a Participatory Score for
each jurisdiction, as a composite of scores that represent the intensity, breadth,
and methods of the participatory process. The Participatory scores ranged from a
high of 0.99 to a low of 0.37, with a mean of 0.59, a median of 0.56, and a
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standard deviation of 0.13. The data are not normally distributed, as can be seen
in Figure 6.
Figure 6. Frequency Distribution of Participatory Scores
D.2 Assessment of Updated Shoreline Master Programs
Overall, updated shoreline master programs include substantial regulatory
protections for marine shorelines and saltwater habitat, but the specifics of those
policies vary considerably among individual jurisdictions. Of the 23 plans
completed or locally adopted as of December 1, 2012, around half (48%) include
explicit vegetated buffer requirements, while the majority include policies that
63
establish building setbacks (86%) and regulate the construction of new shoreline
armoring (86%) and overwater structures like docks and piers (89%).
Environment Designations
Local jurisdictions used an average of six environment designations in their
SMPs, but these vary greatly according to the length and complexity of the
shoreline areas included in the programs: tiny Ruston (2010 population: 749)
included just two environment designations, while Whatcom County (2010
population: 201,140) lists 10 designations. In general, jurisdictions use some or all
of the six standard environment designations outlined in the SMP guidelines and
described above on page 28 – high-intensity, shoreline residential, urban
conservancy, rural conservancy, natural, and aquatic (WAC 173-26-211).
However, these standard designations often are modified to suit local conditions.
For example, many cities use “Urban” or “Urban Intensity” rather than “High
Intensity” in their SMPs, and they may alter the wording of the goals and policies
associated with each category.
Table 12. Number of Puget Sound Communities that Use Each Standard
Environment Designation in their SMP (out of a total of 23 with locally approved
SMPs)
Environment Designation
Count
High-Intensity/Urban
Shoreline Residential
Urban Conservancy
Rural Conservancy
Natural
Aquatic
18
18
16
8
13
21
Percent of Total
Communities
78%
78%
70%
35%
57%
91%
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Most jurisdictions also created new, non-standard environment
designations that apply to specific areas and local shoreline conditions. Of the 23
plans analyzed, 65 percent include at least one special designation category, and a
total of 32 non-standard designations were identified (see Table 13). These unique
designations may pertain to historic areas, places used traditionally by maritime
industries, areas dominated by a current industrial use, sections of shoreline in
park districts or in need of special environmental consideration, or specialized
aquatic areas.
Table 13. Non-standard Environment Designations Identified in SMPs for 23
Puget Sound-bordering Jurisdictions
Special Environmental Designations
Aquatic Harbor
Aquatic Urban Conservancy
Boat Haven Marine Trades
Cherry Point Management Area
Downtown Waterfront
Forestry
High-Intensity Marine
High-Intensity Mixed Use
High-Intensity Urban Uplands
Historic Waterfront
Maritime
Medium Intensity
Municipal Watershed Utility
Point Hudson Marina
Priority Aquatic
Research District
Residential Bluff Conservancy
Resource (2)
Rural
Rural Resource
Tatsolo Point Special Management
Unit
Urban Aquatic
Urban Conservancy Recreation
Urban Lakefront
Urban Maritime (2)
Urban Public Conservancy
Urban Railroad
Urban Resort
Urban Waterfront Park
Waterfront District
Although these special designations indicate the influence of local public
values in the SMPs, they also render comparison of regulations across
jurisdictions more challenging. Because each of these special designations is
65
unique to the community it is created for, there is no way to evaluate the
regulations set within those areas against similar shoreline reaches in other
communities. It is more difficult to judge, for example, whether a setback or
armoring regulation within a Historic Waterfront area is appropriate and provides
sufficient protection for that shoreline’s ecological functions, because it cannot be
compared across communities, the way regulations within a standard designation,
such as Natural or Shoreline Residential, can be compared. Further, when the
SMP comes to Ecology for approval, those special designations cannot be held to
the same statewide guidelines as the standard designations. As discussed below in
the Conclusions section, this is one way that the integration of public values into
SMPs, by creating a designation that reflects a community’s vision, could lead to
an SMP that is less protective of the shoreline environment.
Buffers and Setbacks
Shoreline buffers and building setback requirements differ considerably among
the updated SMPs. Nearly half (48%) of the 23 jurisdictions include explicit
vegetated buffer requirements – additional communities may have marine
shoreline buffer regulations under their Critical Areas Ordinance that were not
directly referenced in the SMP.
I compared the total setback regulations for five different standard
environment designations 19 (see Table 14). While many SMPs utilize both tools,
some jurisdictions include buffer requirements within the setback areas, while
others add a setback on to a buffer. In the latter case, I considered the sum of the
19
The Aquatic designation does not include setback requirements.
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buffer plus the setback to equal the total setback. Total setback width, and thus the
protective capacity of the setback, generally increases you move from the more
developed areas, such as those designated high-intensity, to more natural areas.
Table 14. Total Setback Width Regulations by Environment Designation
Average (ft)
Min (ft) Max (ft)
High-Intensity/Urban (n=18)
65
0
165
Shoreline Residential (n=18)
85
20
200
Urban Conservancy (n=16)
103
50
200
Rural Conservancy (n=8)
153
100
200
Natural (n=13)
157
110
215 20
All Designations (n=23)
115
0
215
However, the averages mask the wide range of setback requirements put
forward by different jurisdictions; a property in Burien’s shoreline residential area
need only be set back past a 20-foot marine riparian buffer under its draft SMP,
while a similar property in nearby Des Moines would be required to be set back
125 feet (10 feet from a 115-foot buffer). Many plans exempt water-dependent
uses from setback requirements, and may modify the setback when surrounding
development is developed closer to the shoreline than the setback would allow.
Shoreline Modifications
Regulations for shoreline modifications – such as stabilizing a shoreline with hard
armoring like a bulkhead, or building a new dock – also differ considerably
among the SMPs analyzed (see Table 15). Similar to the setback requirements
outlined above, these regulations generally become increasingly restrictive for
more natural designations. However, the results of this analysis show that despite
20
In some cases, SMPs list a buffer that encompasses the entire width of the shoreline jurisdiction,
200 feet from the ordinary high water mark, plus an additional 10- or 15-foot building setback.
67
an overall inclusion of management policies that emphasize the protection of
marine shoreline functions, few Puget Sound communities have established the
most environmentally protective policies in their SMPs.
