Tourism, Recreational, and Amenity Values in Land Allocation: An Analysis of Institutional Arrangements in the Postproductivist Era

Abstract

In this paper, we examine the influence of institutional arrangements on the implementation of local land-use allocations which incorporate tourism, recreational, and amenity (TRA) values, using a case study from British Columbia, Canada. We frame this paper within a conceptualization of postproductivism and pose the question to what extent, and under what conditions, are new local stakeholders, new local agencies, and new local processes effective in allocating land uses which reflect TRA values? Three new land-use proposals which incorporate TRA values are examined to determine where key catalysts for implementation lie. We found that, unlike other research in rural areas of Britain, institutions in British Columbia that have conventionally regulated land use continue to exercise their considerable regulatory and discretionary powers. Though new stakeholders, agencies and processes at the local level have had an impact on planning, they have not been effective in reconfiguring the power structures for actual implementation of land reallocation. This lack of efficacy is attributed in part to the common property character of lands that support TRA values, the associated complexity of property rights regimes, and the large number of stakeholders involved. Furthermore, there is a lack of understanding by regulatory agencies of land resources as community resources, and these agencies continue to grant higher priority to the strategic considerations of higher levels of government rather than to local concerns.