How to maximize engagement in community planning

It is a municipal leader’s duty to represent their community—to ensure that their constituents’ needs and wants are listened to, processed and acted upon. That duty can manifest in many ways, one of the most important being community planning.

Community planning is the development of a partnership between communities and the agencies to build specific plans that represent a collective vision for the future of a town and neighborhood. This process includes social, economic and environmental considerations that guide development at scale. Sometimes overlooked, this critical process of maximizing the use of public resources and space to better serve the community is a cornerstone of local government. Ideally in this process, municipal leaders will gather essential insight from and about their community—especially at the start of a major project, development or campaign. It’s also a chance for the community to feel heard and seen, whether their city is installing new stop signs, constructing several high-rises downtown, or building a strategic plan for the next 10 years. And of course, inclusive community planning benefits the city as a whole: It facilitates an environment that’s co-created by its inhabitants.

Ahead of your next community planning session, how can you ensure you’re maximizing engagement and reaping the benefits? Here are five strategies you can put to use.

Figure out what’s not working. To succeed at community planning, you must first determine what hasn’t worked in the past. Carry out an audit of your past community planning processes to discover what might have been hindering engagement or misleading your planning process. Talk with residents, city employees and other stakeholders to find out what obstacles emerged at past planning sessions. For example: Were many people unable to participate due to a lack of virtual options? Were there language barriers? Did the dates and times not reach the right people? Was the process simply inaccessible or distant from the community? Once you have an honest and complete list of what hasn’t worked historically, set to work correcting it for the future.

Cast a wide net. Truly engaging community planning only works when you build a big tent, and everybody shows up. As a municipal leader, you have a responsibility to identify different groups of stakeholders and bring all of them to the table. It’s up to you to determine how to reach them and how to galvanize them to attend. To do this, map out the “community staples”—talk to nonprofit leaders, religious community leaders, neighborhood groups, business owners, and other movers and shakers, and encourage them to work alongside you to involve their communities in your planning process.

Energize city employees. For community planning to succeed, you need a staff who genuinely wants to see a transformative process undertaken. Talk with your employees and colleagues to get them excited about the engagement process and help them understand its importance. You can explain how it’s an opportunity to build trust with the community and to serve those that they live amongst, and a chance to make the city and municipality more grounded in the needs of the people it serves. Ensure you are celebrating staff who have gone above and beyond to maximize engagement.

Be inclusive. As you invite the community to participate, make sure you’re inviting everybody to the table. This requires cultural competency: You need to know the languages that your community speaks, the hours of the day that they work and the best ways to reach them. It also requires accessibility. Are those with physical disabilities able to readily access the space where focus groups are happening? Is an ASL interpreter needed? Yes, it can be difficult to bring everyone to the table—but it’s necessary and always yields the best results. The extra effort will pay dividends in the long run. When you have a wide diversity of voices and everyone feels represented, your projects will truly thrive.

Customize your approach. No two cities will have the same community planning process. Sprawling metropolises need to do broader outreach and figure out more efficient and effective ways to collect data. Alternatively, smaller cities can use more anecdotal examples alongside their data. Determine what works best for cities your size by researching how similar-sized municipalities are approaching community planning. Your approach should also be customized based on the networks within your city and the interests of your changing economy, built environment and community. Some cities might see preserving the natural environment around the city as a key priority in planning, others might be focused on creating economic opportunities downtown. Whatever your community’s priorities are, build your planning approach to support those needs, wants and interests.

When you kick off your next community planning process, take a moment to reflect on its importance and the opportunities it provides. Then, deploy these strategies—and any others that you’ve honed over the years—to ensure you’re connecting deeply with your community and co-creating a better city.

Celeste Frye, AICP is co-founder and CEO of Public Works Partners LLC, a WBE/DBE/SBE certified planning and consulting firm specializing in multi-stakeholder initiatives and building strong connections across the government, nonprofit and private sectors. For more information, visit www.publicworkspartners.com.