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Mediation, facilitation and project advisory for municipalities, authorities, associations and companies, specialized in modern environmental and urban planning procedures and in strategic advice.

The Five Service Offerings

Service 1

Mediation and Conflict Consulting

A conflict over your urban development project is burning and needs to be put out. Our out-of-court procedures for settling conflicts in environmental and urban planning projects for municipalities, authorities, associations and companies are confidential, calming and geared toward a substantive agreement. When positions in planning and permitting procedures become ever more entrenched, mediation opens up a path to an interest-based and lasting agreement that is faster and less costly than protracted litigation.

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Service 2

Facilitation of Stakeholder Dialogues and Public Participation

You are facing a key decision about how to shape your urban development project in more detail. But the situation with the stakeholders is hard to read and therefore needs to be structured. If public acceptance of your environmental and urban planning projects matters to you, if you want to identify conflicts with interest groups early on, and if you want to develop your strategy or your projects together with your most important contacts, a stakeholder dialogue is advisable. We help you with the stakeholder analysis, the facilitation of procedures and reaching agreement on a solution. We also facilitate planning workshops with the citizenry and public participation procedures on your behalf.

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Service 3

Strategic Project Advisory

Your environmental and urban planning project is complex and triggers public debate. You therefore want to position this project strategically. We support you in doing so, just as we do with public-administration modernization projects. We help you analyze the project environment, advise you on preparatory decisions, on the design of the project structure and on milestone planning. Where needed, we support you in developing a prototype. When the introduction of new ways of working such as “New Work”, modern “smart cities” applications and “artificial intelligence” is intended, we support you in change management in order to reduce potential for conflict and to bring your staff on board at an early stage.

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Service 4

Training

Binding land-use plan (Bebauungsplan) or the Bau-Turbo (a fast-track building-permit provision)? What happens now to the municipal heat plan? Environmental and urban planning procedures with stakeholder participation? Participation management with “artificial intelligence”? Would you like to refresh and expand your knowledge on these topics? We run workshops, courses and seminars on modern environmental and urban planning procedures and on building the capacity of administrative staff, planning professionals and volunteer decision-makers in municipalities, authorities and associations, taught using concrete case examples from your own environment.

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Service 5

Lectures and Information Events

A new law in the area of the environment and urban planning, or an EU environmental regulation, comes into force and is to be applied in practice shortly thereafter. We give you an overview of current legislation on environmental and planning law, primarily intended for a professional audience but, where needed, also as an information event for members of the public interested in a specific planning project, tailored to the occasion and target audience, from fifteen minutes up to a ninety-minute event with discussion.

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Three Core Competencies

All service areas are founded on three competencies that Dr. Jörg Wagner – who holds a doctorate in planning law and is trained in conflict mediation and business psychology – acquired across three federal ministries over more than thirty years as an executive and as a trainer for future executives.

Sound Legal Knowledge

Sound legal knowledge gives you procedural certainty in your projects. His legal expertise draws on knowledge of EU law, the steering of legislative procedures in environmental and planning law but also traffic law, the publication of handbooks and statutory commentaries on environmental and urban planning law, as well as on numerous scholarly publications and lectures on legal topics and on public-administration modernization.

Communication Expertise

Communication expertise supports you with facilitated dialogues, structured negotiations and interest-based solutions. His practical expertise in communication is based on negotiations with representatives of the European Commission, of federal and state ministries, of the national local-authority associations, of environmental and professional associations and of companies, as well as on the organization and facilitation of nationwide stakeholder dialogues. He is a trained mediator and is training as a business psychologist.

Knowledge of How Municipalities and Authorities Operate

Knowledge of how municipalities and authorities operate helps you make use of the public administration’s room for maneuver to reach good solutions, and thereby speeds up your procedures. His knowledge is founded on his work as the former head of human resources of a large federal ministry and as director of labor and IT for 70 authorities with 23,000 employees in the federal administration, but also on his engagement in local politics.

Our Working Method

The settlement of a conflict, a constructive engagement with the stakeholders or the new alignment of an important project often seems urgent to us. Yet it makes sense to pause briefly before a fundamental decision and to reflect on the people to be involved in it. The foundation of all of Dr. Jörg Wagner’s service offerings is therefore the Harvard method of negotiation according to Fisher, Ury and Patton.

“From good relationships to good solutions.”

His guiding principle is: “From good relationships to good solutions.” Parties to a conflict, a dialogue or a project who respect one another and who understand the differing interests and needs of the others enormously increase the chances of success of a contested undertaking.

The Four Principles of the Harvard Method

The four principles of the Harvard method start precisely here:

Separate People and Problems

Substantive questions and the relationship dimension are deliberately kept apart. Conflict parties can negotiate hard on the substance without permanently damaging the relationship.

Interests Instead of Positions

Behind every position lie the interests and needs of people. Clarifying this background opens up room for maneuver that does not become visible in a positional negotiation.

Options for Mutual Gain

Before an agreement is pursued, various ideas and, derived from them, several solution options are developed that offer advantages for all parties involved – quite deliberately without an early commitment to a particular solution.

Objective Criteria

Decisions are measured against the interests previously worked out and against the criteria previously established, such as the legal situation, expert opinions or precedents, but precisely not against the negotiating power of individual parties.

This process – first oriented toward people, but thereafter substance-focused and clearly structured – forms the essential precondition for the results reached to be accepted by all parties and later actually implemented. Shaping this process is the core of Dr. Jörg Wagner’s approach.

Who We Work For

Municipalities and Authorities

We work for cities and municipalities, district administrations and other authorities that encounter conflicts or differing interests in their environmental and urban planning procedures and that want to design their dialogue processes with stakeholders or their public participation processes professionally. We likewise support modernization projects in the field of the environment and urban planning.

Associations and Organizations

We work for associations, but also for environmental organizations and local citizens’ initiatives that want to bring their interests to bear effectively in environmental and planning procedures.

Companies

We work for companies, project developers, construction companies and energy providers that go through planning or permitting procedures and, in doing so, have to manage conflicts with local residents, authorities or associations professionally.

Our early support, whether as a “firefighter”, “facilitator” or “strategic guide”, saves you time and costs.

Get in Touch

We are happy to discuss your situation confidentially and openly. Describe your concern or your inquiry to us in the form. We will get back to you within two business days.

Get in touch

Mediation for Environment and Urban Planning
Dr. Jörg Wagner
Goerdeler Straße 11
33102 Paderborn, Germany

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