Negotiated development: Best practice lessons from two model processes

Twenty years ago, negotiated development was offered as a promising new alt ernative to traditional land development processes because it encouraged af fected stakeholders to work with rather than against each other. The increa sed use of land use regulatory schemes such as planned unit development, co nditional rezoning and development agreements places increased importance o n gaining consensus early in the development process in order to avoid cost ly revisions and delays. Design professionals - planners, architects, and u rban designers - are often at the forefront of these negotiated development efforts. However design professional education rarefy incorporates the ric h body of knowledge on dispute resolution that would allow professionals to be more effective in these negotiated development forums. The importance o f design professional training in dispute resolution best practices is demo nstrated in this article through a comparative analysis of two similar effo rts to create "model" negotiated development processes. The two cases were very similar in many respects, but one case experienced less than "model" o utcomes due to shortcomings in the planning and execution of the process th at arguably were foreseeable and preventable given adequate training in dis pute resolution theory and practice.