Transcript Cost Effective Public Involvement

(Cost) Effective Public Involvement:
The Charrette in Context.
David Brain
Collaborative Community Design
Why do we want the public involved?
Maybe we don’t…
When is public involvement “effective”?
 Trend toward requiring charrettes indicates a
recognition of the problem, but raises new
questions.
 What kinds of investment do we need to make in
public involvement?
• As local government.
• As citizens.
• As communities.
• As private development interests.
Forbes Magazine
The general situation.
 Fear of growth, in almost any form, in spite
of economic dependence on its continuation.
 Bad democracy: emphasis on quantity and
not quality of public participation.
 Collapse of faith in elected officials, planning
staff, private developers, and even the
democratic process.
The rule of specialists.
Source: Duany Plater-Zyberk & Co.
The problem with a system of experts
 The best technical
knowledge often
produces well-supported
decisions that add up to
disaster.
Source: AP
The politics of planning...
 Citizen intervention focused on technical and
procedural means to stop projects.
 Technical discussions become politically charged,
political decisions become technically obscure.
 Political paralysis reinforces “business as usual”
development patterns.
 Pervasive fear of “meeting the neighbors.”
 Breakdown of faith in democratic process on all
sides.
The irony of conventional public
involvement:
 In the name of procedural fairness and
democracy, we’ve created an unreliable
process that undermines civic capacity and
leads to reactionary politics (NIMBY).
 Public involvement has become part of the
problem, not part of the solution.
The charrette observed: recovering civic
democracy.
 Collaborative and integrative process
reconfigures the division of labor:
specialists required to act as generalists.
 Public engagement with substantive
issues regarding physical form and
quality of life (not just procedural and
technical).
 Transparency in design decisions, in all
their appropriate complexity.
 A revived sense of collective efficacy.
Problems observed.
Highly variable in form, content, and success.
Lack of clarity with respect to public expectations.
Difficulty with follow-through to implementation.
The need to cultivate local champions, not always
achieved by out-of-town consultants.
 Weak preparation.
 Disappointment and disillusionment, often
proportional to the excitement of the charrette
itself.




What is an NCI Charrette?
 The NCI charrette is a
multi-day collaborative
planning event that
harnesses the talents
and energies of all
affected parties to
create and support a
feasible plan that
represents
transformative
community change
Drawn for The Washington Post, 1988, by Roger K. Lewis, FAIA,
Professor, U. Maryland School of Architecture
Misconceptions about the term
“charrette”
A NCI charrette is not:
 A one-day workshop
 A multi-day marathon meeting involving everyone all the time
 A “visioning session” without a plan and implementation
strategy
The Dynamic Planning Process
 A three-part process for achieving transformative change in
public and private planning efforts
 The overall process in which the charrette is the transformative
event
Dynamic Planning Phases
research, education,
charrette preparation
1
charrette
plan
implementation
2
3
Project Assessment and
Organization
Organization, Education,
Vision
Project Status
Communications
Stakeholder Research,
Education, Involvement
Alternative Concepts
Development
Product Refinement
Base Data Research and
Analysis
Preferred Plan Synthesis
Presentation and
Product Finalization
Project Feasibility Studies
and Research
Charrette Logistics
Plan Development
Production and Presentation
Dynamic Planning and Charrette
Strategies
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Work collaboratively
Design cross-functionally
Compress work sessions
Communicate in short feedback loops
Study the details and the whole
Confirm progress through measuring outcomes
Produce a feasible plan
Use design to achieve a shared vision and create
holistic solutions
9. Include a multiple day charrette
10.Hold the charrette on or near the site
Key characteristics.
 Collaborative, integrative and dynamic work
process, in a defined and compressed time
frame.
 Short-feedback loops (short in time and
space).
 Cross-disciplinary design (from the big
picture to the details).
 Moves from big picture to detailed design
and back.
 Feasible, action-oriented outcome.
Making it (cost) effective.
 The collaborators need to understand (and
trust) the framework of collaboration.
 This is the work of long-term education, and
building a culture of responsible, sustainable
place-making in a community.
 Key starting point: participants prepared to
own the process, leaders prepared to help
lead it.
Making it (cost) effective.
 Don’t waste people’s time with fruitless collection of
“input.” Engage people in efficient, productive
efforts.
 Don’t assume that all the problems can be solved by
ordering a “charrette” by even an excellent out-oftown firm.
 Locals need to be engaged in helping to design the
process, to keep it anchored in the local context.
 Locals need to be engaged as champions of process
and products.
Making it (cost) effective.
 Establish a local repertoire of clearly differentiated
types of public process, and create appropriate,
reliable expectations. (i.e., DON’T call everything a
“charrette.”
 Be prepared, but also recognize when your project
or community is NOT “charrette ready.”
 Cultivate local talent as a charrette cadre– citizens,
leaders, professional practitioners.
Research, Education, Charrette Preparation
Tools and Techniques
research, education,
charrette preparation
1
Project Assessment and
Organization
Stakeholder Research,
Education, Involvement
Base Data Research and
Analysis
Project Feasibility Studies
and Research
Charrette Logistics
charrette
plan
implementation
2
3
Charrette preparation as community learning.




