Highlights From Princeton Planning and the Internet Summit

I recently returned from a conference on “City Planning, Civic Engagement and the Internet” held in Princeton, New Jersey co-sponsored by Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and Center for Information Technology Policy. The conference was planned largely by Christian Peralta, the former editor of Planetizen, who did a great job assembling a fascinating group and making sure everything ran like clockwork. For the benefit of those who couldn’t attend I thought I would write a short description of some of the highlights..

Best Practices in Local Government

An employee of an independent government agency, the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, I took particular interest in the representatives from local governments. Representing the City of Toronto’s Public Consultation Unit were Mike Logan and Robert Davis. Their unit has evolved since its creation in the late 1980s into the city government’s go-to resource for public involvement. I think this is a model that could be replicated elsewhere: one office maintains the expertise about all the approaches to involve the public, and works with the project sponsors to create and implement an appropriate and resource-efficient approaches. It also creates one central place at the city for citizens to approach with questions. They presented on some of their work to use Facebook to reach communities (it required special permission from the IT department), and discussed the unusual challenge of working in Toronto’s highly multicultural environment, which requires extensive translation. Public consultation coordinator Mike Logan even handed me a business card with the information imprinted in braille on it, which itself was a statement to their commitment to excellence in accessibility.

Another particularly noteworthy presenter was Mark Elliott, whose consulting firm Collabforge set up a wiki for a recent planning process in the City of Melbourne, Australia. As you might expect from someone who earned a PhD with a dissertation on “A Theoretical Framework for Mass Collaboration,” Mark impressed me with his thoughtful approach to integrating collaborative technologies to planning. In general I think advocates of wikis underestimate the technical complexity of the technology, as well as the limitations to a radically flattening technology. Mark’s work on FutureMelbourne was apparently successful and he’s definitely someone to watch.

Also attending was Seattle’s Chief Technology Officer, Bill Schrier, who blogs about technology and government at his blog Chief Seattle Geek. Mark Bosworth, a GIS expert from Portland, Oregon’s regional planning agency Metro gave a whimsical presentation on the history of GIS and highlighting some of their many customized web applications including a bicycle trip planner (of course), and a “build your own” transit system tool.

Private Sector Innovation

Several consultants attended, presenting on a wide range of topics. Edward Andersson, from the UK consulting firm Involve, gave a thoughtful presentation on the history of participation in the UK and their firm’s approach. The company’s website PeopleandParticipation.net is a rich resource on the topic. Rhiza Lab’s Josh Knauer and Jeff Christensen presented on their firm’s powerful online data and mapping tools. It was a wonder they made it since Josh explained they’ve been working nearly around the clock on their FluTracker website. Lastly Jocelyn Hittle and Jason Lally from PlaceMatters displayed some amazing touch and light-sensitive technology made using two Wii remotes and a lot of ingenuity.

View from the Academy

The academic speakers provided interesting perspective and a glimpse of their latest research. Ohio State’s Jennifer Evans Cowley presented on her research analyzing the use of social networking in urban planning, and has even created a Facebook group dedicated to the topic. Hunter College’s Laxmi Ramasubramanian presented on the theoretical context for public participation, and Iowa State’s Chris Seeger presented on his extensive background in participatory GIS.

Out of the Box

Of course, some of the presenters fit none of these categories. Adrian Holovaty, founder of the totally unique Everyblock.com, presented on his work harnessing the web’s geographic data to create a hyperlocal news source. Although I missed the presentation, Matthew Golas from PlanPhilly.com described that website’s civic mission to foster dialogue on planning in Philadelphia. Also presenting were John Geraci, from DIYCity, a project to imagine a new interactive “DIY” urbanism, and Nick Grossman from the invaluable Open Planning Project, the folks behind Streetsblog. (Aside: We need a Boston Streetsblog) The Sunlight Foundation’s John Wonderlich and Ali Felski are working hard in D.C. to improve government websites and access to data. (My friend Tom Lee is also with their lab).

For much more see the #ccisummit Twitter tag. The sessions were also recorded, and they will be eventually posted to the conference website. Attendees: what did I miss?

Preservation Funds Distributed By Internet Vote

“Help … give away $1 million in preservation grants to Greater Boston historic places” boast advertisements I’ve seen recently in Boston about a grant program sponsored by American Express and the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The ads invite the public to visit the program website to vote for which of 25 historic sites should receive funds for historic preservation work.

