Everyone is feeling it. With the new economy comes smaller budgets. Is it even possible to conduct a multiple-day charrette these days? The answer is yes, but it takes some creative resource management. Here are five strategies for keeping costs down by leveraging local resources. This approach not only cuts down on travel expenses and carbon footprints but also serves to strengthen the capacity of a community to conduct its own planning.
First, find ways to save money before your charrette. Pre-charrette studies can quickly eat up a budget. Find local consultants who know the current conditions and can provide solid advice without doing an expensive study. Some requirements, such as an EIS, do call for a full-blown studies, however, a capable consultant can gather the necessary data and provide useful guidance at the charrette at a lower cost.
Use local staff to manage the project and the charrette. NCI has trained several planning departments who now run their own charrettes. (See NCI webinar on Public Agencies Running their own Charrettes.)
Hire local consultants to provide services not provided by staff. For specialties such as transit planning or retail design you may have to seek outside experts. Be sure outside consultants are grounded by local staff or community members
Use staff, perhaps in collaboration with a local expert to conduct the pre-charrette public engagement process. This has the additional benefits of staff building and maintaining community relations.
Look to universities and colleges for help. Local planning or sociology departments can provide valuable assistance in on-the-ground community outreach. Architecture departments may provide renderers and GIS assistance.
Like a homeowner who does his/her own construction management on a remodel, some of these cost saving approaches come with risks. NCI trainings can lower these risks by providing local staff and consultants with the process framework and management tools required to manage a complete project that includes a multiple day charrette.
CNU 20: The New World Conference - May 9-12, West Palm Beach, FL
Charrettes and the Next Generation of Public Involvement Session Shrinking budgets, social media, tea party obstruction… it’s time to take another look at charrettes and public involvement. Come hear the latest field wisdom from the veterans.
Panelists: Andres Duany, Gianni Longo, Hazel Borys, Ben Brown, Eliza Harris
Moderator: Bill Lennertz
- The Next Generation of Public Involvement: On-line Public Participation
- Challenges and Solutions for Sustainable Stormwater Management
- High-Touch/High-Tech Charrettes
- Charrettes for Healthcare Planning
- Sustainable and Resilient Communities
- Social Media for Planners, Advocates and Consultants
- Public Agencies Running their own Charrettes
- NCI Charrette System™ 101
- Charrettes for Form Based Codes
NCI’s Bill Lennertz is joining Geoffrey Ferrell from Ferrell Madden for the second in a series of “People, Places and Placemaking Trainings” for Michigan State staff. The Michigan State Housing Development Authority organized the training.
David Brain, NCI faculty and board member, is conducting a NCI Charrette System™ in-house training for the Dover/Kent County Metropolitan Planning Organization. The training will use two Delaware DOT projects as case studies for the training: a Route 13 corridor study and a bicycle trail study.
NCI faculty, Steve Coyle, is traveling to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia to advise on planning efforts sponsored there by the World Bank. Steve will spend two weeks meeting with officials and training staff in NCI’s collaborative planning process. NCI faculty member Stephanie Bothwell will also be working on the project stateside.
April 10th, 2012 by Heidi Haberbush · Comments Off
Overview
What are the latest on-line tools for the next generation of public participation? This recorded webinar presents three field-tested tools that are changing the way people are involved in community planning. See how MindMixer, Crowdbrite and Open Town Hall are working in communities to increase the quantity and quality of charrette participation.
Moderator: Bill Lennertz, National Charrette Institute
Presenters:
• Mike Cohen, Peak Democracy Inc.
• Darin Dinsmore, Crowdbrite
• Nick Bowden, MindMixer
We invite you to participate in an in depth training on collaborative planning in DC this June. The NCI Charrette System™ training will provide you with a systemized process for involving all stakeholders and community members in planning projects. This case study-based training features hands-on learning in high-tech tools for distance participation and meeting facilitation including the use of touch-tables and keypad polling. Learn the tools and techniques for planning and managing a project with full collaboration and support. In the NCI Charrette Management and Facilitation™ training you will practice indispensable skills for facilitating contentious public meetings. Gain your fundamental and advanced NCI certificates in one week.
