Evaluation the Lack of Public Participation in Urban Gardening Protection Plans (The Case: Yazd Great Garden plan)

In the present research the position of public participation in Yazd Great Garden plan has been evaluated. In the first stage, based on the method of qualitative analysis, through interviews with local people, the position of public participation in the stages of approval and implementation of the plan was pathologically evaluated. The results of the studies show that local people are very dissatisfied with the lack of transparency and information by the municipality during the approval and implementation of the plan. In the second phase of this study, the trend of changes in the urban landscape in the study area (from 2001 to 2020) was evaluated using landscape metrics in FRAGSTATS software. The results of this evaluation showed that, during this period, many constructions have been done in this area. The size of barren patches has increased by 283%. The size of garden-agricultural patches has decreased by 80% and the size patches of construction has increased by 196%. In general, in spite of the goals of the mentioned plan to protect the gardens, the area and connectivity of garden and agricultural patches has been reduced and fragmentation is increased. Summarizing the results shows that if public participation was used in the approval and implementation process and information was provided in a transparent manner, the goals of the project were achieved, and local gardeners acted as the supporter of the municipality in the project.