Table 15. Regulations for Shoreline Armoring in 23 Puget Sound SMPs
Permitted
Conditional Not Permitted
21
Shoreline Armoring/bulkheads
High-Intensity/Urban (n=18)
75%
25%
0%
Shoreline Residential (n=18)
47%
47%
6%
Urban Conservancy (n=16)
47%
47%
7%
Rural Conservancy (n=8)
14%
86%
0%
Natural (n=13)
17%
17%
67%
22
Aquatic (n=21)
42%
26%
32%
Overall Average
40%
41%
19%
The continued increase in shoreline armoring is identified as a major
threat to the Puget Sound ecosystem (PSP 2012a), yet it is treated as a permitted
activity – requiring no additional level of review at the local level – in more than a
third of the standard shoreline environments included in SMPs reviewed for this
study. This permission may be logical for an urbanized and extensively modified
shoreline area; no communities prohibit armoring in Urban or High Intensity
areas, and only a quarter require a conditional use permit. However, armoring is
also allowed outright in many less developed areas: Shoreline armoring is listed
as a permitted activity in nearly half (47%) of those areas designed as “Urban
Conservancy” or “Shoreline Residential.” Armoring is even permitted in 17
21
Percentages do not add up to 100 percent. Some SMPs list modifications as permitted in some
locations within an environmental designation, and conditional in other locations – in such
instances, both regulations were recorded.
22
In many SMPs, regulations for the Aquatic designation are noted as being the same as the
upland designation – thus, a new dock on an Aquatic property would be permitted if it is permitted
in the adjoining shoreline property (for example, a shoreline residential area).
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percent of areas designated “Natural” – those areas that are most in need of
protection – and allowed with a conditional use permit in an additional 17 percent.
Overall, in the updated SMPs, shoreline armoring is far more likely to be
permitted outright, or permitted with conditions, than prohibited. This is a
somewhat surprising finding, considering the region’s target for reducing the total
miles of new shoreline armoring in Puget Sound by 2020, but the results –
particularly the high proportion of conditional use regulations – may reflect the
difficulty of balancing ecological goals with the rights of shoreline property
owners. Landowners have the right to protect their property from shoreline
erosion, and the Shoreline Management Act and SMP guidelines include
provisions that oblige local government to “provide for methods which achieve
effective and timely protection against loss or damage to single-family residences
and appurtenant structures due to shoreline erosion” (RCW 90.58.100). Many
communities deal with this conflict between ecological protection and private
property rights by requiring that landowners who apply for a bulkhead permit
provide a geotechnical report proving that erosion threatens structures on the
property as part of the conditional use process. The jurisdiction also may require a
shoreline substantial development permit, which adds an additional level of state
review to a project. Even with these conditions, however, such a policy shifts the
decision on whether to allow a bulkhead from the SMP to the discretion of the
local permitting staff who implement the regulations, and who may differ in their
interpretation of when armoring should be permitted.
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Regulations concerning new docks and piers are more variable, as shown
in Table 16. Despite research that has shown their negative impacts to eelgrass
and other important marine species, these overwater structures remain permitted
in nearly half the standard environment designations listed in the updated SMPs.
The proliferation of new docks is prohibited in two-thirds of designated “Natural”
areas (67%), but docks are listed as a permitted use in another third (33%). While
such structures are more likely to be allowed in high-intensity, urban areas, a
quarter (25%) of SMPs ban new docks even in urban areas – in many cases to
minimize new obstructions to marine traffic and to reduce potential conflicts
between commercial and recreational users.
Table 16. Regulations for Overwater Structures in 23 Puget Sound SMPs
Permitted
Conditional
Not Permitted
69%
56%
33%
25%
31%
65%
47%
6%
11%
33%
38%
15%
30%
22%
25%
33%
33%
38%
54%
5%
31%
10
Docks & Piers
High-Intensity/Urban (n=18)
Shoreline Residential (n=18)
Urban Conservancy (n=16)
Rural Conservancy (n=8)
Natural (n=13)
Aquatic (n=21)11
Overall Average
Again, it is surprising that overwater structures remain permitted in such a
high proportion of Puget Sound communities, given their known impacts to the
shoreline ecosystem. This observation is especially unexpected as docks and piers
usually are considered an amenity, rather than a necessity for the protection of
property, as is the case with some shoreline armoring. The continued permitting
of docks highlights the conflict between environmental protection and public
70
values for private recreational use of the shoreline. In their SMPs, many
communities have provided more direction on the design of these structures to
minimize their environmental impact, but again, placing restrictions in the
conditions of the permit means the final decision is at the discretion of the
permitting staff. This allows for more variation in implementing the regulations
than would a strict policy in the SMP.
Ecological Scores
As described above in the Methods section, I calculated an Ecological Score
(between 0-1) for each jurisdiction, as a composite of scores that represent the
protectiveness of that SMP’s policies for setbacks, shoreline armoring, and
overwater structures. The Participatory scores ranged from a high of 0.78 to a low
of 0.33, with a mean and median of 0.57, and a standard deviation of 0.12. The
data are normally distributed, as can be seen in Figure 7.
71
Figure 7. Frequency Distribution of Ecological Scores
D.3 Comparison of Participatory and Ecological Scores
At the start of this study, I hypothesized that a more participatory public process
would have a negative effect on the strength of the SMP in protecting marine
shorelines and saltwater habitat. Instead, the results of the statistical analysis
indicate there is little to no association between how participatory a public process
is (as measured by the Participatory Scores) and the strength of the SMP for
protecting the shoreline environment (as measured by the Ecological Scores).
The scatter plot in Figure 8 shows the wide distribution of the scores.
72
Figure 8. Comparison of Participatory and Ecological Scores
The Spearman’s rank correlation analysis shows a slightly negative
relationship (rho = –0.248), indicating that Ecological Scores do decrease with
increasing Participatory Scores, but the result is not significant (p-value=0.337).
This analysis could be improved by increasing the sample size as more
communities complete their SMP updates; with only 17 matched pairs of scores
this result can only be considered preliminary. It does, however, provide a model
for how additional analysis could be conducted in the future.