*CNU, Not-for-profits and DC area APA members receive a 10% discount on registration fees for these trainings.
“Since the training, we conducted several charrettes that have successfully engaged the public in the creation of our countywide master plans while achieving our original goal of reducing our time line. I strongly recommend NCI’s certification training as a solid investment that will increase team productivity, heighten the quality of planning products and improve the public’s trust in the community planning process.”
- Al Dobbins, Chief Planner, Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commissioner
These trainings and all live webinars are all accredited with the AIA for continuing education system (CES) units, with the AICP for certification maintenance (CM) credits, the ASLA for LA CES professional development hours (PDH), and the Congress for the New Urbanism for CNU-A continuing education
March 15th, 2012 by Heidi Haberbush · Comments Off
A charrette is an intensive planning and design-based engagement process covering the vital period before projects are finalised or built, to produce masterplans where everyone feels that they have had a constructive input. The charrette’s proven three-step design and engagement process can be customised for many different planning, urban design and development projects. Well known elsewhere, charrettes are gaining take-up in the UK – as demonstrated by recent charrettes in Hertfordshire, Deptford, Norwich, and Tornagrain in Scotland, and reflected in positive mention by government as part of its localism agenda.
The University of Hertfordshire’s Centre for Sustainable Communities, and its partners Parsons Brinckerhoff, Turnberry and the BRE, will be running the next round of National Charrette Institute system training in London from 23rd to 27th April 2012 at the offices of Parsons Brinckerhoff.
February 28th, 2012 by Heidi Haberbush · Comments Off
CNU Cascadia Regional Summit: Envisioning Resilient Communities, March 16th, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle WA. Join us for educational sessions, keynote presentation by Prof. Patrick Condon and expert panel, and tours of Downtown Bothell and Seattle Waterfront.
CNU Cascadia Low Carbon Neighborhoods Micro-Charrette: Participatory Workshop on the Seattle 2030 District in South Lake Union. March 15th, 1-5 pm, South Lake Union Discovery Center, Seattle WA. Engage in collective brainstorming and dialog exploring opportunities for the South Lake Union neighborhood of Seattle to achieve 2030 District energy, water, and transportation goals. Attendance is limited for this advanced workshop.
For more information and registration please see here.
NCI conducted a three-day training at the World Bank in D.C. this month. Participants included World Bank staff working in Bangladesh, Vietnam, Uganda and other developing countries.
We spent considerable time in this training adapting and customizing the NCI Charrette System™ for these unique contexts where politics and corruption challenge true collaboration. The participants at times found it necessary to, as they called it, “unpack” the NCI process in order find the right tool for the particular circumstance. NCI will continue to consult to the World Bank as they use charrettes for their Eco2 Project approach, a holistic approach to sustainable planning for the developing nations.
The use of charrettes is not limited to physical design projects. While the NCI Charrette System™ was created for the world of architecture and community planning, it is being used for other types of non-physical planning as well.
NCI recently conducted a week-long training for the Office of Economic Adjustment (OEA) at the US Department of Defense. The OEA provides assistance to communities that have been affected by base closures or expansions and addresses compatibility issues between military and civilian programs.
One of the training case studies involved a base expansion that required a regional response to infrastructure improvements. A joint land use plan had been completed but what was really needed was an action plan agreed upon by the various state and local agencies and cities.
During the training, the DOD project team customized the NCI Charrette System™ to create a process by which the key stakeholders would convene for a three-day charrette to co-author an action plan roadmap. The process included a pre-charrette period during which a core stakeholder group will develop several alternative roadmaps that are brought to the charrette.
During the charrette the larger group of key stakeholders will be involved in a series of feedback loops over the course of the three days, during which they review, debate and synthesize the best ideas from each alternative. The core group will then take the results of each feedback session to develop a final preferred roadmap for presentation and approval by the larger stakeholder group on the last charrette day.
The NCI Charrette System™ is the quickest and most efficient way to arrive at an action plan. Instead of a series of meetings held over the course of months, the charrette approach brings together key stakeholders for a concise, compressed period during which they get out of their silos and work together to create lasting agreements.
See NCI Executive Director, Bill Lennertz, discuss charrettes for action plans:
