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Learnings from Practice
This stage of the project wanted to find out from practicing planners how we can plan communities to be more inclusive of people with disabilities, chronic illness and mental illness of all ages, particularly in urban-rural fringe and regional areas.
How we learnt
30* urban and regional planners from various areas arounds Australia (New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, and Tasmania) participated in stage 1b - Planning for Inclusion in Practice - through:
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Anonymous questionnaire
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One on One interview
Centred on practice-led questions, participants were asked to share their experiences and processes of incorporating access and inclusion in practice.
29 out of 30 participants shared ways they tried to include access and inclusion, with most practice examples centring on engaging people with disabilities in feedback on master plans, structure/local area plans and on specific public space design projects.
* This was in addition from the learnings in stage 1a project - what makes communities inclusive) where 20% of 97 participants involved in Stage 1a who where local government workers – planners and other built environment professional (Queensland and Tasmania).
Tensions in Practice
The experience of participants working to promote disability inclusion has involved pushing against systems, processes and mindsets that enshrine ableism.
Participants identified several tensions incorporating access and inclusion in everyday practice. These were found to belong to four categories:
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Planning systems (e.g. codes, schemes and regulation)
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Internal and External Organisational Context (e.g. buy-in from others, values, politics)
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Resources (e.g. funding, time, people)
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Education (formal training, awareness training and professional skill development knowledge and resources, advocacy by the profession)
While I try to incorporate access and inclusion into everyday practice, this is often limited to planning processes (through, for example, the conduct of community engagement). The planning system is too limiting in the latitude it provides practitioners to foster inclusive places - even if we really want to
…Again though, there is so much more we would have liked to do with more appropriate resources, organisational buy-in and less limitations from the planning system
Planning systems (codes, schemes and regulation) often foster (directly or indirectly) exclusion by promoting hegemonic settler-colonial paradigms. Inclusion is thus often limited to tick-a-box exercises of meeting minimal design or engineering standards, rather than place-based performance.
Changes Needed in Australian Planning
Participants shared various changes and improvements to enable more ease in incorporating access and inclusion in daily practice.
Four key areas of change were identified from these accounts. These four areas act as a road map for setting inclusive planning polices and actions for the profession, authorities, and planning practitioners.
Area 1: Improving education and professional development
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Requiring equity, inclusion and access in formal planning education
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Planning for equity, inclusion and access offered in professional development training
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Building awareness on spatial barriers to participation with lived experience experts
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Building skills and confidence in doing inclusive engagement
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Better knowledge sharing in the profession, including practice networks in planning for equity and inclusion.
Area 2: Improving systems - policy and regulations
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Clarity and harmonising of standards, policies and requirements
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Good practice guidelines/examples
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Equity and Inclusion explicitly visible and actionable in policy and planning schemes, strategy, and reporting.
Area 3: Improving the profession’s culture
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Building understanding with lived experience knowledge
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Building and lifting expectations
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Building diversity in the profession
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Building practice networks in planning for disability equity and inclusion.
Area 4: Improving advocacy
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Learning how to be effective allies
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Championing change makers
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Stronger leadership in equity and inclusion.
Amendments to State and Local Policy which emphasize the need for infrastructure, public spaces, commercial and residential areas to be inclusive to different groups of people, new permit conditions which ensure that all new infrastructure and developments are accessible to people with disabilities and improve safety for various disadvantage members of society
Greater awareness of how to incorporate. I think people assume it has to be big and hard and don't realise that inclusion is for ALL people, not just those with disabilities
Inclusion and access requirements for PIA accreditation of planning courses (particularly in relation to core subjects)
More PD/training opportunities for planners to work with and learn from intersectional audiences/experts
Advocating on behalf of the disadvantaged groups (Aboriginal people, hearing and physically impaired) to design spaces well
Broadening planners’ understanding of access and inclusion by bringing more stories to their attention through professional publications, conferences, social media