Building Communities through Active Engagement

Virtual community engagement has become the norm over the past couple years. More importantly, stand-alone meetings are a thing of the past. However, ensuring equitable community participation is critical to a plan’s success as well as the support from stakeholders and implementing agencies. One way of increasing community support and buy-in of planning vision and goals is to think differently about engagement. Today, more and more communities are turning towards active engagement to correlate meetings with ongoing community events or hold an event that is representative of plan recommendations. This not only helps visualize the benefits plan recommendations can have on the community but also builds ongoing support for future implementation.

Engagement and input from the community has always been an important part of the planning process. More so now in the virtual, hybrid approach to public engagement where the increasing use of interactive mapping tools and platforms are the predominant means of increasing awareness about ongoing planning efforts. While it is typical of the planning process to have two, maybe three in-person or virtual open house events and targeted community outreach, these efforts have long been not well attended and feedback from them is far from being representative of the broader community. But this feedback is more important than ever as plan recommendations have many competing priorities where the long-term associated costs and implementation timeframes need to be reflective of community needs.
Establishing partnerships between City staff, community agencies and implementing partners early in the planning process will ensure recommendations are not only fully vetted but can be supported post planning process. From creating pop-up, tactical urbanism events to hosting events at parks and outdoor recreation areas will create momentum needed to implement projects. These events can help illustrate the idea or project to the community and City staff as well as receive additional feedback on further implementation. This can occur towards the end of the planning process or during critical stages and timeframes when demonstration projects are appropriate.
This session will highlight ways to increase active engagement by highlighting success stories and lessons learned from three different communities in Texas.