Geo-questionnaire involves an integration of sketchable maps with questions, aimed at eliciting public preferences and attitudes about land allocation and services. Respondents can link their answers with corresponding locations on a map by marking points or sketching polygon features. Geo-questionnaires have been used to learn about perceptions and preferences of city residents for specific types of land use, placebased services, and development projects. This article reports on results of an empirical study, in which an online geo-questionnaire was designed and implemented to elicit preferences of residents in guiding an urban development plan. Preferences collected in the form of polygon sketches were processed using GIS operations and mapped for visual interpretation. The article focuses on aggregation and analysis of respondent preferences including the analysis of positional and attribute uncertainty. Results of the study show that geo-questionnaire is a scalable method for eliciting public preferences with a potential for meaningfully informing land use planning.
Two modes of participatory engagement in local land use planning are contrasted and compared: the asynchronous mode enabled by Geoweb applications for collecting and deliberating public preferences, and the same-place/same-time mode exemplified by public meetings. Using data from a public participation process that took place between June 2014 and July 2015 in Poznań, Poland, the article compares the scalability of each mode and evaluates it from the planners’ perspective. The findings show that Geoweb applications scale public participation more effectively than public meetings. The ability to attract a relatively large number of diverse participants contributed to the positive evaluation of participation outcomes by planners. The results of online participation have been reflected in the land use plan provisions and improved the transparency and access to planning documents. Several issues related to online participation including: bridging the educational gap, the digital divide, and focusing the attention of participants on a specific problem at hand remain still unresolved.
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