Abstract
Contemporary correctional and planning systems face significant challenges due to spatial and reintegrative inequalities. Across the country, social housing, transitional housing and other rehabilitative facilities sited within urban areas are often sorely contested by surrounding communities. Pervasive ‘not in my backyard’ syndrome serves to undermine processes of reintegration. This creates an impasse, where local government must honour receiving community rights to natural justice to be heard as an affected party, whilst continuing to facilitate post- incarceration processes.
While such situations are broadly understood within existing academic discourse, as well as within local contexts, New Zealand’s planning system has long overlooked them. This oversight has allowed for ‘not in my back yard’ attitudes to permeate the planning process, creating a disconnect between land-use management planning, social in/equity and the availability of post-incarceration transitional housing. This research utilises a mixed-methods approach consisting of key informant semi-structured interviews, a survey questionnaire and policy analysis to fulfil the research aim and questions.
The local planner can play a powerful role in ‘not in my back yard’ disputes where human service provision intersects with urban planning regulations. The consenting process positions the planner near the apex of power in the Resource Management Act 1991 decision-making process, despite - often times - a lack of experience in navigating human service provision issues. Correspondingly, this research aims to recommend steps forward for how the planning system can improve the management of aggressive unwantedness of transitional housing, and better support our ex- offender population. This thesis therefore, explores the experiences of ex-offenders and other key actors, in order to understand how the role of land-use management planning can better facilitate the efficacy of transitional housing in reintegrating ex-offenders into urban areas.