Although the amount of funds guaranteed the winner is limited, the Partners in Preservation program is an interesting example of private example of online participatory budgeting, the growing practice of allowing the general public to determine funding priorities. Until May 17th, the general public can register online and vote once per day for which site deserve money for preservation. The winner is guaranteed funding for their preservation project (up to $100,000), and an Advisory Committee will determine how to distribute the rest of the $1 million, taking into consideration the voting results, “along with each historic place’s preservation and monetary needs.”

The top three leaders so far are Nantasket Beach’s Paragon Carousel, Old Salem Town Hall, and the Crane Estate. Other sites in consideration include a historic schooner in Gloucester, Paul Revere’s House, the New England Aquarium, and St. Peter’s Church in Dorchester (seen above). Although the website only contains a ranking, the Paragon Carousel seems to have drawn the most attention since Julian Koster, enigmatic head of the band Neutral Milk Hotel, has been campaigning for the funds to go to what he describes as a “beautiful machine that has been my dear neighbor for many moons.”

> For more information or to vote see: Partners In Preservation Boston

Photo of St. Peter’s Church in Dorchester uploaded to Facebook by Jillian Adams

Urban Planning Conference Sessions

I’ll be attending the American Planning Association 2009 National Planning Conference in Minneapolis next week. It’ll be only my second visit to Minneapolis so I’m excited to explore the city. However, that will have to fit around some of the conference sessions. Here’s a few that have caught my eye so far, including some sponsored by the group’s Technology Division.

• An Interactive GIS Tool: “Get an overview and online demonstration of Local Decision Maker, a GIS-based decision support system for comprehensive planning developed by Purdue University”
• Automated Land and Zoning Management: ‘See how planners … are using an automated system that manages land-use and zoning cases and provides access to numerous other data layers that can be seamlessly imported to provide additional decision support.”
• Using Motion and Touch Sensitive Applications: “This session provides live demonstrations of several motion-sensitive, touch-sensitive, and location-aware tools that can make the public participation side of planning more interesting and interactive.”
• Does Citizen Participation Matter?: “This session helps planners learn the differences so they can advise others about what citizen participation model fits the case at hand.”
• The 10 Best Free Web Applications: “Explore the leading Free Web 2.0 technologies that can be used immediately and freely to support planning.”
• Hiawatha Light Rail Line: “This session focuses on the technical and political factors that shaped the plan for the Hiawatha Light Rail and Central Corridor Transit Line, including the plan’s implementation and performance.”
• Community Indicators: “Learn to create a vibrant steering committee [that can] serve as the community touchstone for data prioritization and analysis of key comprehensive planning elements such as transportation, health, and housing.”

In addition to the sessions I’ll be attending some of the happy hours and receptions, including the Next American City reception on Monday 4/27 at 7:30 p.m. in the lobby of the Hotel Ivy.

What sessions are you attending?

Public Works and … Internet Voting?

Recently, a major city decided to take a different approach to investing in public works. Instead of deciding what new facilities to build for the population, they put it up for an online vote. Elected officials set aside $11 million taxpayer dollars to build the most popular proposals in each of the city’s nine wards. What better way to end interminable debates and remove the decision from political wrangling: let the people decide.

What city attempted the bold program? Perhaps Portland, OR? Maybe one of the rustbelt strivers like Pittsburgh, PA? Try Belo Horizonte, capital of the state of Minas Gerais in Brazil. The innovative 2007 project is described in detail in a recent working paper by e-democracy researcher Tiago Peixoto, who speculates the case may just be an example of the long-discussed potential for local e-democracy.

The Process
The city administration, in consultation with local elected officials, created four possible public work projects costing roughly $1.2 million each in each of the city’s nine wards. (The projects listed in Portuguese, and a machine English translation) The winners would receive funding from the total pool of $11 million in available funds. The project built upon the city’s grassroots-driven participatory budgeting program, which has allowed citizens to allocate resources through participatory decision-making since 1993. During a 42-day voting period, registered voters could log on and vote for one project in each ward, as well as post comments in an Internet forum. In order to maximize availability of the voting system, the city established 178 voting points around the city, including a mobile unit consisting of a bus with Internet access and carried out an extensive public relations campaign.

