Land Use Negotiation Reducing Conflict and Creating Wanted Land Uses

This article describes the author's experience with introducing dispute resolution techniques into the local government approval process and the cooperation achieved as a result. Conflict often accompanies the regulatory review process. These techniques make the project review process less costly, less contentious, and more creative. Land use negotiation transforms project review goals and procedures in a way that reduces conflict and reorients participants toward the creation of “wanted” land uses. This experience suggests that conflicts between private developers and public officials are substantially procedural. Hence, by supplementing traditional review procedures with dispute resolution techniques, local officials can gain substantial cooperation from private developers and have greater influence over private development solutions.