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D.4 Analysis of Interviews
The interviews conducted with 15 planners and participants in the three casestudy communities (Anacortes, Mukilteo, and Tacoma) provided more detail and
context for understanding the role of public participation in the SMP update
process, particularly how public input influenced the plans as they were
developed. As described above in the Methods section, several people in each
community, representing a range of perspectives, were asked a similar list of
questions about their participation in an SMP update. The interviewer asked each
person:
•
What shoreline issues were important in their community,
•
What led them to participate in the SMP update,
•
Whether by participating they had learned anything about shoreline
science or other views in the community,
•
How well they thought the final SMP incorporated public values
•
How well they thought the final SMP protected marine shorelines and
saltwater habitat,
•
What they thought worked well about the process, and what didn’t.
Although these interviews provide just a small sampling of how different
communities are handling public participation in their SMP updates, the results
show some common themes across different communities and stakeholders, as
well as areas of disagreement. A complete list of the interview questions is
included in Appendix 2.
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Important Shoreline Issues
Interview subjects identified a variety of shoreline use issues that they thought
were important in their communities (Figure 9). Public access was cited most
frequently as a concern (23%), and was noted across the different interest groups:
by planners and representatives from environmental, business, and recreation
groups alike. The need to balance and reconcile competing visions for the
shoreline was another cross-over issue (15%), as was the obligation to protect
property rights (12%).
Figure 9. Important Shoreline Issues for Planners and Participants in Three Focus
Communities. 23
Recreation/
tourism
8%
Economic
development
8%
Permitting
4%
Public access
23%
Property rights
12%
Working
waterfront/
water-dependent
industry
15%
Ecological
protection/
restoration
15%
Balance
competing
visions
15%
Other frequently mentioned themes, such as supporting water-dependent
industries and protecting or restoring ecological functions (such as through
vegetated shoreline buffers), were cited most often by their respective interest
23
Source: Frequency of coding themes in 15 interviews.
75
representative. Less-frequently mentioned themes included encouraging economic
development (8%), providing more recreation and tourism opportunities along the
shoreline (8%), and the need for clear permitting requirements (4%).
Opportunities for Participation & Learning
The three cities profiled offered a variety of participation opportunities throughout
their SMP updates, and the participants interviewed used different methods to
learn about the SMP process and voice their opinions, including writing formal
comment letters, checking the city’s website, attending public meetings and
workshops, serving on advisory committees, meeting one-on-one with planning
staff or city officials, and organizing outreach events independent of the city’s
participation efforts.
Planners also made a point of reaching out to specific groups to get their
input. The groups that were targeted differed among the respective communities
profiled, but included: ports, shoreline property owners, historic waterfront
community, neighborhood groups, ferry operators, and neighboring jurisdictions.
Planners noted that it was important to engage other internal city departments
throughout the SMP process – including those departments that oversee public
works, parks, environmental health, and construction permitting.
Overall, the planners and participants interviewed thought their local
governments did a middling job of capturing the range of public opinion in their
communities around marine shoreline issues: ranking an average of 3.7 out of 5.
Planners judged their efforts as slightly worse than the overall average (3.5 out of
5). A theme that came up repeatedly in responses to this question was that
76
although there were many “opportunities” or outlets offered for participation,
many segments of the community were not represented, either because they were
unaware or uninterested in the SMP update process, or because the participation
methods and times offered favored those who are used to participating in similar
public processes or who participate as part of their job (for example, as a paid
policy expert for an interest group).
This dilemma is exemplified in the following quotes from planners and
participants:
“I think there was plenty of opportunity for the public to participate, if
they chose to.” (Planner)
“The answer is that you can never do enough, you can always do more.”
(Planner)
“Those in the know knew about it, but it was very underpublicized in a
way that could have gotten more people involved.” (Environment Interest)
“They have developed email lists. If you’ve attended a meeting, and put
your name on a list, you’ll get the email, but if you get the email, they’ll
send it the day before – not a lot of head’s up time.” (Recreation Interest)
“The SMP was a political process, and we took advantage of that [by
attending city council meetings, writing letters, calling people].” (Business
Interest)
Although all three cities offered multiple participation opportunities, not all
focused on educating the public or specific stakeholder groups about marine
shoreline science, as it related to the SMP update. This observation is in line with
the finding above that educating the public was less frequently cited as a public
participation objective across all SMP study communities. Some planners
77
indicated that they were reluctant to take on this role, because they might appear
to be advocating for one side of an issue (the environmental interests). In some
communities, local or regional environmental groups took up the role of educating
the public. In one case, a planner noted that efforts made to educate the public
about issues like overwater structures and forage fish habitat were met with very
little interest from the public. Among participants, only 11 percent felt they had
learned something about shoreline science by participating in the SMP update.
In contrast, the opportunities offered did allow participants to gain a greater
understanding about the perspectives of other parties: 56 percent of participants
interviewed felt that they had learned about other views in the community on how
the shoreline should be used. As one participant noted, “By the end of the process,
which was several years, any one of us could have stood up in the place of any
one other person and made their comments for them…. I didn’t agree with
everything they all said, but that wasn’t the point” (Environmental Interest).
Public Values & Shoreline Protection in Final SMP
Despite the limitations of participation, the public input gathered during the
update process did influence the policies and regulations included in the final
SMPs. All three planners interviewed referred to specific instances in which the
draft SMP was altered because of public input. When asked how well the final
SMP reflects public values raised during the update process, interviewees ranked
the final result as an average of 4.1 out of 5. On this question, planners rated their
efforts more highly than the overall average (4.8 out of 5). Participants expressed
mixed impressions: while some observed that the jurisdiction made changes,
78
others felt that that their comments had been ignored or had trouble tracing
changes though the multiple iterations of the SMP. Some felt changes were being
made behind closed doors.
“It took a long time to get it done because we spent so much time on these
multiple, multiple, multiple iterations of the draft to get to a place where
we could say, it’s in there.” (Planner)
“The report that was published, I never saw it – It was like, what came out
of the process? Three or four people get to see it.” (Recreation Interest)
“They did make all the changes we requested, so I think that was really
positive.” (Environmental Interest)
“I think they made some efforts to take comments into the document, but I
think there was a lot of compromise and maybe not to the benefit of the
city. But some is better than none.” (Recreation Interest)
“It was mixed. We had some wins.” (Business Interest)
Others noted that only input given at certain times in the process made an impact
on the final product:
•
“For the most part, we engaged before they got to the draft, but there
were some cases where we didn’t engage until they got to the draft. [It
is important to start early] because, by the time you get to the draft, it’s
cooked” (Environmental Interest).