Results
After voting closed, 172,938 people had registered votes in the system, 9.98% of the city’s registered voters. (Voter registration is mandatory for adults) The forum received 1,210 posts. Peixoto’s paper compared the average number of votes per capita from each district and the average income per capita, and found there was no relationship between the two. Sadly, the case study does not discuss the nature of the public works projects, the nature of the winners, or evaluate whether the government actually followed through and built them. (The results seem to include parks and sports facilities.)

In one of the most provocative findings, Peixoto claims a minimum of 30% of the votes came from other cities, states, and countries. Assuming it was not caused by security problems, this pattern of remote voting raises interesting questions, namely, should democratic participation require physical presence? In the U.S., many college students retain voting registration in their home towns, traveling home to vote while students or young professionals. Although a majority of the visitors to Rethink College Park were local, we were interested to find many committed readers who lived far away, yet retained personal or emotional attachments to the place, or commuted there occasionally for work or pleasure. Should they have a formal voice in local politics? Are our highly spatially fixed political structures obsolete in a mobile world?

After the successful 2006 experiment described in Peixoto’s paper, the city ran the program again in 2008 (participatory budgeting happens every two years). The openness of this city to creating innovative, democratic processes for urban investment stands in stark contrast to the budgeting process in the U.S., where all to often special interests, politicians, and bureaucrats wage battle in drawn-out power struggles to implement their favored projects. Also interesting is how the online process emerged from a carefully calibrated conventional (offline) participatory budgeting process, which allocates funds according to a detailed 9-step process that provides more resources to neighborhoods with lower quality of life ratings. Although conventional participatory budgeting allocated $43 million in the same year the Internet vote spent $11 million, many more voted online than attended the participatory budgeting meetings. It seems clear the key to the programs success lie not simply in the proper technical design, but the overall program design and history of engagement in the community.

> Belo Horizonte: Orcamento Participativo Digital (E-Participatory Budgeting)
> e-Democracy Centre: e-Participatory Budgeting: e-Democracy from theory to success?

World Bank Policies and Public Participation

Among the various activities of the World Bank, some of the most visible and controversial are the infrastructure projects they fund around the world. The projects are intended to improve quality of life and encourage economic development, and include irrigation systems, road and rail improvements, dams, port facilities, and even dumps.(Shown the right is World Bank-funded road construction in Tajikistan) Lesser known are the World Bank policies that mandate that project sponsors write lengthy, western-style environmental assessments and engage in mandated consultations with local NGOs and affected populations. Are you a member of an obscure indigenous people being displaced from your home by a huge new hydroelectric dam? Go to the environmental assessment hearing, listen to the PowerPoint, and be heard. This type of process happens frequently under World Bank policies pointed out to me by a former bank staff I met at an event this fall.

The bank’s so-called Safeguard Policies, designed to prevent “undue harm” to society and the environment as a result of “the development process,” do indeed mandate a bare minimum of public participation. The Environmental Assessment Policy requires,

the borrower consults project-affected groups and local nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) about the project’s environmental aspects and takes their views into account. The borrower initiates such consultations as early as possible. For Category A projects [those that "likely to have significant adverse environmental impacts that are sensitive, diverse or unprecedented"], the borrower consults these groups at least twice: (a) shortly after environmental screening and before the terms of reference for the EA are finalized; and (b) once a draft EA report is prepared. In addition, the borrower consults with such groups throughout project implementation as necessary to address EA-related issues that affect them.

In text reminiscent with the U.S. federal government’s mandates to cities in the 1950s regarding the relocation of people displaced for urban renewal projects, the World Bank’s Involuntary Resettlement policy requires (emphasis mine):

Involvement of resettlers and host communities:

(a) a description of the strategy for consultation with and participation of resettlers and hosts in the design and implementation of the resettlement activities;
(b) a summary of the views expressed and how these views were taken into account in preparing the resettlement plan;
(c) a review of the resettlement alternatives presented and the choices made by displaced persons regarding options available to them, including choices related to forms of compensation and resettlement assistance, to relocating as individuals families or as parts of preexisting communities or kinship groups, to sustaining existing patterns of group organization, and to retaining access to cultural property (e.g. places of worship, pilgrimage centers, cemeteries);5and
(d) institutionalized arrangements by which displaced people can communicate their concerns to project authorities throughout planning and implementation, and measures to ensure that such vulnerable groups as indigenous people, ethnic minorities, the landless, and women are adequately represented.

