Marco
Pompilio
Ad-Hoc Expert
Generic Skills
B.1. Understanding of integrated and sustainable urban development:
Civil engineering degree (5 year program) at the University of Naples, Italy, 1985, and master degree Urban design and planning at the University of Washington, Seattle, 1989. Trained for planning issues, in the 90’s I acquired also skills in environmental planning and assessment by working on EIA (environmental impact assessment) and related environmental studies for important railway infrastructure projects. Since 1997 I have worked as urban planner, mainly at the province and city scales, promoting an approach careful to integration of environmental issues into strategic policy decision processes and spatial planning. The methodology was at first tested and streamlined in the development of the Master plan for the Province of Milan, that was approved in 2003. It has therefore been improved in the other province master plans where I had a coordination role (Brescia, Cremona, Lucca, Pavia). Integration of environmental issues into planning was also achieved through introduction of SEA (strategic environmental assessment) procedure in the Milan province master plan, at the end of 90’s, well before adoption of SEA directive 2001/42/EC into national and regional legislations. Methodology for an extensive integration of sustainability issues into planning has been developed through SEA for province master plans (Cremona, Mantova, Enna) and municipal master plans for several cities and smaller towns.
B.2. Understanding of exchange and learning processes at transnational level:
Transnational exchange of experiences and methods has always been very useful to improve planning discipline. Since I was attending classes at the engineer university in Naples I included English planning literature in my exam preparation, being interested in experimenting new methodologies, in addition to those taught in Italian planning deparments. As a matter of fact, once graduated, as soon as I had the opportunity I went to US to improve my planning skills. At that time I was very much interested in the new urban design approach carried out in some of the American schools, among which the University of Washington was one of the most advanced. Back to Italy after master graduation, in 1989, I have always attempted to improve urban planning methods and tools by mixing Italian practice along with the skills that I have learned abroad. I involved teachers and practitioners from US and Europe promoting international teams for important projects, such as the competition for the extension of the Paris grand axis west of La Défense, or the design proposals for the new Fear District of Milano Rho-Pero.
B.3. Proficiency in English:
I do not have results from a recent test. After graduation in Italy I obtained a score of 623 in the TOEFL text taken in Seattle to access the master degree at the University of Washington (where 580 was the minimum score required). I lived in Seattle for two years where I had the opportunity to improve English language, through a writing and speaking daily exercise, at university. Most of master classes and laboratories provided a direct involvement with local communities and public officials, requiring a strong effort to turn professional jargon into simpler concepts that could be easily grasped by non technical listeners and decision makers. In the same two years period I worked part time for the University of Washington in a Federal funded research project on urban neighborhoods that required a strict interaction with inhabitants and local practitioners. This intense and continuous exercise of the language with natives turned to be very useful, whenever in international projects or contexts I needed to write papers, or give oral presentations or lectures, or I needed to communicate and being understood by people from different countries and cultures. The list of papers in English and activities in international projects is in the CV, and some of the papers are available for downloading from my personal page on the social academia.edu
Thematic expertise:
Theme / Policy:
Urban Strategic Planning
Summary Thematic expertise:
Civil engineer from 1985 with a master degree in urban planning, I had several experiences in urban, transportation and environmental planning. Since 1997 to present I have a major focus on province planning. Until 2004 I was director of the Planning department of the Province of Milan (which included about 40 employees) where I coordinated a specific office team in the preparation of the first province master plan. The plan was approved in October 2003. Department duties also included the assessment of municipal plans coherence to contents and objects of the province plan, as well as the assessment of major infrastructures and of strategic settlements. Since 2005 to present as practitioner I was charged with the coordination of several province master plans (Brescia, Cremona, Lucca, Pavia) and I prepared specific thematic studies for other provinces (Lecco, Bergamo, Mantova, Enna). Since 2007 I coordinate a national study group on provincial planning, to which participate about 40 provinces. The group promotes conferences, seminars and publication on province planning. Recently I have organized a state of the art conference on province planning, in November 2014 in Pavia, Italy, and I have prepared and coordinated a professional training class on province planning that was promoted by ANCI (national municipalities association) and UPI (national province association).
Theme / Policy:
Environmental Issues
Summary Thematic expertise:
The major expertise on Urban strategic planning is completed by a second, but not minor and equally important, expertise in environmental assessment, both at project level (EIA) and plan level (SEA). In the 90’s I had the opportunity to work in the interdisciplinary team that ENI (national hydrocarbon board) set up to deal with the high speed railway project Milano-Bologna (180 km), charged by FS, the national railway company. In the project I was responsible for the development of EIA report and other environmental studies, corridor alternatives comparison and evaluation, design of the mitigation measure and implementation of the monitoring program. Activities also included coordination of public participation meetings and negotiation process with ministers, regions, provinces, and municipalities. Project was approved in 1997 and the line is today in operation.
Skills and competencies on environmental issues acquired at the project level turned to be very useful to introduce SEA at planning level. In 1998, before EC legislation (Directive 42/2001/EC), an experimental first SEA report was applied to the master plan of the Province of Milan. The method used was improved in a new issue of the report, 2002, and after plan approval in 2004 it was published the first monitoring report. Method has been further improved in other SEA processes, at the province level (master plans for Cremona, Mantova, Enna) as well as for municipal master plans of cities and towns.