On the question of how well the final SMP protects marine shorelines, the
impressions of interview subjects were positive, an average of 4.3 out of 5.
However, several interview subjects declined to answer this question, citing a lack
of expertise.
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Lessons Learned
Those interviewed identified what they thought had worked well (and what had
not) in the public engagement efforts they took part in during the SMP update.
Although this question was not one of the central inquiries identified for this
study, the responses provided insightful information that could be of interest and
use to the planning community, and so it is summarized here.
Aspects that improved the process included:
•
Offering multiple methods for participation.
Participants and planners noted the importance of having different ways to access
planning staff and provide comment during the SMP updates. According to one
planner interviewed, “Some people like to do public speaking, some people don’t.
Some people like writing me emails. I had one person who just came in and talked
to me…. So that person felt comfortable doing it that way.”
•
Proactive outreach with (or by) key groups.
Some planners identified and contacted key interest groups early in their update
process, to get feedback on the group’s likely concerns and thoughts about the
SMP update. This proactive approach brought these groups into the process
before the draft SMP was written, and minimized conflicts that otherwise could
have arisen later, after work had been invested to produce a draft SMP. Groups
that were contacted in this way felt more included in the update process, rather
than reactive to it. Some groups also took the initiative to develop and host their
own participation efforts, whether this was convening a group of different
business development interests that met regularly during the update or holding
80
environmental education events that tied into the themes of the SMP update.
These efforts increased participation in the processes they addressed by bringing
additional resources and attention to the SMP update beyond those limited
opportunities offered directly by the local jurisdiction. It also allowed groups with
similar interests to coordinate their efforts, enabling them to participate while
conserving limited time and funds.
•
Having a single point of contact (staff person), and/or a core group of
participants that sticks with the process from start to end.
Turnover, both of planning staff and of participants, has been a significant factor
delaying many SMP updates. Participants appreciated having a point of contact
for SMP concerns clearly identified on the jurisdiction’s website and on outreach
materials. Both planners and participants noted that because the update process
was so long, sometimes new concerns would arise mid-way through the process
and draw in new groups of participants – at these times it was important to have
people around who had been with the process and knew why certain decisions had
been made in the past.
•
Hosting topical meetings, rather than general ones.
Participants appreciated it when meetings were organized around a single topic,
and when the subject matter was made clear prior to the event. This allowed
participants to attend only those events that were relevant to their concerns, and
helped ensure that the comment they provided was pertinent to the sections of the
SMP under consideration. When meetings were more general, participants
81
became frustrated that their concerns were not being addressed and sometime left
the process.
•
Providing accessible, searchable documents.
Participants liked having access to draft documents online via the jurisdiction’s
website, and they appreciated seeing where changes had been made by comparing
them with previous, redlined versions of the document. Organizing and presenting
this information could be a considerable undertaking for the planning staff, but
the work paid off when they could point clearly to places in the documents where
people’s concerns and comments had been incorporated or to explanations of why
they had not been included.
•
Sharing resources with other community groups.
Regional environmental organizations found they had more credibility in a local
update, and could spread their limited resources farther, when they partnered with
a local environmental organization and coordinated their feedback on the SMP.
Interview subjects also were asked what they thought could have been
improved about the SMP process in which they took part. Identified shortcomings
include:
•
Overestimating the public (and elected officials’) knowledge of current
land-use practices.
The SMP updates are complicated regulatory programs with many technical
details, but in some cases participants were not knowledgeable enough about
current regulations to understand the impact of proposed changes. Planners noted
they were less successful when they expected a level of familiarity with current
82
code regulations and jumped in to the details of policy changes without first
spending sufficient time and effort preparing that foundation and educating the
public, and elected officials, about shoreline planning issues more generally.
•
Timing and site selection of meetings.
In the cities profiled, participants often noted that there were many meetings held
on the SMP, but some expressed frustration that meetings were scheduled in a
way that made it difficult for people to participate, unless they were employed to
do so. Meetings held during the day or in some city buildings were convenient for
city staff and for representatives from interest groups who could attend as part of
their jobs, but were inconvenient for someone working a day job who would have
to make special arrangements. Even when meetings were held in the evenings or
on weekends, some participants felt they did not receive notice of the event early
enough to arrange for child care or make other adjustments to their schedules. A
recurring comment was that the structure of participation opportunities favored
participation among those familiar with such processes.
•
Limited use of mass and social media.
As the results in the previous section indicate, planners still rely on newspapers to
inform the public about the SMP update, but mostly fail to incorporate other
media outlets that could reach a wider audience. Some planners indicated that
although they had originally intended to use community television or social media
to get their message out, these plans were dropped during the process due to a
lack of resources.
83
•
Spending too long on early “visioning” participation.
Although gathering public input early in the process was an important component
of many updates, some planners found that they spent too much time and effort
trying to elicit participation before they had produced a draft plan. According to
one planner, “We were trying to do all this outreach before we had a draft, and as
long as people didn’t have something to react to, the conversation remained at
such a high level.”
•
Isolating the SMP update from other processes.
In all the communities profiled, the SMP update was only one of many planning
processes that had historically dealt with the community’s vision for its
waterfront. Participants who had engaged in or embraced previous community
visioning plans were discouraged when the SMP effort seemed to start from
scratch or change course. City staff did not always make clear how the SMP fit in
with other ongoing or earlier planning efforts, and this could lead to confusion
among potential participants about how their input would be used. This point
highlights the struggle within an SMP between functioning as a vision or a
blueprint – a community might have put forward a vision of turning an industrial
area into a pedestrian-friendly park or residential neighborhood, but the SMP
might identify an environment designation that reflects the area’s current
industrial use.
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E. DISCUSSION
As stated above in Section B, the goals of public participation are to “improve the
quality, legitimacy, and capacity of environmental assessments and decisions”
(Dietz and Stern 2008). This study focused on whether public input improved the
quality of shoreline master programs, but considers the “quality” of a final plan as
both (1) the extent to which it incorporates public values, and (2) the extent to
which it contains policies that protect marine shoreline ecology. My analysis of
participation materials and interviews with SMP participants reveals qualitative,
and some quantitative, answers to the four research questions posed at the
beginning of this research effort.
How much variation is there among SMP public participation efforts?
There is considerable variation in how local jurisdictions are approaching public
engagement as part of their SMP updates, at least according to the efforts noted in
their public participation plans. All the cities and counties analyzed intend to go
beyond the minimum statutory requirement to hold a single public hearing.
