Critical Analysis of Policy Integration Degrees between Heritage Conservation and Spatial Planning in Amsterdam and Ballarat

Abstract

The growing complexity of managing the sustainable development of cities stresses the need for interdisciplinary approaches, with a stronger articulation between different fields. The integration between heritage conservation and spatial planning has already been addressed in recent literature, ranging from a traditional sectorial perspective towards more cooperative and coordinated initiatives, occasionally resulting in integrated policies. Nevertheless, the lack of institutional and policy articulation remains among the most frequent critical governance issues unsolved. This paper unveils the integration degrees between heritage conservation and spatial planning policies in Amsterdam (The Netherlands) and Ballarat (Australia), acknowledged for local and upper governmental initiatives, such as the Belvedere Memorandum and the Imagine Ballarat project, placing both at the forefront of the roadmap to this policy integration. In-depth semi-structured interviews with municipal officials in both cities reveal that, while policy integration is aimed at, implementation remains challenging. Both cities’ heritage conservation and spatial planning fields keep operating in parallel, often in conflict, and with different perspectives on the cultural heritage commonly managed. By identifying local technicians’ challenges, this research demonstrates that policy integration between heritage conservation and spatial planning is an ongoing process that demands more effective articulation towards more sustainable and resilient cities.

1. Introduction

International policies have referenced the integration of cultural heritage among spatial planning frameworks as a compelling factor toward more sustainable and resilient cities [1,2,3,4,5]. However, despite the reported growing inclusion of heritage management into urban planning policies [6,7,8], the lack of institutional and policy articulation is still among the most frequent critical governance issues in cities [9,10,11].

Policy integration is intrinsic to urban management as a continuous process of cumulative commitments to recognize equally the goals and decisions of different fields throughout the planning process [12,13]. Nadin et al. [7] define five cumulative—but non-linear—degrees for policy integration: (1) neglection (mutual ignorance); (2) information (mutual recognition and partial communication); (3) cooperation (involved parties team up to approach common issues, although without changing their tools); (4) coordination (policy adjustments on practices and further goals); (5) integration (joint policies and practices). According to Stead and Meijers [14], each integration or commitment level is influenced by political, institutional, economic, and instrumental factors largely through the perceptions and interpretations of the leading actors. Hence, research in the policy analysis field has claimed more behavior-oriented approaches [15,16], understanding planning policies and tools as the iceberg tip of a complex process of policy arrangements, in which the narratives, perceptions, and power relations between involved actors determine decision-making processes [17]. On the other hand, the growing “softening” of urban planning policies, connotated with the social dimension of the territory, e.g., citizen engagement [7,18,19,20,21], has posed new challenges of policy integration that requires “setting up written rules for governing the accountability of coordinated efforts” [16] (p. 564).

Furthermore, the human factor is achieving a central role in heritage management, increasing procedural flexibility and, thus, the capacity to respond to further challenges. As stated by Waterton [22] (p. 1), “the way we talk, think and write about heritage issues matter” as they “become embodied in actions and social practices” [23] (p. 3). Heritage scholarship’s conceptual and functional expansion starts to embrace traditional neglected aspects, such as values and motivations [24,25,26].

Indeed, the recognition of cultural significance as critical for heritage management [4,27] has led to the development of value-based assessment frameworks, defining it as the combination of a growing panoply of attributes (what) and values (why) categories addressed by multiple actors and related disciplinary bias.

Accordingly, heritage categories (tangible, intangible, natural, or digital) entail tangible and intangible attributes, which can be segregated into the asset or landscape-related tangible categories or intangible sub-categories associated with conceptual relations, societal functions, and processes [28].

On the other hand, the values ascribed to heritage attributes may range from social, economic, political, historic, aesthetic, scientific, age, and ecological categories [29]. Besides confirming the amplitude of cultural significance, the growing application of those heritage values and attributes taxonomies and defined parameters enables the reduction of subjectivity often criticized in discourse analysis approaches [30,31].

This change toward more inclusive and comprehensive approaches was identified by Janssen et al. [32,33] in the Dutch planning context. Accordingly, the spatial planning approach to heritage conservation has been evolving cumulatively from a sectorial to a more functionalist perspective, in which heritage conservation leads the spatial planning strategy. This framework distinguishes three coexistent, complementary, and interdependent approaches—sector, factor, and vector [32,33]. As illustrated by

Table 1. Dutch Heritage and Spatial Planning nexus.

Priority on		Sector			Factor			Vector
Attributes	Object-oriented Tangible attributes			Area-based Tangible attributes			Landscape and value-based Intangible attributes
Values	Scientific, Political, Aesthetical, Historic, Age			Economic			Social, Ecological
Management approach	Preservation (integrity and authenticity)			Transformation (conservation through reuse)			Inspired (conservation through co-creation)
Research focus	Single discipline			Multidisciplinary			Transdisciplinary
Decision-making focus	Experts			Developers			Community
Management tools	Listing, Zoning controls (conservation areas), Restoration plans			Mapping area-based development processes, Urban Rehabilitation (adaptive reuse) programs			Design principles (strategic goals)

Sources: Processed by the authors of this paper, adapted from [8,32,33] and further discussed and confirmed via one of the author’s conceptual framework.

, the distinction between each approach draws upon the priority ascribed to parameters such as values, attributes, management approach, relations, decision-makers, and management tools.

Hence, the sector approach is described as the first relation detailed between heritage conservation and spatial planning, under which both fields operate in an isolated manner. Only tangible heritage attributes are protected, and their identification is exclusively dependent on a strict hierarchy of experts from historical and art-related fields. The focus on a single discipline limits preservation to historic, aesthetic, age, political, and scientific values. The preservation of authenticity and integrity of material heritage must prevail, and any change is perceived as a potential threat [23,34]. Hence, protection tools, highly statutory, such as heritage listings, protection areas as zoning controls, and safeguard and restoration plans, are the most frequent instruments identified under this sector approach. Termed by Smith and Waterton [35] and disseminated by the earlier recommendations produced by international organizations such as UNESCO, ICOMOS, or the Council of Europe, this “authorized heritage discourse” extensively has influenced national and local heritage management policies and practices.

