Improving the public participation model for planning and development issues: Increasing community involvement through improved communications strategies

Public participation in planning is integral to ensuring that the process remains accountable to those who will be affected by it and acts to ensure that the accountability of the government process is maintained. In order to achieve this goal, public participation must be in a constant state of scrutiny.;Through the background research, it was determined that East Hants' existing public participation program was progressive in obtaining and including residents opinions and comments within the planning process. Through this process of review, two main areas were identified as problem areas for the participation process in general. The first problem area was the perceived lack of voice by community residents; the second area was the real lack of voice for community residents. Through identifying these two areas, a variety of media technology related options were identified as opportunities for the Municipality to improve the communications strategies and thereby increase the community involvement within the participation process. (Abstract shortened by UMI.);The public participation program of the Planning and Development Department of the Municipality of East Hants was the subject of this thesis; the goal was to identify areas within the program that could be improved to increase the involvement of the community. This was to be achieved through improving communications strategies of the Department.