Code of Ethics (Undated)

GENERAL GUIDELINES

1. The professional planner should recognize that a sound planning process requires familiarity with Political and social realities, including the continuing need for, and real value in, working directly With those affected by the planning process. Of special importance is the need to identify the human consequences of alternative public actions, including identification of positive social and cultural values to be preserved, as well as short-term and long-term social costs and benefits of alternative courses of action.

2. The professional planner owes faithful, creative, and efficient performance of work in pursuit of his client's interest, but also owes allegiance to a conscientiously attained concept of the public interest and a primary commitment to maximize opportunity and expand the extent of choice available to those restricted by social, economic, personal or other constraints. When a professional planner considers that planning policies, instruments, organizations or institutions are not in the interests of those intended to be served by the planning process, he must strive diligently to ensure that they are altered to reflect such interests.

3. The professional planner involved in controversial social issues related to planning activities should determine and recommend the soundest course of action based on his professional judgment, regardless of the controversy attendant upon such recommendation.

4. The professional planner should explain clearly to local, state, and national political leaders the seriousness of existing, emerging and anticipated social problems relating to community planning and development, so that solutions will be given proper priority in allocation of resources and other public actions. Similarly, the urgency of social needs and undesirable or inequitable human consequences resulting from public actions should be transmitted to those with power to influence those actions.

5. The professional planner should use all available forms of communication to make effective presentations on planning issues, planning alternatives and their likely social effects, so that they are more readily understandable by the public, particularly those directly affected.

6. The professional planner should seek to expand flexibility of governmental procedures and institutions to ensure greater constructive citizen participation and involvement in the planning process and to foster leadership in all groups, especially those neglected in public decision making, because of gaps in organization, leadership, or articulation of values and needs. The planner should be intimately concerned with the judgments, values and needs of specific groups and sub-groups.

7. The professional planner should recognize the wide human and intellectual diversity within a planning area, and devise appropriate institutions to accommodate and respect that diversity, without unwarranted compromise resulting in mediocrity.

8. The professional planner should carefully examine planning standards and theory to determine their realism and their applicability to particular situations. This may call for new research or the systematic monitoring of progress or performance.

9. The professional planner should recommend the services of other professionals, whenever their specialized skills are needed in the constructive identification or measurement of social implications.

10. The professional planner should review achievements in collateral fields of social planning, and reconcile such efforts with his own. The role of the advocate planner must be related to the many forms of planning activity, and the advocate's functions acknowledged and supported.

11. The professional planner should seek opportunities to increase minority representation in the planning profession. This could be achieved by increasing minority representation in the Planning Department through adoption of a general minorities hiring policy, promoting planning education among minority groups by providing scholarship support, summer internship programs, and directly involving minorities in professional and paraprofessional duties in areas of predominant minority-group population.

12. The professional planner should seek every available opportunity to assist citizens in understanding the planning process. This should not be limited to citizen advisory committees or other institutional forms of citizen participation in a project, but should be extended to voluntary participation by the planner himself in citizen organizations in which he may have an interest. This will thereby provide useful technical insights, intimate working relationships with other members, assistance in understanding technical steps in the planning process and comprehension of planning nomenclature. However, the professional planner must avoid conflicts of interests in such undertakings, especially the premature or unauthorized revelation of confidential information.