In the factor approach, spatial planning perceives heritage conservation as the management of urban changes. The transformation of heritage is accepted, acknowledging its instrumental role for urban development [36]. Although still overly focused on tangible attributes, this approach expands the sector perspective to the outskirts of the object, entailing an area-based approach. The emphasis on economic (use) values is determined by including other deemed actors, such as developers and experts outside the traditional historical or artistic fields [37]. Conservation by reuse is the utmost management action of this approach, which is characterized by implementing planning tools such as mapping area-based development processes and Urban Rehabilitation (adaptive reuse) programs. From this factor perspective, heritage is removed from isolation and transformed into a key resource for economic development.

However, this factor approach is still overly tangible heritage-centered, and with lower social influence. According to Janssen et al. [33], the thorough integration between both fields is directly linked with the growing recognition of social values, resulting from the broadness of heritage identifiers, namely local communities. Consequently, intangible heritage attributes and the diversity of associated values have expanded. Heritage conservation becomes a vector for urban development, and an inspiration for planning, as it represents the voices of the broader community. Heritage is perceived as a social construct in which implemented co-creation strategies enhance the democratization of planning policies. The 2011 UNESCO Recommendation on the Historic Urban Landscape (hereinafter HUL Recommendation) emerges as the breakthrough document in this governance reform movement, placing heritage management at the core of the sustainable development of cities. Accordingly, heritage is a dynamic and social construct of the attributes and associated values overlapping in urban places [4]. It encapsulates the latest developments in the heritage field, establishing the urgency of the comprehensive integration of inclusive heritage assessments into existing urban planning arrangements. Hence, this integration must consider tangible and intangible heritage attributes, such as the relational, societal, and procedural dimensions [28]. The inclusion of all deemed actors from the local community, experts, and policy and decision-makers from different fields increases the chances of identifying a broader panoply of heritage values as earlier theorized [29,38].

As shown above, the demand for more integrated approaches is growing in spatial planning and heritage management policies. Indeed, heritage listings and conservation areas are often among urban planning policies [6,39], as well as the identification, in national and local policies, of the role of heritage resources for development [37]. However, when observing it as a governance reform process, the inclusion of heritage in urban planning discussions often corresponds to the Nadin et al. [7] information stage of policy integration [40], being frequently further undermined by other development goals [24]. Likewise, research indicates a gap between the broadness of attributes and values assessed by these heritage tools and those selected to be integrated into urban planning processes, often limited to conserving tangible attributes and implementing object-oriented approaches [23,41,42,43,44]. Moreover, few studies have analyzed how policy and decision-makers, namely those working on heritage conservation and in urban planning-related municipal departments, perceive the dynamics between the fields mentioned above in their daily practices [28,45].

In order to fill this gap, this paper identifies and discusses the integration degrees between heritage conservation and spatial planning policies by comparing the perceptions of relevant municipal officers working in those fields in the cities of Amsterdam (The Netherlands) and Ballarat (Australia). By selecting these specific cities as examples of the factor and vector approaches, respectively, the study also aims to enhance the existent discussion of the heritage–spatial planning conceptual framework [33], from Dutch policies [37] to other national contexts and to the perceptions of those that make and take decisions in urban management processes.

Chapter sections evolve from methods and case-studies justification, followed by the analysis and further discussion of in-depth interview results based on Janssen et al.’s conceptual framework [33]. Conclusions highlight the main findings ascribed to the approached field-related departments and cities, and the contribution of this study to enhance the conceptual heritage–spatial planning framework in urban planning practices.

2. Methods

This paper is part of a broader doctoral research project aiming to explore the integration dynamics of cultural heritage and spatial planning in policies and practice. In particular, this paper aimed to present the results of five in-depth, semi-structured interviews with municipal officers from Amsterdam and Ballarat Town Halls with relevant roles in heritage conservation (hereinafter HC) and urban planning-related departments (hereinafter UP). In-depth interviews are a well-established qualitative method in policy research, in order to address more complex issues related to individuals’ perceptions of a specific phenomenon [46].

By following the policy arrangement approach [16], grounded in the scope of policy analysis, this study focused on the policy planning tools (“rules of the game” and coalitions) along with the perceptions on heritage discourse of policymakers and implementors in the public sector.

2.1. Selection of Case Studies: Amsterdam and Ballarat

This study selected Amsterdam and Ballarat as case studies that could theoretically represent two of the three stages of heritage and spatial planning nexus [33]: Amsterdam as representing the factor approach and Ballarat the vector approach. Despite different scales, legal frameworks, and heritage status, the specific national and local initiatives designate them as eligible cases to understand the dynamics influencing heritage and spatial planning policy integration levels in these two specific urban contexts.

The selection of Amsterdam as representing the heritage planning factor approach derives from the perspectives introduced by two initiatives promoted at the national level congregating spatial planning and heritage conservation legal frameworks: the Belvedere Memorandum [47] and the expected Environment and Planning Act [48]. The Belvedere Memorandum aspired to bring together the spatial planning and heritage conservation fields towards a more proactive and efficient approach to heritage resources. This 10-year incentive program (1999–2009) included several initiatives, mainly in the academic field, contributing to the redefinition and enhancement of the role of heritage for development and, hence, the relationship between experts and practitioners of both fields [49]. The Environment and Planning Act, foreseen to be published in 2024 [48], aims to integrate environmental, spatial planning and heritage (among other areas) by integrating the 1988 Monument Act which expired in 2016, namely “the part relating to decision-making in the physical living environment” [50]. Meanwhile, the articles related to “permits for alteration, demolition or removal of national monuments; regulations, zoning plans, permits and exemptions in the field of archaeology; protection of city and village views” were transferred to the Transitional Law in the Heritage Act [50]. This factor approach of Dutch national and local policies was identified by Smid when assessing the management of the large-heritage structures of three Dutch provinces [37]. Amsterdam was selected, among other Dutch cities, as a relevant case for this research, because of its national capital status and for being partially inscribed in the World Heritage List—Seventeenth-Century Canal Ring Area of Amsterdam inside the Singelgracht (https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1349/, accessed on 16 March 2023).

