Of all the arguments for using the charrette method, none comes into sharper focus in times like these than the bang-for-the-buck advantage. Well-planned, well-managed charrettes can save both public and private sector clients a ton of time and money. But here’s the hitch: To realize the savings, clients have to take on more responsibility in [...]

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The following piece of charrette history was excerpted from the National Charrette Institute’s publication, The Charrette Handbook, available this summer from the APA Planners Press. It represents a small portion of a chapter on the history and evolution of the charrette and Dynamic Planning processes that contains numerous such case examples. The evolution of the [...]

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Perhaps the most useful part of the stakeholder analysis is the identification of the “win” for each stakeholder viewpoint listed. Determining the win provides the information necessary to convince stakeholders that they should participate. Presenting the project as an opportunity for an individual to achieve his or her win is a way to create relevance [...]

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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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One powerful method for verifying information is to conduct confidential stakeholder interviews. Confidential interviews conducted by a neutral/third party charrette team uncover information that people might not share in a public forum and that local staff cannot possibly know because of their closeness to the project and their history with the area and the 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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The most important element necessary to ensure broad participation throughout the charrette process is the well-executed public meeting. Potential project supporters often do not attend meetings because, in addition to being busy people, they have had the all-too-common experience of attending a poorly-run public meeting in the past. It is important for the charrette organizer [...]

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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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In the NCI curriculum, walking tours are a part of the stakeholder involvement sub-phase of the Charrette Preparation phase of Dynamic Planning. Because they act as a visioning exercise, walking tours are normally organized four to twelve weeks before the start of the charrette. They are an excellent way to engage the community in visioning [...]

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One of NCI’s core values of community involvement is that anyone affected by a project has an important and unique contribution to make and therefore should be involved from the beginning. Why? Because NIMBYs are often great assets to a project when they are engaged in an open process in which their input has an [...]

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