Evaluation of Plan Conformance under Agricultural Scenic Area Development System in Tokyo

Abstract

There are increasing attentions to multifunctional roles played by urban farmland and forests in densely populated areas， which becomes a new area of urban green space policy. This study tried to examine the plan conformance of three districtlevel plans formulated under the Agricultural Scenic Area Development System of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government (TMG). The evaluation of plan conformance was conducted from two perspectives, namely 1) whether the plan was formulated in line with the purpose of the System, and 2) which factors affected the plan conformance. We conducted semi-structured interviews with officials of TMG and three municipalities in charge of the System and questionnaire survey to residents of three districts where district-level plans have been in place. Most of the items of all the three district-plan has been implemented, showing high plan conformance. Our analysis suggested that high conformance was achieved by avoiding the use of legally-binding city planning schemes that often requires negotiations with residents and land-owners, minimizing plan-items targeted at the district requiring special budgeting, and using plan-items that can be implemented by municipal government without a special coordination with local stakeholders.