The Australian city of Ballarat was one of the first cities to explore and integrate an international pilot program to implement the approach set by the HUL Recommendation [4]. Since 2012 the city has developed several initiatives, such as the Imagine Ballarat [51], described by former mayor John Philips as the “largest ever community conversation.” Retrieved outcomes supported the definition of the municipal strategy for the following 25 years—Today, Tomorrow Together: The Ballarat Strategy 2040 [52], as well as the strategic plan for heritage management [53] and the Imagine Ballarat East Local Plan [54], of which defined actions will be considered in the Ballarat Planning Scheme. This experience, namely the weight addressed to community values, has pointed to Ballarat as one example of cultural heritage as a vector for urban development.

2.2. Selection of Municipal Officers

Organizations, especially governmental, are highly stratified and hierarchical structures that might limit the participation of their members in research-related activities [55]. Moreover, civil servants, despite their powerful roles, when exposed, might feel vulnerable, for instance, to “the adequacy of their level of knowledge, and experience personal and emotional impacts of policy” [46] (p. 2). Indeed, those limitations were identified and influenced the number of municipal technicians who agreed to contribute to this study: two in Amsterdam and three in Ballarat. In the first stage, Amsterdam and Ballarat HC and UP-related departments were contacted through e-mail and phone and requested to indicate the technicians who would be better informed about the integration of HC issues in urban management processes. The lack of response led the research team to move to more direct contact with municipal officers known among the research group. All contacts were performed by asking for those colleagues acquainted with the management of HC among urban development processes. Hence, each technicians from Amsterdam (HC and UP) and Ballarat HC were selected through these “direct contacts” (Internal) (

Table 2. Interviewees’ profiles.

	Amsterdam		Ballarat
Field 1	HC	UP	HC	UP 1	UP 2
Selection method 1	Internal	Internal	Internal	External	External
Department 2	Space and Economy	Space and Economy	Development and growth	Development and growth	Development and Growth
Section 2	Monuments and Archeology	Space and Sustainability City/Structural planning	Economic Partnerships Heritage and Cultural Landscapes	Economic Partnerships - Strategic Planning	Strategic Planning
Function 2	Advisor	Advisor, Policymaker	Coordinator	Manager	Project manager, Policy maker
Educational Background 2	Art History, Urban Studies	History, Heritage Studies	Heritage Studies	Heritage Studies, Urban planning	Heritage Studies, Urban Studies, Sociology, Geography

Sources: (¹) Processed by the authors; (²) Data collected by the online survey, further confirmed in each city’s official websites.

). Then, during the interviews each technician was asked, again, to indicate other colleagues (External). This was how UP technicians were reached in Ballarat (HC indicated UP 1 and UP 1 indicated UP2). As such, at least one technician from the HC and UP-related departments was approached, this being the main criteria of interviewees’ selection.

Selected respondents were approached by e-mail and invited to answer an online survey before the interview, complemented by informed consent in which they declared the option to remain anonymous. The online survey aimed to identify the represented field through questions about the current department and educational background. As illustrated by Table 2, all interviewees declared an educational background in the Heritage Studies field and shares the same department: Space and Economy (Amsterdam) and Development and Growth (Ballarat). However, they have responsibilities in different sections and functions, representing the two fields at stake: Monuments and Archaeology (HC) and Space and Sustainability City/Structural Planning (UP) in Amsterdam; Heritage and Cultural Landscapes (HC) and Strategic Planning (UP) in Ballarat.

2.3. In-Depth Interviews

The interviews were conducted between August 2020 and June 2021 with technicians from heritage conservation and urban planning-related departments of Ballarat and Amsterdam municipalities. The interviews lasted one hour on average and were performed through online video-call platforms. Audio and video records were made with the interviewees’ prior consent. A short version of the interview protocol was sent to each respondent before the meeting. The semi-structured interviews followed a prepared protocol based on the policy arrangement approach [17] adapted to the themes identified in the literature: urban management process, planning tools heritage discourse (

Table 3. Interview protocol—themes and questions.

Themes	Questions
Opening question	How has the city changed in the last five years?
Planning tools and process	2. Which are the key policies regulating urban transformation?
	3. Can you describe how the spatial legal framework affects heritage conservation?
	4. Can you describe how heritage conservation framework affects urban development?
	5. What is the relation with HC/UP during urban development processes involving heritage issues?
	6. Which have been the strategies to integrate heritage conservation and urban planning policies?
Heritage Discourse	7. What heritage attributes do you commonly deal with in urban development processes? Tangible or intangible? Are they all included in regulation policies?
	8. What is the function/role of the heritage in urban transformation processes?
Closing question	9. Do you know any good practices that you like to see implemented in your city?

Source: Processed by the authors.

). For instance, the questions addressing the effects of the HC legal framework in UP practices and vice-versa (questions 3 and 4) enable the collection of perspectives regarding relations between fields, main conflicts, and concordances. In addition, it complemented the data gathered in question 8, enabling the identification of heritage values.

Interview transcriptions were supported by software for automatic transcriptions, reviewed by the researcher, and sent to each respondent for further revision and confirmation for data analysis and publication.

