Seattle has engaged in neighborhood planning for many years, but those plans typically were aimed at a more modest horizon, and often dealt more specifically with current problems. Those former processes were also generally run by City staff with a typical set of community oversight committees usually comprised of the activists and "wonks" who revel in process. (The "Seattle Process" is an inside joke which reflects our penchant for studying things ad nauseam before, or if ever, we decide to "just do it".) The City Council's response to this new challenge was to create a multi-million dollar three-to-four-year program that would let neighborhoods prepare plans for the urban villages resulting in comprehensive plan policy changes for land use, housing, transportation, capital facilities and other elements as well as specific recommendations for public investment. A Neighborhood Planning Office was created to manage the program. The NPO provides staff to assist the process, but the neighborhoods actually contract for funds and are responsible for doing whatever it takes to make the plans.
Over 30 groups are now planning, dealing with fiscal management, coordinating staff from other City departments, hiring and managing consultants, and trying to communicate with all sectors of their communities while not wearing themselves out in "the process". We are about a year away from seeing the first completed plans which will be forwarded for City Council approval via some as yet undefined review protocol. A few groups are in "Phase Two" of their work which is the actually plan drafting. The rest are still in "Phase One" which is the organization, visioning, and scope writing task required by the NPO before the Phase Two funds are released.
Neighborhoods and Communities - A city official was overheard saying that a new neighborhood is created in Seattle every time a major development is proposed in order to fight the City and developer during the approval process. But, the landscape of the City does create some very identifiable geographic enclaves. Many of these are very large however, and really shouldn't be called neighborhoods. I subscribe to the notion that a neighborhood is best identified by the street you live on or the radius within which you know the neighbors by name - people who will feed your pets and water your plants when you're out of town. Then, around the immediate neighborhood, exists the community of like-minded souls who share the reasons that you have for living where you do. Unfortunately, many planners and politicians are guilty of bastardizing these concepts so that neighborhoods are frequently defined to be larger than many good-sized cities which are comprised of neighborhoods in their own right. Then, we have the "environmental community", the "development community", the "business community", the "planning community" and all of the other "communities" which amount to lobbying constituencies for causes.
I think that this confuses citizens who are engaged in planning. The Seattle urban villages were preliminarily defined in the comprehensive plan, with the intent that they will be formally defined by the neighborhood planning process. The premise of the neighborhood planning efforts is to decide if these are truly communities within which substantial new residential and business growth can be accommodated while protecting the single-family neighborhoods which surround them. Can we provide opportunities for building market-rate housing that is affordable for our children? Can we increase the mix of retail and service business that supports an urban population? Can we build, maintain, and control parks and community centers that will serve a diverse, active community of young families, singles, and seniors? Can we have streets that are beautiful, safe, humane, and walkable? And can we do all of this so that the sum of the parts adds up to a world-class city?
This is a big order for any planner, and for citizen planners it is very difficult to grasp. Most people will come to the table because they have some very concrete fears or apprehensions about where they live. They want stop signs or traffic signals at their corners; they want better street lighting; they want more policing; they want the potholes filled; or they want better schools for their kids. Channelling this energy into a two or three year comprehensive planning process that might not even end up dealing with such problems is a real challenge. We have to keep the immediacy of the concerns in front of us at the same time we look 20 years into the future and try to understand what kind of problems may exist then.
Organization - One of the most wonderful aspects of the Seattle program to me is the incredible creativity which the citizen planners are exhibiting in their organizational styles. Partly as reactions to prior staff-driven efforts, but mostly driven by the intelligence and strength of the community leaders, we are seeing a rich and constantly evolving variety of committees, work groups, and other organizational styles of getting things done together. These groups are trying to design their processes to be accessible to the constituencies that Seattle embraces. Throughout the City, the mix includes a vast ethnic and cultural array of new residents, an active gay population, the established community councils and clubs, the homeless, the disabled, and streetkids to name a few. The question is: How can we move ahead with the planning, making sure that we address concerns for those who cannot or will not participate? The NPO is helpful in mentoring this organization, but we have a long way to go.