Expertise support to local authorities and other stakeholders in designing & delivering integrated and participatory policies
E.1. Knowledge on participatory methods and tools for co-production and implementation of local polices :
A significant example is the participatory process to choose the corridor for the High speed railway Milano – Bologna in the Modena area (already mentioned in D3, where a link is provided to a paper written on that experience for the European Commission ). Similar processes were carried out to take decisions on corridor, layout and mitigation measures along the entire railway, with specific involvement of the communities of nearby towns and cities, summing up to more than 100 public meetings spread in a period of about 5 years. Tools and methods used include: indicators, matrices, visual and photo simulations, weighted comparison of advantages and disadvantages, conflict resolutions, mediation of interests among citizens living along the alternative corridors, development of dialogue between city administration and citizens, merging of a preferred alternative, community design of mitigation and compensation measures.
Another significant example is the first master plan for the Province of Milan that involved the 188 municipalities within the Province boundaries, including Milan. They were organized into 12 workshop tables where local planning issues were discussed and agreed on the base of 12 local agenda. Recurring general meetings involving representatives designated by the 12 tables allowed to coordinate findings from 12 tables and to assume decisions before taking the plan to the Province Council. In parallel other working tables were developed with stakeholders.
E.2. Knowledge on integrated approach for the design, delivering, monitoring and evaluation of urban strategies/policies:
An integrated approach of sustainable urban strategies/policies into planning was developed for the first master plan of the Province of Milan, approved in 2003, which was also the first master plan for the metropolitan area. As mentioned in B1 at that time I was director of the planning department of the province. GIS based tools and transportation models were set up to help the process. The first province environment state of the art report was prepared among the baseline studies, to have an in depth knowledge of most critical issues. An innovative and voluntary SEA approach was adopted in 1997 at the beginning of the planning process, though it was not at that time compulsory by the law.
The integrated approach continued after plan approval. Several sustainability policies set by the province plan were used by province offices to evaluate municipal master plans, thus allowing development of local administrations’ awareness for integration of sustainability issues.
Right after plan approval it was published a first monitoring report to determine values of SEA indicators before implementation. The report was organized into a non technical format to be used in public meetings to discuss results and provide feedback to improve the plan. Results were illustrated using and adapting the software “Dashboard of sustainability” developed by the Joint Research Centre of the European Community. Link to report http://goo.gl/xYXNkS
E.3. Awareness of the main policy and funding schemes for sustainable urban development at EU and national level:
Lombardy region web site gives a good updated information about policy and funding from region, and also from European and national levels. This is the main source. Other sources include EC web site and Italian ministers web site.
Lombardy region guidelines on SEA require to consider EU and national policies in planning evaluation. Since 2005 I have regularly been charged with SEA reports for province and municipal plans, and this is a good opportunity to keep updated on EU policies and trends for sustainable urban development.
An example of integrated approach to sustainable urban strategies in SEA for city masters plans is the one for the city of Monza (120.000 inhabitants) north of Milan. Short link to paper published on the journal “Urbanistica Informazioni”, 2007, that synthesizes the approach used http://goo.gl/BSEomt
During the past 15 years I promoted and participated to projects proposed for obtaining European funds, such as the project that was financed in 2002 on metropolitan parks, called “Métropole nature” (program Interreg III B Medocc).
E.4. Ability to understand specific local situations and adapt tools and content to different local realities:
It is possible to achieve consistent integration and participation in the processes only through development of ad hoc tools and methods, taking into account environment, culture and traditions, administrative and political context.
In the project for the high speed railway Milano-Bologna methods and tools had to take into account that in the 90’s in Italy local communities started to get organized and be able to influence local politicians. The project, decided in the 80’s by central national government, had to be verified and revised (layout, corridors, not only project details or mitigation measures) according to requests raised by local organized citizen groups. This fact brought to experiment the use of indicators and other tools to manage conflicts in public meetings, and to develop means to better communicate contents of the project to citizens.
Since 1997 I have worked mostly on province master plans as well as strategic environmental assessment s of municipal and province plans. Starting from the first master plan of the Province of Milan, participation meant to be able to effectively involve local municipal administrations in defining the content of the province plan. Ad hoc methods and tools had to be developed taking into account that each province had different physical, cultural and political traditions. A great effort was dedicated to find, in agreement with municipalities, effective means to implement the province plan through municipal plans.
Summary Expertise:
In most of the projects and plans where I took part I dedicated a large part of energies and time were dedicated to support local authorities in developing and managing integrated and participatory processes.
In the 90’s I had a coordination role in the negotiation process for approval of the project for the high speed railway Milano-Bologna, which involved about 40 municipalities along the 180 km route. The project, decided in the 80’s by central national government, had to be verified and revised (layout, corridors, not only project details or mitigation measures) according to requests raised by local organized citizen groups, taking into account that in the 90’s in Italy local communities started to get organized and be able to influence decisions of local politicians. This required to experiment innovative tools to manage conflicts in public meetings, and to develop means to better communicate contents of the project to citizens.
Since 1997 I have worked mostly on province master plans as well as SEA of municipal and province plans. At province level participation meant to be able to effectively involve local municipal administrations in defining the content of the province plan. Ad hoc methods and tools had to be developed taking into account that each province had different physical, cultural and political traditions. A great effort was dedicated to find, in agreement with municipalities, effective means to implement the province plan through municipal plans
Informations
Residence location:
Italy
Languages:
Italian - Mother tongue
Foreign Languages level:
Foreign languages:
Email:
posta@studiopompilio.com