Expert Tips: Public relations is ineffective for winning controversial land use battles

Before we even get to the meat of our Expert Tip, we want to take a moment and say we have nothing against the public relations industry. Public relations professionals are incredibly skilled, talented and valuable people. The tactics employed by PR professionals are valuable and successful when used appropriately. When a client approaches us with a public relations problem, we immediately turn down the work and refer them to a public relations expert. Elements of what we do for clients are public relations tactics. However, based on our experience of doing nothing but winning controversial land use battles, we have found that employing public relations tactics alone is not an effective method for winning the most controversial land use battles.

If your land use project is not facing opposition or you simply want to raise the profile of a non-controversial project, PR will work fine for you. But if your project is controversial and has organized opposition then a public relations campaign will fail to win your land use battle. There are 5 primary reasons why a public relations campaign will fail to win your most difficult land use battles:

1. Public relations campaigns rely on trying to build good will for a proposed land use project. These types of campaigns assume that once uninformed or misinformed citizens learn about the features and benefits of a project they will no longer oppose the project. This approach assumes that people actually care about the features and benefits of a land use project – the truth is that no one cares about the features and benefits of your proposal.

2. Public relations campaigns assume that people are self motivated followers – that is, that they will act because they like a project. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Any political professional will tell you it is far more difficult to get supporters of someone or something to act than it is to get opponents to take action. Even if a public relations professional is successful at getting citizens to like your project, that will not induce them to act in a way that encourages decision makers to “VOTE YES” on your project. The key to getting regular citizens to advocate on your behalf is shoe leather – door to door outreach and individual meetings with residents where you build relationships and get buy-in that allows you to directly ask citizens to act.

3. Public relations campaigns often create more opposition and strengthen opposition arguments. Opponents become more emboldened when they see that the developer has hired a big, fancy, expensive PR firm. It helps to deepen your opponents feeling of being in a “David vs. Goliath” or a “People vs. the Powerful” battle – making them work harder and smarter to defeat your project. The public relations professional is a terrible advocate for your project – their statements are not seen as genuine by citizens or decision makers because they are paid to make them. Opponents will use this against your project by pointing out that the main advocate for your land use project is paid by you. In addition, every time your public relations consultant touts a benefit of your project, smart opponents will turn it into a negative: when they tout all of the new jobs, opponents will use it as evidence of new traffic; when they tout new tax revenue, opponents will show how the tax revenue will be soaked up by the need for new services to offset the harms of the project. The best advocates for your land use project are regular citizens, not paid professionals.

4. Public relations campaigns often try to negotiate with opponents by holding large community meetings. If you ignore everything else you read in our Expert Tips, please heed this one piece of advice: never hold large community meetings (click here for our Expert Tips on community meetings)! Community meetings don’t persuade anyone; they act as an organizing rally for your opponents and usually lead to undecided residents opposing your project. If you are facing smart opponents, they will flood any community meeting with opponents, shout down your public relations professional and intimidate what few supporters you turn out to the meeting. Remember the health care town hall meetings over the summer? If you are going to convert opponents into supporters and/or neutralize your opponents it is essential that you conduct one on one or small group meetings over an extended period of time.

5. Public relations campaigns lack the necessary political intelligence to thwart opposition. We have written in the past that political due diligence is key to winning land use battles. Political intelligence goes way beyond knowing how decision makers will vote on your project three months before the public hearings. Months before you even unveil your project, you should know if you will have opposition, where it will come from and why they oppose your project. You will not be able to effectively communicate with your opponents unless you know exactly who your opponents are and why they oppose your project. Some of this information can be gleamed with polling, but the real nitty-gritty issues require covert intelligence gathering and then long term relationships with your opponents. This can only be done with shoe leather. What you think is a persuasive message about your project probably isn’t. It is only after you have accurate and actionable political intelligence that you can tailor persuasive messages.

When you absolutely must win your land use battle, you should hire Land Use Experts. If you are not going to hire us, then hire someone who specializes in land use and treats your land use battle as a political campaign.

Effective public relations are part of a comprehensive land use political campaign, but cannot be the focus of your efforts. To win controversial land use battles you must have – at a minimum – accurate and actionable political intelligence, a community group of regular citizens advocating on your behalf, motivated citizens that communicate their support directly to decision makers throughout the entire land use process and individual relationships that give you the ability to activate those supporters on a moment’s notice.

Comments or questions regarding an Expert Tip? Contact Leigh Mayo, President & CEO of Land Use Experts.

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