Despite calls for performance-oriented and evidence-based planning, the outcomes of land use and environmental plans are rarely monitored or assessed ex post facto (that is, post implementation). As a result, planners cannot know whether or why plans achieve their goals, or learn from the results of past interventions to improve planning practice. This evaluation gap is caused by a lack of methodology to evaluate the outcomes of plans and the difficulty of attributing changes to planning activities. We address this gap by proposing and testing a plan-outcome evaluation (POE) methodology. We demonstrate its broad applicability and usefulness in the context of local plans in New Zealand. The POE methodology will be useful to practitioners and academics seeking to assess the outcomes of plans in countries with western planning traditions.

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This paper presents a critical appraisal of Urban Design Review whereby building development proposal are subject to comment and advice from an expert professional panel, prior to being submitted for formal approval by local authorities. In the context of urban authorities vigorously promoting "best practice" design on the basis that this will improve the quality of the built environment, Urban Design Review is contextualised as a form design governance. Recent evaluations of Review in the UK, Australia and New Zealand are presented and integrated with the outcomes to interviews with Urban Design Review Panellists in Auckland, Queenstown, Waneka and Cockburn City (Perth). Consistent with other studies that focussed on the views of developers and city officials, this study confirms that Panellist consider that Review leads to positive outcomes for the built environment, and serves public interest, but there remains a lack of sufficient empirical evidence to support these contentions.

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