Each interview started with a brief introduction to the research project, and, as an opening question, asked respondents to discuss the changes that had marked the city over the last five years. The answers to this opening question were not included in the analysis. All questions are open-ended questions. Both survey and interview answers were processed in a spreadsheet, and qualitative data analysis software—ATLAS.it—supported the thematic analysis of interview transcriptions, organized by field (heritage conservation and urban planning) and city. The analysis produced observations based on the conceptual frameworks: policy integration levels [7,33], heritage attributes [28], and heritage values [38]. In order to maintain the parity of the city representatives, the data collected from the two interviews with urban planners in Ballarat were jointly analyzed.

3. Results

This section presents the interviews’ results according to the themes and questions described above (Table 3): planning tools, process, and heritage discourse.

3.1. Planning Tools and Process

3.1.1. Key Planning Tools for Urban Management

As illustrated in

Table 4. Documents mentioned by respondents, categorized by their accredited relevance in urban change management processes.

	Urban Planning Tool	Year	Gov Level 1	Type	Relevance	Field 2
Amsterdam	Spatial Planning Act 3	2021	N	Law	Key	B
	Building Decree (Building Permits)	2012	N	Regulation	Key	B
	Heritage Listing 3	-	N, L	Protection areas	Key	HC
	Zoning Plans 3	-	L	Zoning	Key	B
	Value Assessment Research Reports	2001–20	L	Assessment	Key	HC
	Heritage Act 3	2016	N	Law	Complementary	HC
	Local Heritage Regulation 3	2015	L	Regulation	Complementary	HC
	Aesthetic Memorandum 3	2016	L	Regulation	Complementary	HC
	Significance Maps 3	-	L	Assessment	Complementary	HC
	Environmental Vision Amsterdam 2050 3	2021	L	Strategy	Complementary	B
Ballarat	Planning and Environment Act	1987	R	Law	Key	B
	Victoria Planning scheme	-	R	Law	Key	UP
	Victoria Heritage Act	1995/2017	R	Law	Key	B
	Victoria Heritage Regulations	2017	R	Regulation	Key	B
	Central Highlands Regional Growth Plan	2014	R	Zoning	Key	UP
	Ballarat Planning Scheme	-	L	Zoning	Key	B
	Heritage Overlays and precincts	-	L	Zoning	Key	B
	Bakery Hill Urban Renewal Plan 3	2019	L	Zoning	Complementary	HC
	Skyline Study	-	L	Assessment	Complementary	UP
	Cultural Heritage Management Plans	2018	R/L	Assessment	Complementary	UP
	Ballarat Strategy 2040 3	2015	L	Strategy	Complementary	B
	Imagine Ballarat East 3	2019	L	Strategy	Complementary	HC
	Ballarat Heritage Strategy 3	2017	L	Strategy	Complementary	HC
	Other Strategic Plans	-	L	Strategy	Complementary	UP

Notes: ¹ (N) National, (R) Regional, (L) Local; ² (B) Both fields, (HC) Heritage Conservation, (UP) Urban Planning; ³ extra to the interviews; Sources: Processed by the authors; each “Urban planning tool” official source is listed in Table A1 in Appendix A.

, Amsterdam municipal technicians from UP and HC fields identified the national Spatial Planning Act and Building Decree (hereinafter the Urban planning tool official source mentioned in Table 1; please see

Table A1. Sources of the documents mentioned by respondents.

	Urban Planning Tool	Year	Source	URL (accessed on 20 March 2023)
Amsterdam	Spatial Planning Act	2021	Dutch Minister of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment	https://wetten.overheid.nl/BWBR0020449/2021-07-01
	Building Decree (Building Permits)	2012	idem	https://rijksoverheid.bouwbesluit.com/Inhoud/docs/wet/bb2012
	Value Assessment Research Reports	2001–20	City of Amsterdam	https://www.amsterdam.nl/kunst-cultuur/monumenten/publicaties/rapporten/westergasfabrieksterrein/
	Heritage Act	2016	Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science	https://wetten.overheid.nl/BWBR0037521/2021-08-01/0
	Local Heritage Regulation	2015	City of Amsterdam	https://www.amsterdam.nl/kunst-cultuur/monumenten/wet-regelgeving/erfgoedverordening/
	Aesthetic Memorandum	2016	City of Amsterdam	https://www.crk.amsterdam.nl/welstandsnota
	Significance Maps	-	City of Amsterdam	https://maps.amsterdam.nl/ordekaart/?LANG=en
	Environmental Vision Amsterdam 2050	2021	City of Amsterdam	https://amsterdam2050.nl/ (accessed on 9 May 2023)
Ballarat	Planning and Environment Act	1987	Victoria State Government	http://www8.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/legis/vic/consol_act/paea1987254/index.html
	Victoria Planning Provisions	-	Victoria State Government	https://planning-schemes.app.planning.vic.gov.au/Victoria%20Planning%20Provisions/ordinance
	Victoria Heritage Act	1995/2017	Victoria State Government	https://www.legislation.vic.gov.au/in-force/acts/heritage-act-2017/004
	Victoria Heritage Regulations	2017	Victoria State Government	https://www.legislation.vic.gov.au/in-force/statutory-rules/heritage-regulations-2017/002
	Central Highlands Regional Growth Plan	2014	Victoria State Government	https://www.planning.vic.gov.au/policy-and-strategy/regional-growth-plans/central-highlands
	Ballarat Planning Scheme	-	City of Ballarat	https://www.planning.vic.gov.au/policy-and-strategy/regional-growth-plans/central-highlands
	Bakery Hill Urban Renewal Plan	2019	City of Ballarat	https://mysay.ballarat.vic.gov.au/bakery-hill
	Cultural Heritage Management Plans (Aboriginal Heritage Regulations 2018)	2018	Victoria State Government	https://www.firstpeoplesrelations.vic.gov.au/cultural-heritage-management-plans#what-is-a-cultural-heritage-management-plan

in Appendix A) as key management tools, while the HC respondent added heritage listing (national and local) and local Value Assessment Research Reports. In Ballarat, both UP and UC technicians identified as key urban management tools the regional legislation from both fields (Planning and Environment Act and the Victoria Heritage Act and the Regulations, including the Aboriginal Heritage Act), and, at the local level, the Ballarat Planning Scheme and related heritage overlays and precincts. Meanwhile, Ballarat UP also added the Victoria Planning Provisions and the regional spatial plan for the Central Highlands.