However, some communities have hosted limited additional participation
opportunities, while others have launched extensive outreach to various interests
and groups within their communities, and/or have experimented with numerous
participation methods for involving the public.
Despite these observed differences among programs, overall, jurisdictions
are relying heavily on a few standard methods to inform and involve the public.
The majority of cities and counties are relying on a small number of the same
tools for communication (website, public notices, mailing lists, and newspapers)
85
and for taking comment. Local governments are relying heavily on the public
meeting structure that already exists within their administrations – using existing
planning commission and city or county council meetings to publically vet and
discuss the SMP update.
The variation observed in this level of effort could be explained by a
number of interrelated variables, only some of which factor into the current
analysis. One issue is geography: communities with only small sections of
shoreline that are not ecologically complex may have less need for an extensive
public participation process, because there are fewer decisions being made about
the use of that shoreline.
A second issue concerns the level of engagement in the community:
planners who work in an area where residents are less interested in shoreline
issues or less actively involved in civic issues in general may not have a need for
extensive participation opportunities that are necessary in a community that
typically has a very engaged and opinionated populace. It may be the case that
different outreach techniques are better suited to different communities, but
certainly an equal outreach effort may not be required for a small bedroom
community like Mukilteo as for a large city like Tacoma.
Access to resources is a third differentiating issue: access both to the
funding and staff time needed to organize and run public participation activities.
Some planners cited a lack of resources as the reason why they fell back on using
the standard notice and public meeting methods that were already built into their
annual budget, and did not pursue additional participatory opportunities. Other
86
communities requested and were awarded grant funds that supported their
engagement efforts, or had more funds to apply to that work. A related issue is the
widespread use of consultants in the SMP updates; some jurisdictions with
available funding hired consultants to develop (and in some cases implement) a
public participation plan. This could bring more expertise to the participation
process, but the plans that resulted from the work of consultants were sometimes
more generic and less suited to local conditions.
To an extent, these issues undermine one of the assumptions central to this
study – that the participatory processes of different jurisdictions bordering Puget
Sound can be compared to one another, despite the vast differences in population
and shoreline resources among these 46 communities. A public participation plan
that is perfectly suited to the context of one area may be inadequate for another
down the shore, and it may be unfair and misleading to compare one to the other.
Despite this qualification, there are some lessons that can be drawn from looking
across the experience of updating SMPs in different communities, with the
understanding that these recommendations may not apply universally.
Jurisdictions could improve their participation efforts by making a
concerted effort to reach out to recreational interests in their area – because of the
SMP’s focus on public access to the shoreline, these groups have a direct interest
in the discussion, but they often are less organized and less used to participating
in civic processes than other groups.
The reliance on traditional public participation methods – such as
comment periods, planning commissions, and public hearings – favors
87
participation by interest groups and individuals that are organized and familiar
with this manner of working through policy matters. Making the effort to use
different tools, for example by tabling at community events and employing social
media and online platforms, can bring in the perspective of people who would
never be interested in attending a public meeting or hearing. Local jurisdictions
can also make their processes more accessible by scheduling meetings at times
and places that are convenient for more members of the public, and by ensuring
public comment is traceable through the update process.
How well do updated SMPs incorporate policies that protect marine
shorelines?
As stated above, updated SMPs include substantial, protective policies for marine
shorelines, but few offer the greatest level of protection. This improvement is
largely owing to the state guidelines; on topics for which the guidelines are less
explicit or allow room for interpretation, such as the minimum setback
requirements of different environment designations, SMP policies vary
considerably. The result is that the protectiveness of updated SMPs for marine
shorelines is inconsistent among Puget Sound communities.
Although there is considerable scientific consensus that modifications
such as shoreline armoring and overwater structures have a negative impact on the
nearshore environment, these activities are more likely to be permitted than
prohibited in the new SMPs. These newer regulations are likely more protective
than the many SMPs that were developed in the 1970s, but whether they will be
effective at ensuring no further loss of ecological function is more uncertain.
88
The state guidelines and approval process have proven an important
backstop that helps ensure all updated programs hold to a (mostly) standard
minimal level of shoreline protection. According to one of the environmental
representatives interviewed: “In theory, [jurisdictions] would implement the 2003
guidelines and they would go beyond them, but given the reality of what we’ve
seen on the ground, most have not gone beyond, except in a few specific areas….
Everything comes back to that guidance. That 2003 document is incredibly
important to the SMPs.”
The idea that few communities are putting forward SMPs that are more
environmentally protective than required highlights an observation made by
Brody (2003) that the participation of environmental non-governmental
organizations (ENGOs) in a planning process has an important impact on the
ecological strength of a planning document:
While the broad representation of stakeholders in the planning
process does not necessarily lead to stronger plans, despite the
endorsement of many scholars, the presence of specific
stakeholders does in fact significantly increase ecosystem plan
quality. (Brody 2003)
Local and regional ENGOs may play a similar role in the update of Puget
Sound SMPs. More particularly, their absence may explain in part why
communities are unlikely to go above and beyond the minimum environmental
requirements in the SMP update guidelines. Not all communities have local
environmental organizations that would be prepared to advocate for
environmental protections over the course of a long, drawn-out update, and the
SMP update process for Puget Sound communities was timed with the demise of
89
one of the largest and most active regional ENGOs, People for Puget Sound,
which shut down unexpectedly in 2012 (Mapes 2012). Even before the loss of this
group, regional ENGOs interested in the SMP updates (others include Futurewise
and the League of Conservation Voters) had to spread their limited staff and
resources among the many communities undergoing updates. Some groups found
it difficult to generate interest among their membership for the long and technical
update processes. Planners must balance among many different interest groups
present during a process, and responses gathered during the interviews indicated
that some felt the voice of the environmental community – which had actively
participated in the negotiations that developed the SMP guidelines – was often
absent from the local update processes that implemented those guidelines. This
was not the case in communities with smaller environmental groups that had a
local interest in the update process. The role of ENGOs in the update process
would be an interesting topic for further study.
