David Glasser, a principal in Culver City, CA-based Mediation Plus and a former chairman of that city's planning commission, said the tough part is often getting such parties to recognize common interests. Rather than mediation, facilitation might be the more appropriate term and necessary skill, he said. The overall concept of mediation may be building steam, but most of the individual players still think they can do it on their own. Mediation can have a role, especially in pre-development stages to help put a framework on things. But I'm not sure pure mediation would work.
People come to the table with pre-established ideas.
What you really need to have in the room is an experienced facilitator, not just a mediator. And any such facilitator must recognize that however clear the issue might seem, not all parties will even agree on the definition of the issue, let alone its resolution, said Geordie Vining, coastal access planner for the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection. Vining oversees a two-year old program that uses dispute resolution to mediate disputes involving conflicting views of rights involving public access to beachfront property. This is where we hope to be able to apply mediation or some form of facilitation. So the idea of sitting down for a facilitated negotiation is anathema.