Managing sustainability conflicts in urban development projects : Planners' perceptions and strategies in Oceanhamnen, Helsingborg
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Urban planning is intertwined with conflicts, and urban planning theories suggest various approaches toaddressing and managing them. This paper focuses on the misalignment of sustainability goals as conflicting and“wicked” issues in the planning process. Drawing on critical planning theory, it addresses a notable gap in un-derstanding how communication and conflict management strategies manifest in practice. The study aims toexplore the role of planners in identifying and managing sustainability conflicts, using Oceanhamnen—a recentbrownfield development in Helsingborg, Sweden—as a case study. Touted as a model for sustainable place-making, Oceanhamnen has nonetheless fallen short in addressing key sustainability demands. Through docu-ment reviews and semi-structured interviews with eleven planners and key actors, the research examines howsustainability conflicts and paradoxes were perceived and managed. The findings highlight the dynamic andcontext-dependent nature of sustainability, elucidating how influential stakeholders’ perceptions shaped thetrajectory of place-making. In Oceanhamnen, planners wielded significant authority in decision-making,including land allocation, land use, design criteria, identifying needs and priorities, and initiating conflictmanagement strategies. Primary strategies included dialogue, knowledge collection, agenda-setting, and feedbackcollection, while citizen involvement and mobilizing support were less emphasized. The paper discusses how plan-ners’ perceptions of “needs” and the importance of certain sustainability objectives influenced the strategiesemployed. Using critical planning theory, it discusses how identified needs are influenced from planners’ implicitand explicit knowledge, as well as the power dynamics framing this knowledge and their perceived and actualability to influence.