The tools selected in each city by both fields indicate an agreement on the strong influence of upper-level policies compared to local policies and statutory urban planning tools over more informal ones.

Regarding upper-level spatial planning, these provisions establish the rules for zoning plans designed and implemented by municipalities defining the conditions that make a permit for development mandatory. Likewise, the heritage conservation process follows a similar hierarchy: national or regional act provisions and listing managed by the related governments, and local listed and inventoried heritage managed by local authorities. This recognized power of upper-level legislation and regulation tools, more than evidencing the multi-governance levels in the urban planning of both cities, exposes the dependence of local management on national or regional policies and decisions. While in Amsterdam, the local and national government policies and tools—elected as important for the management of urban change—equalize, in Ballarat, the regional governmental tools are perceived as far more dominant, as “at the end of the day, the priorities in the planning came from the state government” (Ballarat UP) The lack of local regulations for heritage conservation in Ballarat and the subsequent dependency on regional regulations (Victoria Heritage Regulations) was mentioned by urban planners as being overly generic and outdated. This links with the general agreement on the power of statutory urban planning frameworks, including the spatial planning act, zoning plans, building decrees, and heritage listings or overlays. Accordingly, they are directly derived from upper-level provisions and ensure the legal protection of listed heritage under development projects, establishing the requirement for planning approvals. However, as stated by interviewees, their rigidness and listed heritage bonds often transform them into anachronic obstacles to balancing the daily management between urban development and heritage conservation.

Despite coinciding with this, HC and UP fields demonstrate field-related divergencies per city. In Amsterdam, the UP technician omits or does not credit the same importance to heritage assessment tools as the HC technician. In Ballarat, urban planners indicate more awareness of the existing heritage conservation-specific tools and their role in planning decisions. They mentioned zoning heritage protection tools, such as heritage precincts and overlays, but also cultural heritage management plans, mandatory after the heritage identification, namely for aboriginal cultural heritage, during development projects.

These field-related divergencies are more evident when indicating other instruments that, despite not being considered crucial for urban management, play a relevant role in supporting decision-making processes.

The “complementary tools,” identified by Amsterdam respondents (Table 4), range from national heritage laws to local regulations and assessment tools (Significance Maps) exclusively identified by the HC field and the new strategic plan (Environmental Vision Amsterdam 2050), mentioned by both UP and HC respondents. In Ballarat, HC respondent mentioned as “complementary tools” a specific local zoning plan (Bakery Hill Urban Renewal Plan) and the local strategic plan Imagine Ballarat East, and the Ballarat Heritage Strategy. Ballarat UP technicians recognized the complementary role of local assessment tools, such as the Skyline studies and the Cultural Heritage Management Plans (as previewed by the 2018 Aboriginal Heritage Act), as other strategic plans (e.g., housing, economic development). Similar to Amsterdam, the local strategic plan Ballarat Strategy 2040 was the only complementary tool indicated by respondents of UP and HC fields. The discrepancy between the two cities over the wealth of strategic planning tools might be explained due to the current position of all Ballarat respondents in the strategic planning department.

Extending the analysis to those “complementary tools” enabled us to grow understanding on the nature of the divergencies between fields and cities. Those disciplinary-related divergences are particularly evident in Amsterdam as the HC technician exclusively mentions national heritage-related laws, local regulations, and assessment tools, contrasting with the role attributed by the Amsterdam UP technician to the role of the new city strategic plan, indicated to be an example of the integration of heritage conservation in urban planning policies. Meanwhile, in Ballarat, the divergence between fields indicates that, while UP technicians are aware of the HC assessment tools supporting decision-making processes, the HC technician reveals a broader awareness of the strategic tools, both deliverables of the community participation initiative Imagine Ballarat, based on the HUL Recommendation approach.

3.1.2. Planning Process: From Initial Cooperation to Thorough Neglection

The cooperation between HC and UP in Ballarat and Amsterdam is evident at the diagnosis and design stage (Figure 1), as HC advice and heritage assessments are indicated to be integrated into new policies. As stated by Ballarat UP, in “this way (urban) heritage can be involved from the very beginning and be a point of departure for the development rather than the often perceived brake block”. However, all respondents indicate a lack of cooperation on further implementation and monitoring stages. Indeed, HC technicians from both cities mentioned that heritage issues are often neglected throughout the planning process. As stated by Ballarat HC, “heritage policy, for example, over in this (Ballarat) planning scheme works very, very separately to each other.”

On the other hand, UP technicians indicate some disagreement, assuming, in Ballarat, a growing cooperative relation at the implementation and monitoring stages (e.g., planning permits for listed heritage), and in Amsterdam, by considering cultural heritage as an “integral part” (Amsterdam UP) of urban planning, inspiring urban development.

