No abstract

While collaborative governance and planning are often criticized for exacerbating power imbalances, failing to be inclusive and/or impartial, and for ignoring historical conflict, some scholars have found an informal but foundational phase/pre-collaboration critical in mitigating contextual and historical factors that often lead to marginalization during more formal negotiations. Building such foundations is considerably money and time intensive, so this paper aims to investigate outcomes of pre-collaboration on the ground and whether it contributes to long-term community adaptation and resiliency. Using qualitative methods and based on a case study of housing renewal project in a community described as "deprived", we found a direct connection between informal pre-collaboration, community resiliency and long-term adaptation. We argue that the pre-collaboration phase may shape the ultimate success or failure of the endeavour as it enables communities to become "collaboration-ready" in a situation where the context is hostile, and there are power and capability inequalities. This research shows that the benefits of pre-collaboration arguably outweigh the costs, particularly over the long-term.