The Indigenous People’s Policy has similar language, recognizing the unique vulnerability of these populations:

A project proposed for Bank financing that affects Indigenous Peoples requires:

(a) screening by the Bank to identify whether Indigenous Peoples are present in, or have collective attachment to, the project area (see paragraph 8);
(b) a social assessment by the borrower (see paragraph 9 and Annex A);
(c) a process of free, prior, and informed consultation with the affected Indigenous Peoples’ communities at each stage of the project, and particularly during project preparation, to fully identify their views and ascertain their broad community support for the project (see paragraphs 10 and 11);
(d) the preparation of an Indigenous Peoples Plan (see paragraph 12 and Annex B) or an Indigenous Peoples Planning Framework (see paragraph 13 and Annex C); and
(e) disclosure of the draft Indigenous Peoples Plan or draft Indigenous Peoples Planning Framework (see paragraph 15).

As an aside, the views and leadership of indigenous peoples are particularly difficult for outside powers to pin down. Who, precisely, can speak for the group? I once had an interesting conversation with a Lakota tribal elder about why he felt the official tribal government, did not represent the “true” interests of the full-blooded tribal members like himself.

Examples

An interesting source of material about how these policies are actually implemented are the official Environmental Assessments, which are as a matter of policy all posted to the World Bank’s website. Let’s look at two recent environmental assessments to see what they have to say about the public consultation for the project. First, regarding a Tunisian irrigation project:

PUBLIC CONSULTATION AND DISCLOSURE OF THE SDR
15. For the purpose of presenting the results of the analysis of equivalence and acceptability of the Tunisian national system of EA in the water sector, a public
consultation, in the form of an Atelier deInformation et de Concertationo took place at CITET in Tunis on October 28-30, 2008 under the patronage of the Secretaire deEtat. There were approximately 75 people in attendance (List Attached), including representatives of public and private sector entities, NGOs and the media, and
international donors including AFD and the ADB.

16. In addition to the presentation by Bank staff of the findings and conclusions of the SDR, five presentations were made by ANPE, MARH, and the consultants respectively
on: (i) the Tunisian System of EA in the Water Sector; (ii) the PISEAU II; (iii) the Resettlement Policy Framework; (iv) the DCPES; and (v) Environmental Health and Safety in Connection with Asbestos. Representatives of the World Bank introduced the context and methodology for the analysis of equivalence and acceptability of the national system of EA in the water sector and the results of this analysis as well as the gap filling measures necessary for the application of the Tunisian EA system to projects financed by the World Bank, and in particular to the World Bank-financed Sub-projects under the PISEAU II.

17. During the consultations, it was concluded that the report reflects the current status of the EA system in Tunisia and that the World Bank has in fact identified the gaps between the Tunisian system and the requirements of World Bank Operational Policy 4.00 on Piloting the Use of Borrower Systems to Address Environmental and Social Safeguard Issues in Bank-Supported Projects. The participants agreed in general with the DCPES as a way to guide the environmental and social management of activities to be financed by the PISEAU II consistent with the findings and conclusions of the SDR. The principal points raised during the consultation focused on the gaps observed between the Tunisian EA system and the requirements of the World Bank’s environmental policy. After explanation was given on the comments raised herein, the participants endorsed the
content of the report.

Another recent project I selected at random, the “Southern West Bank Solid Waste Management Project,” provided a process a bit more nuanced than a dry public meeting in the capital city:

The Consultation Team had to adjust the consultation plan after the meetings with the scavengers and the leaders of two communities near the existing Yatta landfill. Informal leaders of scavengers from Yatta city and formal leaders of communities near the Yatta landfill site wanted to discuss negative environmental and social effects and impacts of the site. The site was managed very poorly until 2006 and some of the complains needed to be crosschecked with responsible government authorities and with field data. Therefore the Consultant Team decided to interview a medical expert in Yatta district and an social expert of the Municipal Social Department. In addition, the Consultant decided to conduct a census of all scavengers working on an average summer day at the landfill site, and to prepare profiles of four scavengers households from Yatta city and four households from El Deirat village. The additional data was required to deal with conflicting information about number of scavengers, health conditions and the socio-economic backgrounds of the households of scavenger families that have children and adults picking waste at the landfill site.

