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area level). One core measure to enhance this ”bottom-up” approach was the provision of training of
regional consultants and of on ”area-wide” regional consultancy, especially in the beginning of the
initiatives. In the process, the emphasis was shifted further to regional innovation and know-how
transfer.
In the Austrian context it is very important that the provinces (Lander) also developed aid
programmes to support regional development initiatives for economic development in mountain
areas. These programmes complemented the federal development in some peripheral mountain
regions. Selected examples for programmes by the provinces are:
- ”Styrian aid initiative for independent regional initiatives” (STEFREI)
- ”Village and Regional Development” (ORE) province of Carinthia
- Village renewal guidelines, province of Lower Austria
- ”Spatial Planning Programme” (ROSP) province of Tyrol
But in many parts of the mountain area (especially in Western Austria) intensive house-building
activity, an almost exclusively demand-led granting of planning permission on the part of the local
authorities (autonomous as regards local spatial planning), and largely absent guidelines on the part of
regional planning (the provinces), have allowed settlement development to run out of control. The
results of unchecked settlement development (land-use, traffic growth, land speculation), in some
regions further driven by foreign demand for holiday homes, was already leading to reveal of the
discussion towards regulatory policy terms of reference in the alpine area in the early 90s. This new
assessment of guidance measures in spatial planning (complementing the financial incentives to boost
the economy) is clearly reflected in the 1991 Austrian regional planning policy.
An old problem appears in a new light: both land utilisation and regulation measures (spatial planning
in the narrow sense) and spatially effective publicly funded infrastructure and investment incentives
(traditionally the most important regional policy instruments), are spread over all levels of the
political-administrative system, largely without any clear rules of co-ordination. At the beginning of
the 90s, however, the recognition had dawned that the regional policy effects of the traditional
instruments in Austria (investment in infrastructure and investment incentives) had their limits. Put