Optimising public participation through the management of local projects on government-owned land

Abstract

The clients have gone from a “doing the right project” attitude to “doing the project right”. There are several literatures in the project management field which has been researched, to follow the latter concept. This study shall shed light on the importance of public participation for a project manager to “do the project right”. Public participation is a fundamental principle of good democratic governance. It is turning out to be the new norm for governments, authorities, and local governments’ policy making structures. This strategy seeks to facilitate the involvement of not just the affected stakeholders, but all citizens who wish to be part of the decision-making process. By means of this cooperation with members of the civil society, governing bodies strengthen the general public’s trust in their processes and operations. Based on metrics, researchers have challenged the citizens’ perception of public participation. Research has also shown that healthy public participation positively impacts developments, particularly during the initiation and design phases. This project management tool enables developers to invest time (during the two mentioned project life cycle stages) to communicate with the local community to identify its communal needs, improve the environmental aspect of the area, and meet the investor’s economic projections. Although literature relative to this subject-matter is substantial (even in the local fora), the researcher identified a literature gap which links public participation to the urban demographic analysis and the public’s perception about consultation processes. The co-existence of these two relationships in a political context encourages public participation processes throughout the first two stages of the project life cycle. This is imperative to improve the projects’ success rate, especially in terms of satisfied stakeholders. This study links the abovementioned elements and explores the association between the community’s feedback and development of projects from the locality’s heritage perspective. These connections improve the way projects are designed, not only to sustain the investor’s business portfolio, but also to respect the local’s landscape and the community’s interests. A model shall be created to show how public participation mechanisms can improve project design, generate a satisfactory feeling amongst patrons and foster a sense of belonging towards such a project.