Thinly-veiled threats raised during one community meeting even made it into the report:

The leaders of communities living near to the proposed regional land fill site in El Menya and the proposed transfer station in South Hebron have given their conditional support to the project components. They want their communities to benefits from improved infrastructure and employment opportunities. Their conditions concern the management of the facilities in accordance with international environmental and social standards so that the communities and these assets will be protected for negative impacts in the short, medium and long term. The community leaders also expressed a warning: if the SWM facilities are not properly managed and cause hinder to the neighboring communities these might react by blocking the operation of the solid waste management system.

Some might scoff at the actual power wielded by the community. Once the trash transfer facility was built, what power could they have to ensure environmental standards are upheld? In 1968 one U.S. community faced the precise same problem. Officials refused to re-route garbage and fuel trucks serving Boston’s Logan Airport from a densely populated residential street in East Boston — Maverick Street. The street’s residents sparked a political confrontation and re-routing of the trucks by physically blocking the street. The comparison opens up the question of what social and political factors must be present for procedural environmental assessments to result in community power.

Conclusion

Like with many mandated consultation processes, distrust and frustration is rife on both sides. According to one article about a World Bank process in Pakistan I found online, a group of 24 NGOs dropped out of an official consultation process in 2001, complaining “The nature and content of the consultations has to be meaningful” before they would participate. In other places and times hundreds of groups have boycotted the consultation processes, including this example from 2004. An independent 2004 evaluation of the public consultation process for a hydroelectric project in Laos (right) critiques the process, concluding:

From its beginning in 1996 to the present time, the Nam Theun 2 public consultation process was aimed not at empowering the public to engage in informed dialogue and debate about the project, but rather to justify the decision to proceed with it. ” although they point out, “Whether it would be possible for a more neutral and well-intentioned party to structure a participatory decision-making process that works in the context of Laos–and that would meet the universal standards of transparency and accountability that both the World Bank and WCD recommend–remains to be seen. But in the current situation, the Nam Theun 2 public consultation process has clearly failed to meet even minimal World Bank standards, much less the more rigorous WCD standards, and should not be accepted as an adequate basis for the approval of support for the Project.

A 2002 World Bank working paper evaluating public consultations in the environmental assessment policy concluded something similar, finding that although consultation had become common, “the current challenge for Bank operations focuses on the quality of public consultations and the extent to which they influence project design and effect project impact.”

I am very new to the area of megaprojects, only recently having ordered the Flyvbjerg and Altshuler/Luberoff recent books on the subject. However even from this cursory review, the application of consultation requirements in developing world contexts can serve to illuminate the many factors consultation projects in general are are based upon: the existence of a civil society, free and robust media, and the assumption the people affected by the project are protected from possible harms outside of the scope of individual projects. Indeed, maybe these policies only make sense in a country with a rule of law that can function as an arena of last resort. After all, without legal recourse, how substantive would many participation processes in the U.S. be? Although the precise impact of the policies seems varied, at the very least it is sparking new forms of local debate and information exchange and warrant further examination.

This topic is related to two others I hope to write about soon. In the U.S., state planning and zoning laws can mandate participation for urban planning at the local level, like the World Bank policies setting requirements to guide local planning. Around the world, a new approach to infrastructure development shifts the paradigm away from procedural assessments and consultations such as the environmental assessments described above, or used in the U.S. under the National Environmental Policy Act. In the emerging field of participatory budgeting, urban residents themselves decide which infrastructure projects should be built, through cutting-edge democratic processes.

World Bank photos: road construction in Tajikistan and Nam Theum 2 project.

Obama-Biden Transition Website Accepting Questions and Comments

Although overshadowed in the media, two recent initiatives by President-Elect Obama demonstrates his unprecedented commitment to Internet transparency and citizen engagement. The first concept, announced by transition head John Podesta last weekend, is called simply “Your Seat at the Table.” Obama-Biden Transition team will meet with hundreds of private organizations. Anyone they meet with must agree to allow any briefing materials be posted online, where citizens can review them and post their comments. Since launching last weekend, PDFs of briefing materials from over 100 organizations have been posted, and thousands of citizen comments posted in response.