3.1.3. Perceptions of Potential Integration Strategies

Although recognizing the compelling power of statutory planning, the HC technicians of both cities also agreed on the urgency of integrating, into statutory planning tools, the new knowledge collected in these cultural significance assessments, namely the new, but only inventoried, heritage, which is left more vulnerable to subjective and ad hoc decisions. As stated by Ballarat UP “referring to the policy in the [Ballarat] Planning Scheme means that planners or property owners will know that this is the same policy for all heritage places”, meaning that integrating heritage management policies in the same document as urban planning helps developers and planners. Then “consolidate heritage policies through a future amendment to the Ballarat [Planning] Scheme” (Ballarat UP) is one of the steps to improve the efficiency of heritage overlays [53]. Hence, non-binding tools, such as Amsterdam heritage assessments—Value Assessment Research Reports and Significant Maps—or the Ballarat Skyline studies and strategic plans, emerge as fundamental to inform decision-making during planning applications and permit approval. The definition of protocols regulating the cooperation between HC and UP fields throughout the planning process is also indicated as important for integration. Informal practices, such as the negotiation between technicians from different fields or those with developers from different departments, were also indicated by Ballarat HC as a crucial process that goes further and shares the idea that negotiation processes lead to more and more effective outcomes: “what’s in the policy itself” (Ballarat HC). However, to use the request for municipality advice on inventoried heritage as an opportunity for negotiation depends highly on the developer’s initiative, attitude, and human resources capacity of municipality.

3.2. Heritage Discourse

Further analysis entails the perspective of each technician on their daily practice and their interpretation of the policies regulating decision-making. Results are presented according to the three dimensions of heritage discourse identified in the literature: heritage protection levels, heritage categories and attributes, and heritage values.

3.2.1. Heritage Protection Levels: Listed, Inventoried

In Amsterdam and Ballarat, statutory urban planning policies protect properties listed as national, federal, or local heritage through zoning controls [56], such as conservation/protection areas or heritage precincts. Any development affecting these resources must be submitted to a heritage impact assessment process to get a permit approval for development projects.

In Amsterdam, for instance, this assessment process is launched by urban planning services when listed heritage properties—the “monuments”(Amsterdam HC)—are identified in zoning plans. The process involves the advice of the Aesthetic Committee, in which the HC department participates, besides external HC academic experts, supporting their discussions and further decisions via the assessment tool known as Significance Maps. However, as stated by Amsterdam HC, listed heritage is a share of Amsterdam’s “historic-cultural values” and “that’s why it (department action) is more difficult”. This adversity is explained by the fact that the national heritage law only obliges the preservation, or, at least, the justification of any intervention affecting statutory-listed heritage. Hence, urban planners often focus exclusively on listed heritage, ignoring and endangering other heritage assets recognized and identified in tools such as the Significance Maps. Despite this practical weakness of heritage assessment tools, Amsterdam HC also mentioned that this “little status (that) our analysis gives them”, plays a relevant role in negotiation processes, being “not as rigidly as monuments but we would like at least not to be demolished”. Amsterdam UP also demonstrates concerns about this asymmetry between the hard protection of listed heritage (“city center”) and soft management of “districts which are from the 50s, 60s and 70s, where a lot of transformation is going on in the built environment”, calling for more discussion and tools to manage those conservation areas. This UP concern corroborates the Amsterdam HC technician’s demand for the definition of protocols making HC advice mandatory for every area where “historic-cultural values” were identified, not only listed. It is assumed crucial to mitigate the introduced vulnerability by ad hoc and subjective decisions, as those assessment tools hardly protect those unlisted assets from demolition.

On the other hand, Australian urban planning policies indicated a more comprehensive and thoughtful approach. Heritage overlays and related precincts, established by local planning schemes, include listed and inventoried heritage as long as they hold a statement of significance. These documents describe property attributes and values and how they should be managed, and their existence is a sine qua non condition for definition as a heritage overlay, not the listing category. As such, Ballarat urban planners assumed “the statutory framework here is that for something to be included, it must have a reasonable statement of significance behind it to justify what it is, why it’s valuable and why it should be managed”. The heritage overlays are keen for daily urban management, currently under revision.

3.2.2. Heritage Categories and Attributes

The in-depth interviews confirmed the prevalence of tangible heritage attributes in urban management policies and current practices in Ballarat and Amsterdam, assessed by municipal officers. All respondents mentioned the focus of urban planning and heritage policies on tangible-asset attributes, such as buildings, sets of buildings, archaeological sites, or other urban physical structures. It is overtly assumed by an Amsterdam HC respondent stating that they “really focus on material objects or structures” or that the Aesthetical Committee, which is mandatory in heritage impact assessments, advises on “buildings transformation, namely window frames, colors, coating materials.” The same interviewee also mentioned that the inclusion of intangible heritage attributes in urban management processes is perceived as an urgent and growing demand, although challenging to implement due to lack of human resources.

Meanwhile, without distinguishing between tangible or intangible, Amsterdam UP mentioned a gap in HC policies and practices to address attributes, such as the “larger scale, urban layout” and the relation between different urban elements (e.g., in post-war areas, the relationship between buildings, gardens, and water), which corresponds to Veldpaus [28] intangible categories. Howbeit, when directly asked about the integration of intangible attributes in urban management, the UP respondent revealed a different understanding of the concept, stating that the tangible continuous layering of Amsterdam’s historic urban landscape or “the fact that it (Amsterdam) is a very harmonious (and] beautiful cityscape, it is because it was renewed in a very conscious way for over a long period of time, building in a way that fits with what was already there (…) I think is an intangible Amsterdam heritage”.

In Ballarat, both fields agree on characterizing regional heritage policies, which dictate the rules for local heritage management, as overly tangible-asset-oriented, i.e., “that you can touch or feel”, and “very based on a thing” (Ballarat HC). Likewise, this dependency is perceived as an obstacle to introducing communities’ heritage perceptions in local planning schemes derived from local participatory initiatives, such as Imagine Ballarat. Such participatory practices are especially relevant as technicians reported they are keen to enhance the heritage perspective, namely by broadening the identification of intangible heritage categories. UP technicians also regard the management of specific communities’ heritage as more challenging, such as the Australian Aboriginal culture, in which most heritage attributes are not buildings or even artifacts but mainly natural elements (water, earth) and the relations between attributes.

