Free Technical Assistance Available from NCI and Other Organizations NCI is a technical assistance provider working through a grant to the Project for Public Spaces from US EPA’s Office of Sustainable Communities under their Building Blocks for Sustainable Communities Program. This grant makes it possible for us and our partners at the newly formed coalition, [...]

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November 16, 2011, 10:00-11:30 am PST (1:00-2:30 pm EST) Note: after live webinar date a recording will be available Register today at: https://shop.charretteinstitute.org/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=WEB5-11 Overview Stephen Coyle’s new book, Sustainable and Resilient Communities, presents a step-by-step action plan for making communities resilient, resourceful, and healthy. This webinar will focus on stormwater (aka rainwater). Presented by Stephen [...]

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There is an exciting trend occurring with charrettes for projects that link public health and community planning. The people working in public health are increasing playing a key role in neighborhood and comprehensive planning by providing important metrics linking the impacts of land and transportation planning decisions to public health. Last month NCI conducted NCI [...]

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Everyone is talking about how to deal with shrinking project budgets. We know that charrettes save time and money in the long run by reducing costly rework, but they can require a sizable upfront investment. Some firms are beginning to cut costs by doing virtual charrettes. In a virtual charrette, an on-site core charrette design [...]

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HUD will soon issue a NOFA under the Sustainable Communities Partnership. The Partnership has identified capacity building for federal agencies and grant recipients in its list of priorities. NCI’s new project consulting program builds local capacity in collaborative planning through on-the-job training. Please e-mail us for more information.

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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. Since [...]

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The first few weeks following a charrette represent a window of opportunity in which to guarantee positive momentum for the project. If weeks pass without communication between the project management team and the stakeholders, then any person or group has the opportunity to control the discussion. A lack of attention during this short time frame [...]

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During one charrette to create a town center for a California community, the fire chief verbally approved the proposed new street sections. The new proposal called for narrower streets with parallel parking in residential areas as well as the town center. A very short time later, he retired. The new fire chief disavowed the street [...]

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