Conformance-based and Performance-based approaches of Implementation evaluation in land-use planning, Case study: Conformance-based evaluation in city of Lavasan

Planning of cities in order to respond to considerable needs of urban population, is one of the most important concerns of urban managers and authorities. Urban development plans which have been provided to respond to these issues, have different objectives and characteristics. Hence different plans are developed to plan and organize cities. Most of these plans are being prepared without consideration of outcomes and results of previous plans. They dont evaluate and measure the success of previous plans in improving the condition of city. Evaluation enhances planning practice. It legitimizes planning before citizens, providing sustained appraisals on planning products, procedures and results. Implementation evaluation of urban development plans can result in creating efficient and responding plans. Many regulatory-oriented planning systems employ comprehensive land-use plans as a central tool for carrying out planning policies. Aside from the vast effort invested in planning, land-use plans have a direct economic effect on land value and property rights. So, Land-use plan as a part of urban development plan which has considerable influence on public and private interest, needs to be evaluated more than other parts. Implementation evaluation of plans is performed based on three main approaches: Conformance-based, Performance-based and synthesis approaches. Conformance-based evaluation means judging the success or failure of planning using one or two criteria - the conformance degree between the outcomes on the ground and the plan proposals and the promotion of planning goals and objectives through the available implementation instruments-. Performance-based evaluation follows from defining a plan as a decision framework. After distinguishing between project plans and strategic plans and concluding that the conformance criterion is useful only in the evaluation of the former, performance-based approach develops the performance criterion to assess strategic plans. In some few studies on plan implementation, researchers explore the potentialities of an integrated use of both approaches and their simultaneous application for comparative purposes. These researchers have tried to create new methods based on the strengths of those approaches. This study wants to measure the conformance between proposed plan and current condition of city and to evaluate the implementation of land-use plan of Lavasan with regards to this. The evaluation is based on three factors: land-use, density and floor area ratio. Non- conformances in land-use has been grouped in 12 main groups. Results show that 54 percent of city area has non -conformance in land -use which 12 percent of these non -conformances are basic and they represent disobedience from proposed plan. Moreover, 7 percent of city area is allocated to lots with non-conformance in floor area ratio and 9 percent of city area is allocated to lots with non -conformance in density. 5 percent of lots have both non - conformances - floor area ratio and density-. Most of non- conformances has been occurred in central neighborhoods of city. In order to reduce these non-conformances, it is useful to consider specific situation of Lavasan in providing new plans. Control and supervision of plan implementation is also helpful for improving plan's degree of success.