Some of the same qualifications about comparability stated above apply
here as well. The vastly different geographies and demographics of Puget Sound
communities determine policy needs that vary among communities. It is difficult
to compare the environmental protectiveness of DuPont – which received the
highest Ecological Score, but is a small, residential community with only two
standard environment designations – with Snohomish County – which received a
middling score but has a much longer, and more diverse shoreline. Or to compare
the highly urbanized Tacoma with Mukilteo, which has a shoreline that is largely
cut off from development by high bluffs and a railroad line. The use of six
90
standard environment designations (high-intensity, residential shoreline, urban
conservancy, rural conservancy, natural, and aquatic) helps make the policies for
different shoreline areas appear more comparable, but because communities can
tune these standard designations to their own particular needs, add new special
designations, and qualify any regulations with exceptions, true apple-to-apple
comparison (such as that attempted for this study) is very difficult in practice.
How well do updated SMPs incorporate public values?
This question proved more difficult to determine quantitatively from the limited
analysis possible within the scope of this thesis. It is clear both from reviewing
comment response materials and from interviews with planners and participants
that public input gathered during the SMP updates is incorporated into the plan
and does change the final program. Not all comments and suggestions are
accepted, and in many cases those changes that are made are cosmetic – these
include grammatical edits or correcting place names and other factual information
according to local knowledge that comes to light. In fewer cases, the changes can
be substantial, such as altering regulations to allow for local preferential uses,
changing the environment designation of a stretch of shoreline, or creating an
entirely new designation that caters to local conditions.
In general, interview subjects indicated that local governments do a
mediocre job of offering opportunities that capture the full range of public
opinion. It was disappointing to see how heavily local jurisdictions planned to
rely on their existing public meeting structure to meet the participation
requirements of SMP updates. This outcome may be the expected result of limited
91
resources, but the majority of citizens in a community will never attend a planning
commission or city council meeting or hearing. SMP communities that take such
a tack would seem to be aiming for compliance with state guidelines, rather than
truly trying to engage the public in the update process. It is also true that hosting a
more participatory process requires a significant effort from the jurisdiction, and
they may host it only to learn that few in their community are interested in
understanding and participating in such a technical update process. Those
interviewed gave their cities better marks for integrating the values expressed
during the process into the final document. This indicates that participation serves
more than a perfunctory role in the planning process – public input can change the
final plans.
The influence of public input on the final SMPs is limited fundamentally,
however, because of the nature of an SMP update process that requires each
program to meet state guidelines and receive both local and state approval. Local
governments are not free to incorporate their citizens’ vision for shoreline use into
an SMP if that vision conflicts with the state guidelines, which assert the
precedence of statewide interest over local. However, the finding noted above that
65 percent of the SMPs reviewed contain at least one non-standard designation
points to the fact that local governments do have considerable flexibility in
designing SMPs that reflect their community’s values.
92
Does public input influence the strength or weakness of plans for
shoreline protection and restoration?
This was the question that most interested me in undertaking this study, but it
cannot be answered conclusively with the limited data gathered in the time for
this study. Although the statistical analysis indicates a slight, though nonsignificant, correlation between the breadth, intensity, and methods of a
participation process, and the ecological strength of the SMP that emerges from
that process, the sample of data is too small, and laced with too many caveats to
be very meaningful. Increasing the sample size of Ecological Scores, by
reviewing the policies of more communities as they complete their SMP updates,
would help give a more complete picture of this question.
What is clear in reviewing the SMP update processes for multiple Puget
Sound jurisdictions is that there is inherent tension between the desire to create a
plan that reflects a community’s input and vision for use of its shoreline, and the
desire for a plan that provides robust protection of the shoreline environment as
indicated by science. An SMP guided entirely by science would propose 200-foot
buffers and setbacks everywhere; but the SMPs being developed under the
updated guidance must weigh environmental benefits with other social
considerations, particularly those brought up through the public participation
process. In a democratic society, people have a right to ignore the available
science in favor of other considerations, though doing so often introduces conflict
into the update process.
93
These sources of conflict fall often along lines similar to those discussed
by Berke, Godschalk, and Kaiser 2006, and shown earlier in Figure 1. That figure
can be modified to reflect the conflicts between the three major goals of the
Shoreline Management Act (Figure 10).
Figure 10. Contradictions in Shoreline Master Programs
Although the Shoreline Management Act is held up as one of Washington
State’s signature environmental policies, protecting ecological functions of the
shoreline is just one of three overarching policy goals identified in the state
guidelines for implementing it – allowing water-dependent uses and encouraging
public access are equally, if not more, important. The SMPs must balance (or
wrangle) these three aspirations, and the most heated public conversations often
begin when these goals conflict. A version of the “development conflict” arises
when a plan to create a paved waterfront trail that provides water views and
94
access to all residents confronts the desire to maintain 200 feet of vegetated buffer
along a natural shoreline. The “resource conflict” occurs when businesses argue
that proposed setbacks and buffers will inhibit property rights or the economic
growth of waterfront industry, or when residents oppose an environmentally
threatening, but legitimate water-dependent trade. The “property conflict”
surfaces when new or expanded public access demands in gentrifying areas are
seen as threatening to existing industrial uses. When each of these conflicts arise,
planners must find a common solution, usually a compromise for both sides, that
also meets state regulations; this need to compromise among competing goals
may help explain why so few communities are establishing the most
environmentally protective policies in their SMP updates.
According to interviews, participants were much more likely to have
learned about competing views that exist in their communities about how
shorelines should be used, than to have learned anything about shoreline science.
This observation points to a potential shortcoming of many SMP participatory
processes – few focus on educating the public about the ecosystem that the
regulations are put in place to protect. Perhaps because of this, the community
discussions around SMP updates often seem to focus on very particular changes,
and who benefits or suffers from that change, rather than on the plans as a whole.
It became apparent over the course of this study that the level of public
conversation generated by the update process varies greatly among communities.
Some SMP updates have been extremely controversial with heated debates that
polarized their communities and changed the course of elections (Olympia,
95
Jefferson County, Burien, Bainbridge Island, Kitsap County), while others have
been completed and approved to little attention or fanfare (Lacey, Steilacoom,
Marysville). Many of the most controversial communities could not be included
in the analysis of ecological scores for this study, because they have gone on so
long that they were not completed, or even locally approved, in time. These public
debates certainly have an impact on the environmental strength of shoreline
policies, especially as jurisdictions learn from one another.
Do some types of participatory processes work better?
It is clear from the interview data on lessons learned that there are some aspects of
the participatory processes that work better for participants. Providing multiple
methods for participation, hosting events at a range of times and locations, and
clearly tracking and documenting how input from the public has been integrated
into the plan are all facets of the process that can improve the experience of
participation for participants, and help to build trust in the regulations they
inform.
