Discretion in land-use planning: how regulations and planning culture shape efficient and equitable urban environments

In Europe, land-use planning is routinely tasked to pursue efficiency and equity objectives – such as housing supply and affordability. Yet, how these objectives are translated into concrete decisions remains unclear. This paper examines discretion’s role in the pursuit of these objectives. Drawing on interviews with planning experts in England, Ireland, and Switzerland, the analysis conceptualizes discretion as a decision-making space structured by regulations and planning culture, and as professional power exercised by planners within that space. Findings show that in these three cases discretionary space is conditioned by its placement within the planning process, the regulatory standing of planning objectives, and culturally embedded understandings of legitimacy and property rights. Discretion powers are subject to market pressures, public contestation, legal scrutiny, and planners’ professional role perceptions. Across the case studies, efficiency-oriented objectives tend to prevail where discretion is exercised late in development management under strong external pressures, while equity objectives gain greater traction when embedded earlier in statutory plans or actively defended through professional judgement. By centring discretionary space and power within planning processes, the paper clarifies how the three countries’ planning systems facing similar challenges can produce divergent results and identifies conditions under which more balanced outcomes may emerge.