Citizen participation in urban planning has been contested in recent research for stemming from the need to ease conflicts instead of broadening local democracy. Definitions given to participation by planners have remained elusive and do not seem to result in agreed upon practical procedures in the framework of communicative urban planning. This article examines municipal urban planners' discourses of participation in urban brownfield projects in Helsinki, Amsterdam and Copenhagen through the lens of communicative planning theory (CPT). The contribution of this empirical research case is in its focus on public planners' views and affordances of participation. The article demonstrates how planners' work is largely influenced by exogenous political and economic factors and argues that publicly led citizen participation in large-scale brownfield projects is primarily motivated from a comprehensive-rational viewpoint as a way to inform citizens of the construction project and to maintain speedy development. Participatory work is restricted by a complex environment where CPT's ideals clash with fast paced building, global economy and institutional ambiguity. ; Peer reviewed