Planning Process

General info

The pilot project by 'Grønn Fritid AS' is in a planning process. Currently, the project managers are cooperating with professionals in various fields, to explore sustainability in "leisure building" within different disciplines (Lund, personal communication, 2019a). Early planning has included assessment of the use of climate-friendly building materials, building and energy solutions and access to the cabin.

A sustainable planning process should include social, economic and ecological factors (World Green Building Council 2019). Stakeholders should be involved through communicative planning methods (The World Café Community Foundation 2015). The content of the following pages 'Environment', 'Social Impact' and 'Economical Impact' were put together through such an assessment. Further at the bottom an Adaptive Environmental Impact Assessment is made to evaluate possible impacts of the project (Thomassen et al. 2003).

Common features planned for the Nerskogen project (Grønn Fritid AS, no date).

Environmental Impact Assessment

The concept of Adaptive Environmental Assessment and Management (AEAM) is used as an example for how one could approach the planning process for this particular project. AEAM is a participatory process, based on workshops, and systematic, and it can be helpful in an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) (Thomassen et al. 2003). AEAM can help having a proper scoping process and it creates a fundament for the EIA. What is important during the scoping process, is to identify many different potential problems. Next, the planners must make decisions regarding which of these potential problems should be prioritized and addressed in the EIA (Thomassen et al. 2003).

We believe an EIA is particularly useful in this project, because the project aims to be a sustainable one. Furthermore, an EIA makes it possible to address many of the potential conflicts in a structured way.

AEAM is looking to identify the most important impact factors for the project of interest (Thomassen et al. 2003), which we have done for this project in the table to the right. We decided that increased human activity is the most important impact factor, and it is also related to some of the other identified impact factors as you will see later.

Thus, AEAM aims to find the most important focal components, which are named the Valued Ecosystem Components (VECs) (Thomassen et al. 2003).

Below the most important VECs for this project are stated. We have also ranked them and found environment and society to be the most important ones.

Based on our identified impact factors and VECs, we created a flowchart that shows some of the impacts the project potentially has on two selected VECs. For a more detailled assessment, it is possible to create more flowcharts, addressing other VECs and impact factors, and how they relate to each other.

This is the flowchart we have made, implementing how the impact factors are related to the VECs in question.

Noise, traffic and outdoor recreation, which are also necessary effects of increased human activity, are some impacts that are elaborated on in the previous pages of the website.

Hypotheses and Suggested Research

H1: The increased human activity will create more noise, which will lead to conflict and irritation for already existing cabin owners.

Suggested research: interviews or questionnaires among the neighbouring cabin's owners.

H2: Increased human activity will generate more traffic. This results in more pollution and wear and tear on the road with already poor quality.

Suggested research: find out how much new traffic the project will generate, and how much additional pollution to the environment and wear and tear on the road there will be as a result.

H3: Increased human activity will lead to more outdoor recreation activity at Nerskogen, which can add increased value to the area, but will also leave behind more garbage etc. in the mountain tracks.

Suggested research: questionnaire on people's handling of waste while in the nature, and whether stations to throw waste can be implemented along the tracks, and to what degree they would be used.

Status of the Nerskogen project planning

Jan Perry Lund informs that no specific decision has been made regarding renting the cabins out. They believe that the sustainability of the project already increased the use of the cabins for several days, at the same time as it is meeting the leisure needs of several families. It is still not clear to them how they will organise the renting out idea. They are visiting other similar projects (Stockholm Island) for further information and ideas for the rental scheme they are operating with the cabin owners there. Lund makes it clear that they do not wish to do a rental scheme like the popular "time share".

The experts they will work with before deciding on final construction are from disciplines including construction and architecture, land use and ecology, infrastructure (road, water, power, sewerage), energy and resource use and organisation and sharing solutions. In these main areas, there will be special subject areas that will be given extra attention. One that has been thoroughly discussed throughout the process and that they will have a special focus on is foundations. They will place great emphasis on finding solutions to minimise the excavation in the area. They have previously held workshops with themes such as energy solution and on biodiversity related to such projects. A communicative, dialogue-based planning can refocus the practices of planning, as societies or other experts' perspectives can enable new purposes to be discovered (Healey 1992).

Lund states that they have not had any surveys or other studies aimed at cabin neighbours.

The project have not come far enough in the process for any marketing yet. They see it as very important that when they decide to go into the market with a more sustainable leisure project, the basis for decision making must be knowledge based. However, they are working on establishing a reference group of potential buyers/users that will provide an input on the way the way to a final concept that can be marketed.

Lund emphasises how important it is to work through all the issues that are essential in order to be able to use the concepts 'sustainability' and 'green shift' with credibility in their project. Part of the idea behind the project is that they need to be able to fully stand for it (Lund, personal communication, 2019b).

References:

Grønn Fritid AS. No date. Bærekraftig hyttebygging. Rennebu: mediaprofil AS.
Healey, P. 1992. Planning through debate: the communicative turn in planning theory. The Town Planning Review, 63 (2) pp.143-162
Lund, J.P. 2019a. Personal communication over email, 24.10.2019.
Lund, J.P. 2019b. Personal communication over email, 04.11.2019.
The World Café Community Foundation. 2015. A Quick Reference Guide for Hosting World Café. The World Café Community Foundation.
Thomassen, J., Mumbi, C. T., & Kaltenborn, B. P. 2003. Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) training course as part of the TAWIRI–NINA collaborative programme in capacity building. NINA Project Report, 25, 34pp.
World Green Building Council. 2016-2019. retrieved from: https://www.worldgbc.org/benefits-green-buildings [online][accessed on 12.11.2019]

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