Moreover, urban planners from both cities reported the demand for heritage conservation to evolve towards a more landscape-oriented approach. For instance, in Amsterdam, albeit assuming “not (being) in charge of monuments but of areas”, HC technicians are criticized by a UP respondent for overvaluing isolated objects. Regarding the Amsterdam “city center”, listed as world heritage since 2017, UP respondent also recognized the regulatory protection of tangible attributes (building interiors) as intangible heritage attributes, such as public space design and buildings’ functions. This HC object-oriented approach is also criticized in Ballarat, but unlike Amsterdam they identify this lack mainly in policies, although recognizing a landscape-oriented discourse in HC practice.

3.2.3. Heritage Values

During interviews, references to values, or the reasons supporting heritage designation, were mentioned when municipal technicians were asked about their relations with other departments and their opinion about the role of heritage in urban development processes. This approach is justified because a direct question might hinder or introduce bias to the answers.

The analysis indicates a general misunderstanding of heritage values and intangible attributes. In other words, the reasons behind heritage designation, i.e., social values, are often confused with intangible heritage attributes.

Heritage properties are recognized by interviewees from both fields in Ballarat and Amsterdam as constraints on daily urban management, but simultaneously as an inspiring and surplus resource for urban development. Even assuming a more critical position toward urban planners, Amsterdam HC follows Ballarat HC in recognizing the interrelation the urban planning field heritage conservation, taught by the former in order to enhance its focus.

In Amsterdam, both fields expressed concern about the general use of ugly/beautiful criteria for preservation and how this hinders the understanding of decisions. However, their discourse also indicates divergent views on cultural values, i.e., the preference addressed to historic and aesthetic values by the HC department, and to age and economic values by the UP department. For instance, HC technicians mentioned the challenge in explaining “to fellow urban planners that a building built in the 1970s or 1980s can be interesting and should be maintained, and this is not always understood because most people are still used to looking at heritage as something that it was built at least over 100 years ago”. In other words, HC mentions the general focus on age values, the antiquity of an asset, as a mandatory criterion to be accepted as heritage. On the other side, UP Amsterdam technicians criticized the HC approach for overrating specific city areas due to an apparent historical preference (“post-war”) over, for instance, the 19th-century areas, which residents highly valued. This overvaluation of historic over age values is also present when UP criticizes HC’s approach for not considering the historical urban overlay introduced by the various extension plans that shaped Amsterdam. Moreover, this argument is used by UP to explain the difficulty of HC in accepting change in urban heritage management.

The discourse of Ballarat technicians indicates a greater awareness of the relevance of detailed “statements of cultural significance” (Ballarat UP) for urban management. This is demonstrated when UP technicians mentioned heritage overlays, as a zoning control tool, that should be based on “a reasonable statement of significance behind it to justify what it is, why it’s valuable and why (it) should be managed”. However, despite being a condition defined in regional heritage legislation [53], Ballarat HC criticizes heritage protection tools, for overrating aesthetic and historic values. It is stated that heritage designation “have to meet (the) particular threshold of “architectural significance” or “historical significance” or to be a famous architect who built it”, undermining other values such as community values, as assumed in Ballarat’s Heritage Strategic Plan [53]. This omission of other value dimensions, namely social categories, was also raised by UP technicians, mentioning the challenge of integrating aboriginal cultural heritage and “traditional cultural values” into the current heritage conservation approach, where tangible attributes and historic and aesthetic values overrule within the hierarchy. Ballarat technicians from both fields agree that this weakens the role of conservation policies in influencing statutory planning tools and negotiation, or other informal decision-making processes.

4. Discussion

The main aim of this paper was to unveil the integration degrees between heritage conservation and urban planning policies and practices as perceived by selected Amsterdam and Ballarat municipal officers from HC- and UP-related departments. Therefore, this section discusses the main findings of this study, comparing it with the Janssen et al. [33] conceptual framework of the sector, factor, and vector approach.

4.1. Assessing Integration across Planning Process and Tools

The results show that “softer” tools, such as strategic plans and heritage assessments, are growing in both the urban management practices of Ballarat and Amsterdam. According to the heritage planning nexus [33], these non-binding and strategy-based tools characterize the vector approach. Indeed, all respondents recognized their crucial contribution to formal and informal decision-making processes, constituting a source of knowledge for managing listed and inventoried heritage. However, they were mentioned as “complementary” to the “key” urban management tools. Those formal planning tools, namely the upper-level policies and local statutory planning frameworks, including zoning controls, building decrees, and heritage listings, overly regulatory and protective, are part of the sector approach, where both fields are apart and perceived as a burden or threat. Hence, despite the efforts put into designing more inclusive and dynamic planning tools, the remaining power of statutory planning tools suggests that the formal management of urban change in both cities remains sectorial. Besides, this contradicts the decreasing power of those regulatory tools, as claimed by previous studies [7,18,20]. However, respondents also recognized that regulatory tools’ complexity and their long-term nature make them overly generic, static, and outdated, hindering the ability to respond efficiently to the evolution of contemporary society’s demands. The ascribed rigidness and their listed heritage bound nature often transform them into anachronic obstacles to balancing the daily management of the interaction between urban development and heritage conservation.

HC respondents from both cities confirm this sector approach when asked about the integration dynamics throughout the planning process [7]. While urban planners perceived steady cooperation (Ballarat) or full integration (Amsterdam), HC technicians indicated a weakening of the multidisciplinary effort and cooperation [7] identified in the initial stages of planning processes, even identifying a lack of communication (neglection) in a few situations. The demand of HC technicians for effective integration of heritage assessment tools and strategic plans into statutory planning frameworks and the introduction of precise protocols regulating the relations and roles of each discipline [16] suggest this perceived sector approach from the HC field. The disagreement between HC and UP perceptions over the planning process also contributes to identifying the sector approach.