Whether these more inclusive processes lead to substantially better
regulations in the resulting SMPs is unclear. In some cases, these processes have
brought more people to the table, and have helped to educate the public about the
shoreline science that underlies many of these regulations. In others, the public
process has served as a platform for polarized factions, and posturing among wellorganized interest groups generates a debate that is more political than sciencebased, drowning out much of the real discussion about shoreline use. In many
communities, both situations may occur over the course of the update process.
96
The best processes are those that reach beyond the usual methods and players to
engage the fuller range of shoreline users.
F. CONCLUSION
But look! Here come more crowds, pacing straight for the water,
and seemingly bound for a dive. Strange! Nothing will content
them but the extremest limit of the land…. They must get just as
nigh to the water as they possibly can without falling in.
- Herman Melville, Moby Dick
Marine shorelines comprise among the most productive and critical habitats on
our planet, yet these coastal areas remain under increasing pressure from human
use. People are drawn to the shoreline to live, work, and play - with the result that
development, industry, and recreational opportunities crowd into the thin corridor
of land that borders the water. In Puget Sound, as in many large estuaries around
the world, these uses often come into conflict with one another, and their
cumulative impacts can undermine the ecological functions that support these
uses. The result is that today we have a shoreline that is dramatically modified
from its natural condition – straightened, shortened, and cleared of vegetation.
The impact of those modifications shows in the degradation of water quality and
the continued decline of many marine-dependent species, including forage fish
and salmon.
Better land-use planning for the shoreline is proposed as one tool that can
help to limit the negative impacts of shoreline use on that critical habitat;
however, such planning always involves a balance of competing goals and
97
priorities, rather than a direct application of science. Public input can help inform
such processes, so that the regulations for shoreline use reflect the priorities and
values of the community, but being responsive to a diverse audience of users will
mean that some compromises are made when it comes to environmental
protection.
This study considered the role of public participation in the updates of
Shoreline Master Programs for Puget Sound-bordering communities, and found a
great deal of variation, both in how local governments are organizing their
processes and in the regulations that result from those efforts. There is some
evidence to indicate that because many jurisdictions are relying on traditional
public meeting methods, they are failing to engage and integrate the full range of
public perspectives through the update process. Shoreline users who are not
organized into some kind of interest group that can take their case to the county or
city are less likely to have their voices heard and integrated into plans.
This research found that despite extensive state guidelines developed for
the update process, the actual policies that protect shoreline use vary considerably
among different jurisdictions. This variation may have as much to do with the
diverse geography of the region as with the public input gathered during the
update process, and my analysis did not show a significant association between
the level of public participation and the strength of a plan’s policies. Nevertheless,
state guidelines and the requirement for state approval do form an important
backstop in setting the minimum requirements for some policies.
98
The new shoreline plans certainly are an improvement over the outdated
ones from the 1970s, and bring regulations more in line with recent scientific
understanding about the vulnerability of shoreline ecosystems. At the same time,
they contain many compromises that allow them to serve the multiple goals of the
Shoreline Management Act, as well as the interests of many different shoreline
users. The extensive use of special environment designations and exceptions in
the SMPs show that they can be customized to deal with local concerns and
conditions, but this also makes it difficult to determine whether the programs will
be effective at protecting the shoreline ecosystem. Such a judgment may need to
wait until the policies being put in place today are implemented in the years to
come, and until we see the shape and condition of our future shoreline.
Opportunities for Future Research
This study raised many questions about the role of public participation in
shoreline master planning that could be further investigated through additional
research. The analysis of public processes conducted for this study was limited to
a review of public participation plans, which describe the intended process rather
than what was done. An instructive topic for future research would involve
comparing those plans with what participation methods were actually used as
communities completed their SMP updates, and seeing how great the disparity.
This study included SMPs that were either finalized by the state or locally
approved, and could be expanded as more jurisdictions complete the update
process. It would also be interesting to see how plans change between the draft
and final versions, from comments gathered during Ecology’s public process.
99
Future research could also compare how much the shoreline policies change
between the local draft and final versions, as well as whether jurisdictions that
updated early in the process are substantially different from those coming later.
With a larger data set, it would be possible to investigate whether certain
methods, such as a citizen or technical advisory committee, are associated with
stronger plans. Future research also could focus on what geographic and social
factors contribute to the environmental strength of SMPs, and could compare the
strength of Puget Sound SMPs with those in other regions of Washington.
Another avenue of study could delve more deeply into the role of environmental
nongovernmental organizations (ENGOs) in the SMP update process.
The interview structure developed for this study could be replicated for
additional communities. One potential approach could focus on comparing
communities where the SMP update was particularly contentious with those that
were less so.
Finally, it would be fascinating to take a geographic look at the policies of
SMPs. Such a study could piece together the environment designations using a
GIS analysis to investigate a number of questions – how many miles of shoreline
are included within each environment designation, how much undeveloped
shoreline is protected by the strongest regulations, and how much is left
vulnerable. Such a study could consider the question of whether the updated
SMPs are providing adequate protection for Puget Sound.
100
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APPENDICES
Appendix 1. SMP Jurisdiction Table
The table below lists all 46 jurisdictions considered as part of this study. Green
rows indicate communities that have completed their SMP update, while orange
rows indicate those that have a locally adopted draft SMP. Bolded jurisdictions
represent case-study communities. Population, population density, population
growth from 1990 to 2010, median home value, and median income information
was gathered from the US Census – cells with n/a indicate jurisdictions for which
detailed Census information was not available.