Any presidential initiative that excites both Mother Jones Magazine and the Cato Institute must be unique indeed. Although the Cato bloggers griped that similar transparency is often not applied to budget matters, they should remember that as U.S. Senator, Barack Obama was a driving force behind USASpending.gov, whose sole mission is to let Americans “see where their money goes.”

The new initiative raises many questions — who will process the comments? How will they be recorded for history? How is the transition extending the dialogue to Americans who cannot — or prefer not to — engage with their government on a website? Are there any meetings where the briefs cannot, or will not be posted? These questions aside, the experiment fundamentally transforms the usual input process for government policy by allowing some conversation to occur between individuals. Some of the most exciting technology in this area are new social feedback tools like UserVoice or GetSatisfaction that attempt to create a technical framework for a collective discussion, without the prohibitively high technical barriers to entry (and problematic lack of user restrictions) of wikis.

This type of social feedback software is exactly the type of technology the fuels the other new tool, “Open For Questions” the campaign unveiled today, which “lets you ask the Transition team any questions you have about the issues that are important to you” and also “browse through questions other folks have and check off the ones you think are the most interesting.”

Fundamentally, both of these technologies of are applicable to policy-making at the local level, which unlike for the presidency suffers a lack of participants, and a need for better ways than public meetings to bring people together across time and space. If the Obama Administration can demonstrate their practicality at the national level, perhaps it will serve to debunk skepticism and resistance at over levels of government. What will remain is to extract the technical machinery behind Change.gov and make it available to local governments, overcome the political, cultural, and policy barriers to enhanced transparency and dialogue, and develop the expertise to deploy them in constructive ways.

> Change.Gov – Your Seat at the Table and Open for Questions

Public Involvement in U. of Maryland East Campus Planning

Tonight at an event at the MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning I met Harry Mattison, the author of a blog about the Allston Brighton Community Blog. He’s also a member of the Allston Brighton Community Planning Initiative.

The map below sums up what’s happening in the neighborhood. Clockwise from the left, the red areas illustrate the neighborhood’s institutional land owners: Boston College, St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center, Harvard University, and at the bottom right Boston University. More than passive neighbors, most of these — especially Harvard through its Allston Initiative — have been expanding. The dots show existing and planned development projects. (For the initiated like myself, ABCPI’s old presentations provide an introduction.)

All this development activity, much of it planned by none other than Harvard has resulted in a climate of antagonism and distrust in the community. Discussing these issues with Harry, I was reminded of the procedural elements to the East Campus Redevelopment Initiative in College Park, Maryland.

When I first arrived on campus in College Park to begin my master’s program in the fall of 2006, the University of Maryland was initiating the process of selecting a private developer to redevelop over 100 acres of their land into a mixed-use project with restaurants, apartments, a hotel, stores, and offices. The site is located just up the road from downtown College Park, strategically between the university’s main campus, and the Metro Station and University research park. (Yellow and green on the map to the right)

The administration had planned a three public forums about the project, complete with large maps and a panel to discuss the projects. Despite the preparation, turnout was abysmal and University staff easily outnumbered attendees. We requested and were granted a meeting with the then-Vice President for Administrative Affairs John Porcari and two other administrators to discuss public outreach about the project. Although they listened politely, the administrators firmly insisted the process of selecting a private developer must remain closed. Once one was selected, however, they pledged a full and public process.

That fall Porcari left the University to become the state Secretary of Transportation, but the next spring we had a meeting with one of the administrators from the original group and an expanded group including student leaders and administrators. At this meeting, we presented our recommendations for what a positive public engagement plan would look like. We argued it should be consensus-based, proactive, candid, and transparent, and provided specific recommendations and a brief summary of how other universities had handled input for facilities planning. The document is no masterwork, but because of it we brought far more substantive input than any other participant.

Shortly after that meeting, former Montgomery County Executive Doug Duncan was appointed to the position that would oversee the project planning, Vice President for Administrative Affairs. The veteran of a complex public-private project revitalizing Silver Spring, Maryland, Duncan was no stranger to the politics of urban development. I emailed him to congratulate him on his appointment, and asked for a position on any steering committee created.

