Planning for a sustainable shoreline development : Perspectives on Norwegian coastal planning

Book of proceedings: Annual AESOP Congress, Spaces of Dialog for Places of Dignity, Lisbon, 11-14th July, 2017Norway has a long coastline, around 103.000 kilometers. With a population of 5,2 millions, this leaves every Norwegian – young and old – with an average of 20 meter coastline. Still, the competition over space along the shoreline is becoming more severe every day (see for instance Hersoug 2013:159). In Norway, the coastal shoreline constitutes – as in most other countries – a very valuable and important, but at the same time a vulnerable area, and a large number of stakeholder groups and actors live, work and interact in the coastal shoreline areas. Over the past decades, significant changes have emerged in terms of development opportunities and perspectives and regarding the management of the coastal area. While shoreline planning traditionally had a focus on preservation and adjustment to traditional economic activities, mainly fishing, the situation has changed drastically. Today, the shoreline planning also has to incorporate and integrate a number of new opportunities and challenges, such as aquaculture, the tourist industry, the construction of new recreational houses, etc. However, a considerable part of the developmental changes along the coast are not only a result of presented or approved plans, but are to a large extent a result of incremental local changes and adjustments. In a large number of municipalities, developmental changes in accordance with approved plans appear to be overruled by approval by exemption clauses (or dispensations – in Norwegian: dispensasjoner). In a sense, one may talk about this as an exemption based development of the coastal shoreline, and not as a plan-oriented development approach.Published versio