Lectures.
Workshops.
Vision development.
Training for citizens, staff,
and local professionals
from all the relevant
disciplines.
“Stakeholder”?
 The problem with the
language of “stakeholders”
is that it implies that people
represent particular
interests.
 The key is to enlist
stakeholders as
collaborators in producing a
comprehensive solution.
 A stake in the PROCESS as
well as the products of the
charrettes.
Dover Kohl
Urban Design Associates
Vision Development
Stakeholder Tours
 Stakeholders tour the project site and local examples of good
and bad development
Vision Development
Neighborhood Walks





Groups of no more than eight
Mapped route
Group leader
Note taker
Renderer
City of Portland, Oregon Bureau of Planning
Owning the Process, building capacity.
Everything you do should
have a dual function:
mutual education and
relationship-building.
Building capacity to realize
a vision, as you create the
vision
Three keys to low-cost charrettes.
 Mobilize community resources.
 Use expertise efficiently.
 Use volunteers effectively.
Mobilize community resources for
collaborative research and education.
 Staff
• Charrette and facilitator training.
 Students
• Research assistants
 Citizens
• Data collection and information gathering
• Facilitator training as preparation for participation
and leadership.
Efficient team work: charrette work cycles.
public meeting
vision
public meeting
review
alternative
concepts
preferred
plan
open house
review
public meeting
confirmation
plan
development
The charrette team: efficient use of
expertise.
 Technical expertise applied
precisely, in a collaborative
setting that enables the team
to pose the right questions.
 Recommendation: establish a
pool of “usual suspects,” local
practitioners whenever
possible.
Use volunteers effectively.
 Different kinds of volunteers, participating for
overlapping but different reasons.
• Citizens.
• Professional practitioners.
 Volunteers need to be appropriately prepared, and
their roles need to be clear.
 Volunteers need to be carefully managed.
Example: Leonard Reid Project
 Partners:
• Habitat for Humanity
• Goodwill “Good Homes.”
• Community Housing
Trust
 Challenges:
• Neighborhood
opposition.
• Stormwater
requirements.
• Zoning (problems with
density, mixed-use and
connectivity).
Example: Leonard Reid Project
 Team:
• David Brain, in collaboration
with TOTeMS Architecture.
• Urban Resources Group, KimleyHorn & Associates
• Progressive Water Resources.
• Other community volunteers.
 Why participate?
• Pro bono
• Marketing
• Future work
 Charrette results:
• 140 homes for families
ranging from 30% to
120% of the area
median income.
• Childcare center.
• Community center.
• Site for church.
 Outcome:
• Approval of
comprehensive plan
amendment
• County funding for
infrastructure
Charrettes should be…
 Part of a broader process of shared learning, on the
road to a practical vision.
 Focused on sustainable solutions, which means that
they are as much about building community and
social capital as they are about the immediate
problems at hand.
 There are a variety of tools and techniques to
support this work.
Upcoming NCI Certificate Trainings:
 NCI Charrette Planner® Certificate
• August 4-6, Harvard University
Graduate School of Design
• October 6-8, Chicago, IL
• October 20-22, Portland, OR
 NCI Charrette Manager™ Certificate
• October 23-24, Portland, OR
 www.charretteinstitute.org
for more information