One of the case studies in The Charrette Handbook takes place in Hercules, California. It chronicles a charrette that took place in 2000 to plan an urban center for the suburban town. Dover, Kohl and Partners created a form-based code that has successfully guided development under the charrette vision of a traditional town center. […]

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The uncertainties of our current economy call for smarter ways to plan. Today, project resources and budgets are being cut, resulting in less work for everyone. How can a project sponsor carry on project work with a reduced budget? How can a consultant sharpen their competitive advantage in a shrinking market? One answer is […]

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Charrettes are often confused with visioning sessions. The purpose of vision development is to establish a description of a future state based on shared community values that acts as a guide for the project decision-making process. The visioning process can include one or a number of efforts including educational lectures, workshops, neighborhood walks, and preference […]

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Below is an excerpt from “NCI Charrette Planner Training in Practice: The US EPA Smart Growth Implementation Assistance Program” by Ilana Preuss of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. To read the article in its entirety, click here.
What has a multi-disciplinary team, stakeholder input, feedback loops, and a clear implementation plan — but is not a charrette? […]

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A charrette is not usually the first model that a developer has in mind when choosing a project process. Developers are often concerned that broad stakeholder inclusion may lead to a loss of project control and demands for unfeasible design solutions. This fear is often based upon their experience with collaborative processes that waste time […]

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Do you often have a tough time convincing a project sponsor of the importance of a collaborative process? One of the most important benefits of true collaboration in community planning is ending up with a plan that minimizes costly rework and results in a built project. Everyone suffers when a project in which many people […]

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A common approach to NIMBYs in public processes is avoidance, but before we dismiss them as a group that needs to be either controlled or disempowered, we have to remember that it was NIMBYs who saved Grand Central Station. While there certainly are people who care only about disrupting development projects, most people that we […]

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A bus tour can be one of the most effective tools during the vision development phase of charrette preparation. Ideally, the bus tour includes stakeholders representing all viewpoints including city staff, elected officials, community members, and the charrette design team. The best person to lead the bus tour is a local urban designer or planner […]

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