4.2. Assessing Integration Degrees across Heritage Discourse

Heritage protection tools, such as heritage listing, are closely associated with statutory planning tools, sharing their generic and static nature. Besides, listed heritage is often a result of expert-based assessments [10], according to Janssen et al. [33], a characteristic of the sector approach that hinders the integration of heritage and spatial planning. Hence, the practice described by respondents from both fields in Amsterdam and Ballarat confirms the sector approach, indicating that, while listed heritage is fully addressed and protected by statutory urban planning policies, inventoried heritage remains vulnerable to ad hoc decisions. However, Ballarat UP and HC respondents expressed a practice that indicates a step forward to a more integrated approach by assigning value-based assessments (“statements of cultural significance”)—instead of the heritage protection category—in establishing heritage protection in zoning tools, such as heritage overlays. This effective inclusion of value-based assessments into statutory planning tools expands heritage protection to inventoried assets, and demonstrates how to enhance the integration between heritage and spatial planning through small but relevant initiatives.

Nevertheless, the sector approach is confirmed in both cities on the remaining heritage discourse analysis categories—heritage categories, attributes and values.

First, all respondents indicated that policies and tools are largely focused on tangible heritage categories and attributes. As such, and according to Janssen et al.’s [33] conceptual framework, this prevalence of tangible dimensions, and the omission of intangible ones, is one of the main indicators of a lack of integration between heritage conservation and spatial planning, characterizing the sector and the factor approach. Therefore, the sector approach is confirmed by the criticism made by UP in the HC field, in both cities, enhancing their focus from object to landscape-oriented approaches. However, while in Amsterdam, this is stated as a disciplinary bias, aligned with the relation of Authorized Heritage Discourse, with tangible attributes as described by Smith and Campbell [23], in Ballarat, urban planners assume it as a limitation of the legal framework, recognizing the landscape-oriented approach to the perspective and practice of HC colleagues. This divergence between Amsterdam and Ballarat was also identified when discussing heritage values. Hence, while in Amsterdam, the sector approach is revealed by the dominance of historic, aesthetical, and age values, with little reference to the economic values by UP, their conflicts are relevant to the sector approach. On the other hand, Ballarat technicians from both fields agree to criticize urban planning tools, even those directly addressing heritage, for overrating aesthetic and historic, and omitting social values, even when those policies are designed under a participatory and inclusive process, such as the Imagine Ballarat initiative.

Therefore, results indicated that Ballarat still follows Amsterdam in the sector approach to urban heritage management, as it has failed to introduce into the statutory policies the vector approach acknowledged by technicians and assigned by strategic (but non-binding) tools, mandatory for an effective governance management reform towards the integration of heritage conservation and urban planning.

5. Conclusions and Further Research

Integrating heritage conservation and spatial planning systems is needed for the sustainable development of cities. Beyond the policies and tools regulating urban development, the relations and perceptions between local technicians from different fields are fundamental for the efficient implementation of policy integration.

The results show that, despite the national and local initiatives in adjusting policies and goals towards a more integrated approach between heritage conservation and urban planning fields, such as the Dutch Belvedere Memorandum or the development of programs based on the HUL Recommendation approach in Ballarat, the local management of urban change in Ballarat and Amsterdam remains partial, limited and sectorial. Partial because heritage is exclusively considered at the early planning stages and often disregarded in further implementation and monitoring stages. The incorporation of these ever-growing heritage assessments in urban planning schemes is a condition that requires the flexibility of regulatory and statutory planning processes and tools. Periodical revision of the statements of cultural significance for inclusion in urban management tools, for instance, those supporting heritage overlays in Ballarat, might enable this flexibility demand. Otherwise, the enhancement of the processes and tools registered in assessment and strategic tools, namely for heritage conservation purposes, remain only acknowledged by the heritage conservation field, as was identified in Amsterdam. Limited, as it stands focused on the material dimensions of heritage, suppressing intangible heritage categories and attributes from urban planning dynamics. The weakness identified by respondents in HC tools, associated with divergences in heritage management perspectives (attributes and values), reinforces the sector approach of both cities to HC and UP integration. Moreover, an apparent misunderstanding between values and intangible heritage attributes concepts, exclusively ascribing those as a direct outcome of participatory community initiatives, hindered the analysis. However, the omission of intangible attributes in management tools, assumed by respondents, could be confirmed by further research combining management perceptions with the content analysis of urban policies. Finally, the sectorial approach to integration often results in an overlapping of planning tools, fragmenting spatial planning and the territory through the different fields. Despite assuming the crucial role of heritage, and assessment tools to inform decision-making processes, they remain supporting and sectorial tools, while zoning plans lead urban management processes.

The results of this study should be interpreted with regard to the scope of the cities of Amsterdam and Ballarat, as theoretical representations of the factor and vector approach [33], and to the perceptions of the municipal officers with relevant positions in the departments related to HC and UP fields, and are not intended to be generalized. Following the same criteria, applying this methodology to other cities might enhance understanding the factors challenging the integration of heritage and spatial planning policies. Further, the expansion of the methodology through a survey addressing other technicians, even from other departments, may contribute to clarifying, for instance, if the lack of economic and human resources, as mentioned by HC technicians, derives from a financial constraint or a disciplinary bias.

The novelty of this research lies, first, in the systematization of the heritage and spatial planning nexus [33] through the integration of policy integration levels [7,33] and heritage attributes [28] and values [38] conceptual frameworks, endorsing the transparency and replicability of the methodology to other contexts and actors; and, secondly, to enhance the present state-of-the-art by providing the current status of policy integration between heritage and spatial planning, in these specific cities, from the perspective of one group of actors—public policymakers and implementers—with recognized influence in urban management processes.

Finally, this study also demonstrates the hypothesis introduced by Janssen et al. [33], supported by the theories of policy integration, according to which policy integration must be addressed as a cumulative process of commitments, constant negotiations, and mutual learning, as seen in Ballarat. Otherwise, if only addressed formally—as indicated in Amsterdam—it might be felt as a trap for one of the involved fields when one can easily overrule the other.