Ebrahim Zargari-Marandi - Ph.D. in Urban Planning, University of Tehran; Department of Urban Planning, Tehran NorthBranch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran; Director of Urban and Regional PlansDepartment, Urban Planning and Architecture Research Center of Iran [UARC]

For more than two decades, the discussion of improving the framework for preparing urban comprehensive plans has been raised in the public domain. The flaws in the current framework of preparing urban comprehensive plans include issues such as low-level participation of stakeholders in the process of preparing the plan, weakness in the feasibility of urban comprehensive plans, lack of agility in the process of preparing and approving plans, and the lack of a strategic approach in planning. Therefore, in recent years, various efforts have been made to solve these problems. One of these measures was the preparation and approval of the guideline and scope of services for the preparation of comprehensive urban plans by the Ministry of Roads and UrbanDevelopment of Iran in the form of a document called “The revision of the approach and method of preparing the urban comprehensive plans” in summer of ۲۰۲۱. However, after the Promulgation of the mentioned document, various criticisms have been made on it, especially from urban planning consulting companies. As a member of the urban planning committee of the Iranian Syndicate of Consulting Architects and Planners, I compiled some criticisms of this document in the summer of ۲۰۲۲ in several discussion meetings and expressed them to the urban planning committee. The current research is the result of concluding the criticisms raised in these meetings.

Urban Master Plan, Urban Planning Framework, Criticism, Iran.