Urban Planning Community Visualization The Key to Democratic Urban Planning

Transcription

1 Urban Planning Community Visualization The Key to Democratic Urban Planning Copyright 2006 M2MEDIA360 By Steven B. Mullen Steven B. Mullen is principal, ForeSee Consulting Inc.; e mail: [email protected]. Policy plans alone, without a physical plan of desired future land uses, do little to control a community s future. To help citizens arrive at a future of their own choosing, a map is required that depicts where future development is desired and where it isn t as well as the type and character of development that should be exhibited. The critical threshold of public planning success is the adoption of a plan. An adopted plan then can be implemented, thus potentially changing the world in positive ways. Research indicates that plans that can be characterized as good plans, with demonstrated community support, get adopted and implemented. Good plans integrate quality social, economic and environmental solutions while achieving plan specific goals and objectives. Public support for a plan results from a process in which participants can see that they re having a real influence on the outcome. GIS technology integrated into a valid public process is being used to educate citizen participants, quantify values, predict potential impacts of alternative futures and, ultimately, generate a good plan with high levels of community support and ownership. Process Solution Flipcharts and black markers have long been a staple for public engagement. But it s critical that planners go beyond these methods to achieve the levels of support needed to ensure that public plans succeed. Regardless of how well documented a public comment is, it remains difficult to demonstrate to all participants, using flipcharts, that they re truly influencing an outcome. This weak connection between public comment and final products is the principle reason that ultimate support for outcomes is weak. An alternative public engagement process outlined in this feature regularly achieves 95 percent support to the question, Do you believe the final plan is a good reflection of all of those that participated? Such huge support for a plan is the result of continually demonstrating to all participants that they re, in fact, directing and influencing the outcomes incrementally throughout the planning process.

2 To achieve a final plan that meets its goals and retains community support, the entire planning effort is designed around public engagement. This should become evident in the major phases that organize the planning effort (see Figure 1). Figure 1. The entire planning effort should center on public engagement. Phase 1 is about project initiation, information collection, committee organization and refining the public engagement strategy for Phase 2. This second phase is where participants are provided with the education they need to make good decisions, community goals and objectives are quantified, land analysis reflecting community values is reviewed, alternative futures are explored, the impact of alternatives are analyzed, and a preferred future plan is selected. Phase 3 is completed after the public engagement has ended, and it focuses on document development and plan adoption. I ve seen many well constructed plans lose support by involving the general public in discussions of detailed implementation strategies. Such issues detailed discussions should be reserved for Phase 3. General citizens are more concerned about what the future vision is as opposed to how it s realized. Phase 2 needs to be carefully planned, such that every meeting date and exercise undertaken is known prior to initiating this phase of activity. A minimum of three public meetings are required to achieve a successful plan. Public Meeting No. 1 The initial public meeting often is characterized as the Kick Off Event, and a lot of publicity is needed to ensure high levels of participation. The entire publicengagement process is presented to attendees, including future meeting dates, anticipated products and how the plan will be used. GIS maps that characterize the existing status of community systems such as transportation, housing, recreation and infrastructure are available in hard copy. Development or refinement of community goals and objectives needs to be one of the exercises undertaken at this first public meeting as well as other expressions of values such as sensitive land characteristics and factors affecting growth efficiency. Sensitive Lands and Growth Efficiency concerns relate directly to lands with significant constrains and places where growth is most efficient. These two analysis maps represent common concerns reflected in almost every community planning effort, so they re elements that can be standardized and integrated into standard methodology. Figure 2. A diagram outlines the major tasks associated with each of three public meetings.

3 Tools such as key pad polling technology have been successful to make such exercises fun and effective. The relationship between community values and the community landscape can be made explicitly when the key pad results from survey questions are mapped instantly using GIS maps weighted by results. Results from key pad polling, such as the importance of park proximity as needed infrastructure to support future growth, is applied to buffers depicting the existing level of service radius for parks. The mean score for each growth efficiency element, as derived from the key pad polling, is used to weight each element, and the combination of all elements is depicted in the Growth Efficiency Summary Map. This becomes a literal spatial expression of community values about efficient locations for future growth. This same rationale is applied to sensitive lands. A Sensitive Lands Map depicts locations that have problems or hazards as well as resource lands that might be too sensitive for intensive land uses. By using these analysis products derived from community values, it becomes clear where growth should and shouldn t be located as a community grows. These spatial expressions can be instantly presented to participants when key pad polling technology is integrated with GIS technology. For example, CommunityViz, an ArcGIS extension from the Orton Family Foundation, is used to model analysis maps and depict key pad results. Public Meeting No. 2 This meeting is citizens opportunity to express their personal notion of a land use future. This is a critical element if high levels of support are to be achieved during any public planning effort. The physical plan for the future is a common vision based on shared values, and it becomes the single most important tool that a community can create to direct future land use and achieve a desired future. Gaming is a proven method for collecting citizen input on land use as well as an ideal approach for teaching participants about typical planning dilemmas and the spatial implication of their values. The Chip Game is a tried and tested publicplanning exercise that has become a popular means of collecting a broad range of possible futures from citizen participants. These alternatives are a critical element of the educational process for all participants, as an evaluation of these scenarios will identify a host of lessons that can be applied to the final physical plan. Figure 3. Key pad polling technology (emeetings) is used to depict the spatial implications of community values. The average values are used as weighting factors when combined with elements depicting sensitive landscapes and factors affecting growth efficiency.