In the "global" Phase One, the NPO helps us to work out who we are, what we can bring, how we should work together, and how we will make decisions. In Phase Two, this organization then becomes the foundation for the plan-making. As we turn to more technical tasks, learn to work with consultants, and think about the implications of individual actions; we begin to realize the complexity of planning. Planners are crucial in this phase, but it is also very easy for the citizens to fall back and let the professionals do all of the work. But if that happens, we then run the risks of losing the immediacy and also of producing plans that we don't own.
It seems that each step of the process involves some amount of reinventing the wheel. New volunteers show up and have to be brought up to speed. Some participants are wonks who understand the City bureaucracy and politics, and others don't have a clue. When we take time out to train the latter, we can alienate the former. Progress is difficult to measure in the middle of the process when you are developing and debating alternatives. The committee work needs to be organized into manageable "bites" that can be accomplished in a few hours leaving identifiable products which add up over time.
Meetings - Planners do lots of meetings. Many citizens don't. Those with backgrounds in PTAs, community councils, and service organizations have some skills. Other participants haven't been exposed to the dangers of mind- and butt-numbing hours of presentations, discussions, debates, and decision-making that planning requires. Most have many other important things to do (help their kids with homework, spend time with their spouses, care for their elders, have some fun, etc.) It is therefore very, very important to minimize meetings by keeping them short, having limited agendas, holding them at convenient times, and avoiding stalemates. This is far easier to say than it is to do. Planning organizations may or may not need training in these areas. If they do, the professionals better be ready to provide it.
We also have to be realistic when we talk about "outreach" and "validation", two of the overused Seattle Process terms. We find that no time is a good meeting time for everyone. When we have something concrete (preferably with maps and drawing) to deal with, we'll draw bigger crowds. If we have food and children's corners, more people will show up for evening meetings. Venues with (yes, even in Seattle) free parking are more attractive. And, everyone has to have a chance to talk without feeling that they are being put on the spot. A very good approach for major events follows the open house/workshop format where interested people can check in early, look at the materials, talk to some knowledgeable people, then choose to leave their comments or stay for a group process. This is a good way to snare new volunteers and to spread the word outside of the usual communications.
Fiscal Management - In the Seattle Program, the planning organizations contract with the City for the funds, establish budgets, set up fiscal agents, incur expenses, bill the City, account for their spending, and negotiate with consultants. This part of the process is just getting rolling, so it will be a while before it will be prudent to make observations. However, it is safe to say that most citizens don't have any background in what it costs to make plans. This is particularly hard when they are faced with developing scopes of work for consultants to respond to. How much does it cost to prepare a market analysis for a neighborhood business district? How about proformas for mixed use developments? How about traffic studies? How about GIS maps? Newsletters, videos, or other communication pieces? These costs seem to be very high when compared to the costs of running a household or buying a new set of tires. Professional planning consultants are used to negotiating with other professionals. It takes a different kind of conversation to help the citizen clients understand how long it takes to do things, what overhead is, and why expenses are incurred sometimes long before a product is delivered.
Another aspect to budgeting for planning is the notion that the process and therefore the budget has to be flexible to accommodate changes that will inevitably occur as things unfold. You may need another special mailer, or some additional work to flesh out a report. It's particularly tough to anticipate what the final product(s) will be so that you can budget accordingly. When the overall program has a fixed budgetary limit, you have to deal with the incremental line items as they are incurred as well as the big finale which includes reports, public meetings, communication pieces, and possibly, some redrafting when the City Council starts its review.
Afterward - We are just starting to speculate about what happens when the plans are done. Who will be the "stewards"? The City? The neighborhood organizations? Some kind of new organization(s)? What kind of power/authority will they have? Will they be funded? All very interesting. In his State of the City address, the Mayor said that we have 14,000 Seattleites involved in neighborhood planning. If that is true, and each one spends four hours a month for 18 months and their time is worth $20 per hour, the citizens will have invested $20,000,000 in the process. Many of them will have learned a lot about how the City operates and how decisions are made. This cadre will become a compelling new political force in a city which has historically been subject to citizen-based initiatives. An interesting aspect for planners to ponder.