Perception and Implementation of Agricultural Interests in Austria’s Local Spatial Planning

Worldwide fertile land is lost due to land use change. In Austria 12,9 ha, mainly agricultural land, were converted per day to building land in the years 2015 to 2017. Restrictions on the development potential of agricultural holdings, negative impacts on the water balance, deterioration of the microclimate and in the long term a reduction of the state's degree of self-sufficiency are the consequences. Spatial planning has in fact set itself the goal to prevent such high land consumption, which in turn should also be in the interest of agriculture. The objective of this work is now to investigate which spatial oriented interests farmers and their interest representatives actually pursue and how spatial planning deals with a population group who owns and/or cultivates a large amount of the national territory (in Austria about 32,2%) while at the same time representing a decreasing minority in the total population (in Austria, the proportion of people employed in agriculture and forestry amounts to currently 4.7%). Therefore this thesis takes a look at the hitherto insufficiently investigated field of interest reconciliation in local spatial planning, whose so far permissive designation of building land has contributed significantly to the reduction of agricultural land. Following questions are going to be answered: Which spatial planning interests are expressed by farmers, owners of agricultural land and agricultural interest representatives? How are these interests perceived and implemented in the processes of Austria’s local spatial planning? The research design is based on Mayring's generalisation model. First, a multiple-case study is conducted and analysed. Two municipalities are selected on the basis of location, the extent of agricultural land which had been converted, the composition of the municipal council and the dating of the last modification of the land use plan. The data is gathered through in-depth interviews with local planning and agricultural stakeholders as well as through an analysis of documents (as for example agendas, announcements and minutes of municipal council meetings which deal with the modification of the land use plan) and archival records (land use plans, zoning plans and soil maps). The findings are then compared in a cross-case analysis. The next step is to examine the case study results in subsequent quantitative studies - a content analysis of the texts of regulation from local and spatial development concepts and a standardized written questionnaire - for their generalizability. Ostrom's Institutional Analysis and Development Framework (IAD framework) provides the theoretical analysis framework for the investigation. As it was originally developed to analyse common-pool resource systems, the IAD framework is going to be adapted for the analysis of local spatial planning systems. The results of this thesis should provide decision-makers in spatial planning as well as agricultural stakeholders with an insight into planning practice and contribute to the development of strategies for a reduction of land consumption. Furthermore, the adaptation of the IAD framework for the analysis of interest reconciliation processes within local spatial planning aims to facilitate an international comparison of these processes.