During the summer, I received this letter from the University president:

July 20, 2007
Mr. Robert Goodspeed
AGNR-Plant Science & Landscape Architecture
2139 Plant Sciences Building
College Park, MD 20742-4452

Dear Rob:

With the recent Board of Regents approval of the team of Foulger-Pratt/Argo Investment as the developer with whom the University can negotiate a development plan for the East Campus site, I am seeking the input of a Community Review Steering Committee. The Committee will work toward achieving a consensus plan for the development of the University’s east campus site and toward promoting the revitalization of the Route 1 corridor. Planning for this project must provide for current institutional needs, future campus goals and the enhancement of the surrounding community.

The Committee will work in open session, considering issues that have been brought to it by the campus community, area neighborhoods and local businesses. Comment from the public will be solicited at public events and through members of the committee. We look forward to lively dialogue and a collegial exploration of ideas between our Committee members and the development team. Committee members will be charged to work with the Foulger-Pratt/Argo team on the development of the plan. They will be in a position to gain a high level of understanding of the project in order to provide input and to build broad support for it.

You have been recommended for membership on this Committee, and I ask for your participation. I hope that you will consider this opportunity to represent the community in this transformational planning process. I value greatly the input of our diverse community for the east campus development. I am excited by the long-term vision of a vibrant, mixed-use center that will serve the University and the College Park communities. I have attached the schedule of the meetings planned as you consider this invitation. Being optimistic, I would like to thank you in advance for agreeing to serve. Please contact [EXCERPTED] to confirm your availability and interest in helping to make the east campus a truly great contribution to our community.

Yours sincerely,

C. D. Mote, Jr.
President

The following schedule was enclosed.

East Campus Community Review Steering Committee
Tentative Meeting Schedule

Chair of Committee: Mr. Douglas M. Duncan
Vice President for Administrative Affairs
University of Maryland

The following is a tentative schedule for meetings and topics for discussion. All the meetings will be held from 7:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. in the Visitor Center Auditorium located in Turner Hall.

* August 13–Introduction; background on RFP process, developer presentation; committee goals/charge

* August 27–Market dynamics and proposed uses: retail, residential, office, and hotel

* September 12–Economic impact of development and public finance options

* September 24–Transportation planning: Route 1/Paint Branch connections/traffic calming, public transit, and pedestrian/bicycle connections

* October 8–Land use options and concepts: placemaking, street-facing retail, views, plazas, connections, and residential over retail.

* October 22—Concluding meeting

Although the precise timing and topics varied somewhat from this schedule (the meetings didn’t wrap up until January 2008, for example) it generally suggests the approach taken. After every meeting and at other times during the process I wrote detailed blog posts on Rethink College Park, sharing all the technical documentation and information discussed at the meetings. In general, these meetings were very well attended and despite tense moments were generally respectful. During the entire time period, me and the other Rethink College Park contributors wrote a staggering 366 posts about East Campus. The university posted a variety of information to their website about the project.

Chaired personally by Doug Duncan, the meetings were very good at sharing information and providing a venue for community engagement. However, they weren’t perfect. Here’s a few of my concerns:

• The composition of the committee was half university, half community, with a few others (including 3 students) thrown in. If the university is a developer, why should they have such a large representation?
• The format of the meeting was designed for one-way communication, not discussion. The group sat in a “U” facing a presenter. The only structured discussion was during Q&A.
• No designs in more detail than massing and site plans were presented. This was the biggest failure of the process: nobody saw the public plans until after the group stopped meeting.

Last summer, I made one last trip to College Park to see the unveiling of the final plans, which were submitted to the county for approval last summer also. In addition to what’s described here, the project involved dozens of other components I haven’t mentioned, ranging from talking with members of the closed-door campus architectural committee to visiting with administrators to discuss how to make the project website more user-friendly. Needless to say, the true impact of any of this on the project is impossible to say and the final chapter of this project is far from over. Nevertheless, I hope the information here about the public process may prove a useful record.

> U. of Maryland East Campus Redevelopment Initiative (Official site)
> Rethink College Park: East Campus Posts
Rethink College Park: “Engaging the Community in the East Campus Redevelopment”
> See also, “NIMBYism, Urban Development, and the Public Involvement Solution,”