Creating space for urban farming: the role of the planning professional

Urban farming projects often involve the (temporarily) redevelopment of urban space by local co-productions of citizens and/or entrepreneurs. To realize their ambitions these coalitions often need support of public (government) resources such as time, money, space and regulation (Green Deal Stadslandbouw, 2013). This paper asks the question to what extent the development of urban farming projects can be understood as an example of planning through direct citizen participation/ participatory governance (e.g. Cornwall, 2004; Roberts, 2004) and what this means for the role of the municipal planning professional or civil servant in making these projects successful.
Literature on the role of the municipal planner or civil servant in urban farming projects mainly concerns the role as enabler of projects given the many difficulties for projects. However, when looked at the development of urban farming as an example of citizen participation/ participatory governance and the transfer of social functions towards society other roles and tasks of planners seem to be important to make urban farming successful. This discussion paper looks to the role of planners and civil servants in some related government domains such as landscape (e.g. Van Dam et al. 2008, 2010, 2011) and neighbourhood development (e.g. Frieling et al., 2014) to complement our understanding of the role of planners in making urban farming projects successful. With this analysis the paper sets the scene for further research into tools for the planning professional or civil servant to support urban farming. In the paper the situation in Amsterdam serves as an example.