Participatory approach in planning for low carbon and eco-village: A case of Felda Taib Andak

Participatory approaches have becoming an important tool in planning of sustainable communities. Although participation is conceived as a malleable concept there are certain methods that planners can adopt to ensure a meaningful participation. This paper will provide some experiences and lessons on how participatory planning could be carried out with local people, the role of planners in the process of plan preparation, implementation and the outcome. This paper first explores some of the meanings of participation, the criteria of participation and the approaches of participation in planning for sustainable community. The second part is a description and discussion of how participatory approach in planning was applied in planning for low carbon and eco-village in Iskandar Malaysia based on a case study of planning of Felda Taib Andak scheme. The participatory approach involved a series of meetings, site visit and focus group discussions with representative of the Felda Village to come out with action plan and actual implementation. From focus group discussions a roadmap consisted of a vision and objectives and a dozen actions were formulated and adopted. In the process of implementation the main implementation & coordination committee was form in which the author (planner) is one of its members to look into fund raising & implementation strategies together with the local people. Several task forces or sub committees responsible to implement the dozen actions were also formed. The outcome was encouraging in which some of the actions such as planting of bamboo trees, reduction of pollution from oil palm factory and bicycling activities has been implemented and shown progress. The paper also highlights some of the issues and challenges in participatory planning.