Phased Planning as a Land-Use Governance Instrument: Evidence from the Serbian Planning System

Contemporary planning systems are increasingly exposed to pressures for accelerated decision-making, while remaining bound to legally rigid and procedurally formalized frameworks. In this context, phased planning has emerged in Serbia as a mechanism for structuring the preparation and adoption of planning documents. However, its role as a land-use governance instrument remains conceptually underdefined and unevenly operationalized in practice. This paper examines how phased planning is interpreted and implemented within the Serbian statutory planning system through a qualitative comparative analysis of two planning processes in Belgrade. The selected cases represent two distinct procedural models: amendment-based phasing through successive modifications of a single planning document, and document-based phasing in which phases are adopted as separate but interrelated plans. The analysis focuses on key governance dimensions relevant to land-use planning, including integration of planning scales, coordination among institutional actors, procedural transparency, and the risk of fragmentation across planning phases. The findings indicate that while phased planning can introduce a degree of procedural flexibility, it also tends to reproduce or intensify coordination gaps and information asymmetries in legally rigid systems. The paper contributes to a better understanding of how phased planning operates as a governance mechanism in land-use planning and identifies conditions under which it may support—or constrain—coherent spatial development.