4 The Chip Game includes the following elements: a game board, a land use chip set, a fixed number of jobs and houses to be sited, a set of objectives to be obtained, and game rules. The game board is a map of the local community that also depicts opportunities and constraints. A sensitive lands analysis, for example, is frequently used on the game board to express the location of major impediments, as rated by citizen participants. The game board also needs to express the game grid, which is where chips are placed and reflects a known scale, such as two acres, five acres, etc. The chip set is sized to fit the game grid and reflects a range of residential densities as well as nonresidential uses such as retail, office, industry, etc. The chip set should reflect existing land use patterns as well as uses that would seem to be good choices for the future, such as mixed use, clustered residential or increased density. A fixed number of jobs and houses are distributed for participants to site. This original distribution of chips should reflect the existing balance of community land uses. For example, if 80 percent of existing residential uses are single family at three dwelling units per acre, then the total number of houses to be sited should be of that type. Communities that are experiencing rapid growth are likely to learn that they can t continue to use this same residential density, or they will have to sacrifice many of the community qualities that they value. The total number of jobs and houses to be sited is related to the planning horizon (i.e., Vision 2030) and believable growth rate for that period. The game s goals and objectives are the same as the goals and objectives of the planning effort: walkable neighborhoods, job housing balance, rational circulation, park and trail access, village like structure, etc. The Chip Game takes approximately three hours for citizens to complete. The results are collected, filmed with a digital camera and registered back into a GIS, where the chips are recorded as points on separate feature files (see Figure 3). Figure 4. Results from a Chip Game are displayed within CommunityViz Impact Analysis Software to quantify the impacts of various scenarios. The integration of CommunityViz with the Chip Game to analyze results has become a valuable means to measure the performance of each game and all chips placed on each game board. Models designed to reflect planning goals and objectives are used to objectively quantify the alternatives performance and create visuals used to facilitate a dialog with all participants. The big idea is to make planning mistakes at this early phase, learn from them, discuss how these mistakes can be avoided and apply all that s learned into a final plan that achieves high performance scores from the CommunityViz predictive models and, ultimately, major support from all participants.

5 Evaluation of Chip Game results using CommunityViz Impact Analysis Software may take as long as one month, and it s essential for creating an informed dialog with participants. Most planning goals can be measured using indicators that depict performance. For example, walkability can be measured in terms of proximity of residents to jobs, recreation and services. The performance of each Chip Game played is evaluated, and graphics are created to communicate the results at the third public meeting. Public Meeting No. 3 The last public meeting consists primarily of a slide show summary of the Chip Game results, a series of questions asking attendees if they agree with interpretations deduced from these results, and their level of support for the synthesis plan, which is presented for the first time at this final meeting. Key pad polling is used to instantly quantify attendees responses. Key pad voting devices now are credit card sized, and participants find this technology engaging. It makes participation fun, while truly educating them about the attitudes of the entire group. Many times, the most vocal attendees find that their opinion is in the minority, so they become more open to compromise. Figure 5. A physical plan is derived from a public engagement process. A series of questions related to Chip Game results are presented, and citizens are asked if they agree or disagree with the conclusions. Spatial choices such as specific locations for specific land uses (i.e., a new fairgrounds location) can be refined as well as qualitative concerns such as the architectural style that might be preferred for public buildings or commercial areas. A draft physical plan or a reduced set of alternatives is presented to attendees for consideration. Because attendees have been fully engaged since meeting No. 1 in shaping community opportunities and constraints, goals and objectives, alternative futures, and the preferred plan, they have huge ownership in the final products. Such an approach to public engagement has been refined and tested through many years of public sector consulting. The integration of good process with tools such as key pad polling, gaming and CommunityViz impact analysis software dramatically improves a planner s ability to demonstrate to participants that they re directly influencing the planning outcomes. The larger planning methodology ensures that a plan is responsive to environmental, social and economic concerns. GIS technology that provides spatial representations of community values dramatically alters the discourse.

6 The ability to use these tools effectively to engage citizens, facilitate a common vision and create ownership in the final products has and will continue to change the face of public planning.