County,
City/Town
Plan Stage
Population
Pop
Density
Pop
Growth
Whatcom
Complete
201,140
95.5
Locally Approved
80,885
Bellingham
Median
Income
20.6%
Median
Home
Value
$293,500
2,987.0
20.4%
$305,500
$38,136
$49,031
Blaine
Under Way
4,684
680.4
n/a
$260,300
$54,201
San Juan
Under Way
15,769
90.7
12.0%
$495,600
$50,726
Friday
Harbor
Island
Under Way
2,162
n/a
n/a
n/a
n/a
Under Way
78,506
376.6
9.7%
$307,100
$57,190
Coupeville
Complete
1,831
n/a
n/a
n/a
n/a
Langley
Under Way
1,035
n/a
n/a
n/a
n/a
Oak Harbor
Locally Approved
22,075
2,342.9
11.5%
$238,800
$48,656
Skagit
Under Way
116,901
67.5
13.5%
$278,300
$54,811
Anacortes
Complete
15,778
1,343.0
8.4%
$351,600
$31,003
La Conner
Under Way
891
n/a
n/a
n/a
n/a
Complete
713,335
341.8
17.7%
$338,600
$30,635
Edmonds
Under Way
39,709
4,459.2
0.5%
$419,600
$69,125
Marysville
Complete
60,020
2,902.5
137.1%
$274,200
$64,399
Mukilteo
Complete
20,254
3,163.7
12.4%
$475,500
$91,683
Stanwood
Under Way
6,231
2,212.7
58.8%
$274,500
$60,596
Snohomish
King
Locally Approved
1,931,249
912.9
11.2%
$407,700
$68,065
Burien
Locally Approved
33,313
4,489.6
4.5%
$333,700
$51,995
Des Moines
Complete
29,673
4,564.4
1.4%
$297,200
$59,577
Federal
Way
Normandy
Park
Seattle
Complete
89,306
4,011.9
7.3%
$289,000
$56,509
Under Way
6,335
2,513.9
-0.9%
$531,000
$73,333
Under Way
608,660
7,250.9
8.0%
$456,200
$60,665
Shoreline
Under Way
53,007
4,540.6
4.9%
$370,400
$67,076
Under Way
795,225
476.3
13.5%
$269,300
$57,869
Pierce
104
DuPont
Locally Approved
8,199
1,399.6
234.4%
$312,000
$82,317
Gig Harbor
Under Way
7,126
1,198.3
10.2%
$447,800
$60,837
Ruston
Locally Approved
749
n/a
n/a
n/a
n/a
Steilacoom
Locally Approved
5,985
2,933.8
-1.1%
$320,800
$63,690
Tacoma
Locally Approved
198,397
3,990.2
2.5%
$241,300
$47,862
Under Way
31,144
3,697.9
4.0%
$325,800
$56,792
Under Way
252,264
349.4
21.7%
$257,800
$60,930
Lacey
Complete
42,393
2,639.8
35.8%
$238,400
$57,304
Olympia
Under Way
46,478
2,608.0
9.3%
$262,000
$49,461
Under Way
60,699
63.3
22.9%
$216,000
$48,104
University
Place
Thurston
Mason
Shelton
Under Way
9,834
1,708.8
16.5%
$163,900
$32,927
Under Way
251,133
635.9
8.3%
$284,700
$59,549
Bainbridge
Island
Bremerton
Under Way
23,025
833.9
13.4%
$609,700
$93,556
Under Way
37,729
1,328.2
1.3%
$219,300
$38,531
Port
Orchard
Poulsbo
Locally Approved
11,144
1,539.4
44.9%
$275,200
$50,275
Kitsap
Locally Approved
9,200
1,970.0
35.0%
$305,400
$594,464
Jefferson
Locally Approved
29,872
16.6
15.1%
$308,500
$46,048
Port
Townsend
Clallam
Complete
9,113
1,305.8
9.3%
$305,600
$43,597
Under Way
71,404
41.1
10.7%
$241,500
$44,398
Locally Approved
19,038
1,779.8
3.5%
$217,200
$38,938
Locally Approved
6,606
1,046.2
52.4%
$214,900
$34,750
Port
Angeles
Sequim
105
Appendix 2. Interview Questions
The interview portion of this study underwent a Human Subjects Review through The
Evergreen State College and was approved on April 30, 2012.
Questions for Planners
1. What were the major shoreline land-use or environmental issues facing the
[city/county] prior to the SMP update?
2. What were the [city/county]’s goals for public participation as part of the SMP
update process?
3. How engaged was the community prior to the start of the SMP update process?
(1-5 scale, where 1 = not engaged and 5 = very engaged)
4. What was important to the [city/county] in designing a public participation
strategy?
- Was it important to engage a high proportion of residents?
- Was it important to engage specific groups (if so, which groups)?
- Was it important to provide learning opportunities for participants?
- Was it important to engage the public at a particular stage of the process
(earlier vs later)?
5. Were any specific interest groups targeted for participation? If so, which groups
were targeted and why? In what way did you approach them?
6. What methods did the [city/county] employ as part of its public participation
process (examples: workshops, open houses, surveys, etc)? Why were these
methods chosen?
7. Did you change or adapt your strategy over the course of the update process? In
what way (methods added or dropped, additional time, etc)?
8. Did the [city/county] offer opportunities for the public or stakeholder groups to
learn about marine shoreline science related to the SMP update? If so, how many
opportunities and what kinds were organized?
9. How well do you think the opportunities offered for participation captured the
range of public opinion in the community around marine shoreline issues? (1-5
scale, where 1= did not capture public opinion and 5= captured full range of
public opinion)
106
10. Did public input change the plan during the update process? If so, can you
give an example of how public input was integrated into the final plan or how a
policy in the plan was altered because of public input?
11. In your opinion, how well does the final SMP reflect the public values raised
during the update process? (1-5 scale, where 1=does not reflect public values, and
5= reflects very well)
12. In your opinion, how well does the final plan protect marine shorelines and
saltwater habitat? (1-5 scale, where 1= does not offer much protection to marine
shorelines and 5= offers high level of protection beyond state requirements)
13. What about the public participation worked well, in your opinion? What
challenges arose during the process, related to public participation?
Questions for Participants
1. What led you to participate in the SMP update process in your community?
2. What do you think are the most important issues related to shoreline use in your
community?
3. How well do you think the opportunities offered for participation captured the
range of public opinion in the community around marine shoreline issues? (1-5
scale, where 1= did not capture public opinion and 5= captured full range of
public opinion)
4. Did you learn anything new about shoreline science by participating in the
SMP process?
5. Did you learn about other views in the community on how the shoreline should
be used by participating in the SMP process?
6. Have you reviewed the final plan?
7. In your opinion, how well does the final SMP reflect public values raised
during the update process? (1-5 scale, where 1=does not reflect public values, and
5= reflects very well)
107
8. In your opinion, how well does the final SMP protect marine shorelines and
saltwater habitat? (1-5 scale, where 1= does not offer much protection to marine
shorelines and 5= offers high level of protection beyond state requirements)
9. What about the [city/county]’s public participation process worked well, in
your opinion? What about the public participation process could have been
improved?
108
