ABSTRACT Regional autonomy performance based on Act No. 32/2004 on Regional Government mandates two following vital objectives: first, to realize more democratic and participative regional government performance; second, to distribute development to all regions emphasizing on competency, initiative, and creativity; on the other hand, the given autonomy is also to minimize domination of Central Government in performing development plan. Participation of people in planning recent regional development must have increased participation degree, emphasizing on social competency to aggregate and articulate interest, and prioritize principles of democracy complying with spirits of decentralization and regional autonomy. Participation becomes very important due to limited resources belonging to regional government and increased demand for social involvement and more important social support given to success in development programs. The central government alone, at normative level, has given opportunities to the people to participate in coordination mechanism of regional development plan regulated in various regulations. This study was to understand how the people participated in the regional development planning. Method used was descriptive-qualitative. Exploration of study data was more suitably approached by qualitative method. Data were collected from two following sources of data: first, primary data such as interview with stakeholders, head and several employees in various Work Units of Regional Facilities; second, secondary data were collected from documents of regulations. Both types of data were obtained from observation, interview and documentation mutually associated to support the theme of study. Therefore, the writer would like to give opinion to the Regional Government, people, and all stakeholders involved in the regional development plan. It is intended to make social participation quality increase in the development planning in order that implementation of planning can meet the people real needs. Keywords: social participation, regional development planning.