Critical Factors for Enhancing Municipal Public Hearings

Abstract

Although public hearings are the most common form of citizen input, they often fail to achieve their objectives. This nationwide survey of city administrators identifies factors that contribute most to successful public hearings. The most successful hearings have (1) a greater number of prehearing educational methods, (2) more media types and greater media frequency in the formal presentation, (3) more control over speakers' presentation time, (4) greater use of open follow-up meetings, and (5) more use of newspaper and direct mail to communicate posthearing decisions to the public. The qualitative data reveal city managers' 10 critical factors that are essential to the success of public hearings: effectively notifying and educating the public before the hearing; carefully planning the meeting; giving a clear, media-rich presentation of the issues; properly facilitating the meeting; and conducting appropriate follow-up.

Participatory Apps for Urban Planning—Space for Improvement

“…Broadening participation in terms of number and composition of citizens becomes thus not only a matter of lowering the barriers of participation (Moynihan, 2003;Roberts, 2004) but also of motivating them to participate in the public debate in the first place. This has led some authors to discuss the conditions under which citizen participation can be developed, especially in terms of participation outcomes: design of the participation tools; managing the participation process from preparation to follow-ups; organizational context (Baker et al, 2005;Yang & Pandey, 2011;Bherer & Breux, 2012).…”

Critical Factors for Successful Public Hearing in Infrastructure Development Projects: A Case Study of the on Nuch Waste Disposal Plant Project

“…However, it has been criticized as an ineffective tool for utilizing public input due to legal, administrative, and citizen representation problems (Almer and Koontz, 2004). Baker et al (2005) further commented that public hearings, despite their popularity, often failed to achieve the intended goals, resulting in frustration among participants. As Petts (1999) commented, public participation in principle can be distinct from its practice when the project stakeholders have different views on the outcome and process objectives of participation.…”

If Only We Knew What We Know: Factors for Mobilizing Citizen Participation in Community-based Emergency Preparedness

“…Understanding the role of citizens is increasingly critical in governance research because citizen participation has been considered a main determinant for constructing effective governance mechanisms (King, Feltey, & O'Neill, 1998;Fraser, 2005;Baker, Addams, & Davis, 2005). Specifically, approaches for effectively encouraging citizens to participate in the community-based emergency preparedness process remain a major issue.…”