Public Hearing
For purposes of having quality and meaningful public participation in the planning process, here is the paradox: The Public Hearing is the worst technique to use. But the Public Hearing is just about always a legal requirement that must be done.
In nearly every state and territory in the United States the planning enabling laws require a public hearing as one of the steps toward adoption of a plan. Public hearings are also often a required step with various zoning permit reviews (conditional or special use permits, planned unit developments, zoning amendments, zoning board of appeals or zoning board of adjustment rulings on variance, and so on).
The most significant thing wrong with public hearings is that it allows citizen input at the end of a planning process. Generally that is too late to accomplish any level of public participation beyond Sherry Arnstein’s “A Ladder of Participation” Tokenism Public Participation. As a result hearings are normally ineffective at building citizen participation and consensus.
The public hearing is an older approach to public participation. This may be why it is mandated in many planning and zoning laws – written before newer and more effective techniques came into practice.
Better Public Hearings
So what might your community do to make its public hearings more effective? There are two general strategies to follow. First is to use, as appropriate, the many different public participation methods available today. Those techniques should be started at the beginning of the planning process. The idea is to build consensus and support and empower people during the preparation of the plan. So by the end of the process, when a hearing must be held, support already exists and comments offered at the hearing are positive and not adversarial. A number of communities design their public participation with the explicit goal to minimize or eliminate contention and avoid major new issues being raised at the formal hearing.
A list of the different public participation methods can be found at the Public Participation Introduction page Introduction to Public Participation. This page also has links to more detail about each method.
The second strategy to use concerns the public hearing itself. First consider all of the techniques to enhance and increase public participation outlined on the Increasing Public Participation Page Increasing Public Participation. Then also consider:
- Public notices for the hearing should be display ads (not buried in the classifieds or legal notices. One way to make the hearing notice stand out is to reproduce the future land use map or other major illustration in the ad.
- Advertise in many types of media: Internet, radio, newspaper, community access television, postings on events listings, at the public library, bulletin boards found in the community, and so on.
- Televise public hearings. This can be done by working with the community access television station. If cable television is not available, or not viewed by many, then broadcast it over the internet, as well as posting it for later viewing.
- Do not limit public comment to only written and oral communications at the hearing. Also allow for Internet feedback systems, email, blog, or twitter as forms of submitting comment.
- Kurt H. Schindler, AICP, Regional Land Use Educator
- Michigan State University Extension
