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Plan
to Plan
‘We
don’t lack for ideas in our city, we lack for responsiveness
from our public officials.” The man was at the mic at the
recent Albany sustainable design town hall meeting, thanking
the assembled team of national experts in a heartfelt way
for the simple, respectful act of taking notes while people
got up to offer their ideas, concerns, and suggestions. Many
who attended the “SDAT” (Sustainable Design Assessment Team,
the name of the American Institute of Architects grant funding
the work) meetings were very excited by the chance to discuss
issues from bicycle safety to vacant properties to the Pine
Bush in an atmosphere that was not confrontational or narrowly
circumscribed, but yet supported by the city, who was promising
to take the results seriously.
On the other hand, there was also a weary edge to many of
the people who showed up to the first of the small-group working
sessions, or “charettes.” Albany has dozens of plans, many
of them not being acted upon they said over and over. How
would this be different? Some of them, feeling that the charettes
were merely extended and unfocused rehashing of the same old
litany of issues, didn’t even come back to the final presentation.
That was a shame, because the SDAT team, through a combination
of research, their own expertise, and a drawing out of themes
from what the participants told them, came up with a useful
and insightful set of recommendations about how to move Albany
to the next level of sustainability and livability. The most
concrete big-picture items involved steps to solve our vacant
property problem and ways to encourage residential rehab and
downtown residential growth. There were also strong recommendations
about process (e.g., coordinating the city’s planning and
that of our major institutions), and some very interesting
suggestions that bear further exploration, including multi-modal
corridors and using greenways to connect some of our far-flung
parks together. For more details and a link to the team’s
presentation, check out metroland.typepad .com/the_big_questions.
But all those great ideas are not all Albany can get from
the SDAT process. All along, the planning department has been
saying this is a dry run, a learning process leading up to
the comprehensive planning process. And there are some concrete
lessons to be gotten there:
First, we’re not yet there on getting a diverse cross-section
of the city to come out and participate. The SDAT meetings
were all very, very white. Now, I think the planning department
put more effort into outreach for this than I have seen the
city put into outreach about anything else of citywide import,
and they deserve props. The turnout in terms of numbers wasn’t
bad, and getting beyond the usual suspects is hard. It’s also
really important.
The comp plan will be more accessible by its nature, because
there will be dozens of meetings, in every neighborhood. And
we have time now to start planning to take it to the next
level for the comp plan: Beyond snacks to child care, beyond
direct mail to congregations to direct contact with pastors
and other leaders.
Second, there’s a tricky balancing act called for between
those who will want the process to be a free-wheeling forum
to say whatever’s on their minds and feel heard, and those
who want to roll up their sleeves and work together on just
what exactly our goals are for the city and its key assets
(neighborhoods, Harriman, Pine Bush, downtown, waterfront)
what we’re going to do about some of the tricky problems (I-787)
and how we want to hand the hard trade-offs (Bike lanes and
bus rapid transit are great, but how do we talk people into
giving up on-street parking for them? Should we always? Where?).
People of the latter persuasion are going to feel impatient
with open-ended meetings that satisfy the former. People of
the former persuasion are going to feel constrained by a focused
work session where no one is asking the particular question
they want to sound off on.
Given this, I suggest that the comp plan process organize
two parallel sets of meetings: One set would be open-ended
neighborhood-based meetings to get big-picture feedback from
everyone on their vision for the city and their neighborhoods
and their top concerns. These meetings will help the Comp
Plan Board get the pulse of the city and see which concerns
or desires rise to the top.
The other set would be topic-based, organized like charettes,
and very carefully facilitated so they stayed on topic and
moved through stages like identifying issues, brainstorming,
and prioritizing. They would tap the collective creativity
and brain-power of the city looking for solutions to specific
questions like “How do we connect better to our waterfront?”
One of them could involve turning the participants loose on
a zoning map with some colored markers.
Both sets would make essential contributions to the planning
process, and having both kinds would make more people feel
happier about their participation, which will generate more
participation and support better than nearly any other kind
of outreach you can do.
—Miriam
Axel-Lute
www.mjoy.org
metroland.typepad.com/the_big_questions
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