Ways We Engage Our Clients & Partners
Written by Marcy McInelly
Our team offers three core ways to engage on a project, ranging from open collaboration and conceptualization to complex zoning and code change-based solutions.
New Urbanism
Principles of the new urbanism and the Charter of the New Urbanism guide our work. For example, we believe that neighborhoods should be diverse in use and population; communities should be designed for the pedestrian and transit as well as the car; cities and towns should be shaped by physically defined and universally accessible public spaces and community institutions; urban places should be framed by architecture and landscape design that celebrate local history, climate, ecology, and building practice.
This means that when we are planning a community, we are thinking about connectivity and walkability, and a public realm that is defined by the street and characterized by street trees, sidewalks, and front porches instead of driveways and garages. The design connects the community to surrounding neighborhoods, parks, schools and commercial destinations.
When we are working on zoning code amendments, we are thinking about principle 13: “Within neighborhoods, a broad range of housing types and price levels can bring people of diverse ages, races, and incomes into daily interaction, strengthening the personal and civic bonds essential to an authentic community,” or 11: “Neighborhoods should be compact, pedestrian-friendly, and mixed-use.”
When we are working on a TSP (Transportation System Plan), we are thinking about Principle 1 of Street Networks, “Street networks fulfill a basic need human society. They connect people to each other and to destinations. Street networks are not just about transportation and infrastructure, but also about the movement of goods, idea, and wealth. They foster economic activity and provide public space for human interaction.”
We apply these principles whether we are working on projects as focused as the building, street, block, or as extensive as the neighborhood, district, corridor, or region.
Charrettes
At Urbsworks we believe in charrettes, which are multi-day events focused on achieving specific urban design outcomes. Marcy is NCI (National Charrette Institute) certified and was for many years an NCI trainer.
Marcy has used multi-day design charrettes to help clients resolve complex and sometimes controversial projects, for example:
Turning around a 450-acre district suffering from a decade of urban blight;
Facilitating agreement about how to share the costs and benefits of an adopted district plan among three property owners and multiple city agencies;
Achieving consensus on a community plan so that a development moratorium could be lifted, and
Bringing multiple city stakeholders with competing corporate missions together to create the most sustainable industrial district in North America.
Accelerating and consolidating years of community visioning into an immediately-achievable demonstration project.
All of these projects were on a critical path that could only be resolved through an extraordinary effort that accelerated the conventional planning process, ensured multidisciplinary collaboration and guaranteed results.
It doesn’t always make sense to hold a full charrette, but Urbsworks still uses the charrette methodology to conduct projects, employing a “deconstructed charrette” technique, where charrette feedback loops and outreach methods are incorporated into more conventional municipal project management formats.
For more on how we engage with charrettes, see our King City and Ruston Way Waterfront projects.
Community Engagement
At Urbsworks we believe that every project that involves planning for the future needs to start with a thoughtfully developed public engagement plan. Like most land use and transportation planners, Urbsworks’ public engagement plans are inclusive, thorough, and customized for the client, the community, and the stakeholders involved in the project. What sets Urbsworks apart however is our ability to describe the physical, economic, and social effect of different decisions about the future in terms of design outcomes or tradeoffs, in a way that allows the community to compare the effect of different decisions.
“Urbsworks brings a design element to their work that you don’t get from people or firms who function strictly as planners. The design skills are a unique thing that they bring to the table.”
Laura Weigel, Planning Manager, City of Milwaukie, Oregon
Using words, pictures, diagrams, and numbers, we can break down complicated issues. For us, community engagement is both a project management and implementation tool. When we thoroughly synthesize and prepare technical and background information for the public, we are able to fold it into each interaction, receive constructive, high quality feedback, and build it into the next version of our work‚ whether that is a master plan, a zoning code amendment, or a street design. We believe in maximizing the number and quality of feedback loops. Al together it makes for a very collaborative process.
“The most surprising element of working with Urbsworks was how much it felt like the advisory committee and the consultants were a team. They were so collaborative; we had a really great experience with Marcy and her team. It did not feel like consultant and staff had their own turf to defend. Even when there were hard conversations, there was a lot of trust and respect. It was one of the better projects we’ve worked on because the work was so collaborative.”
Laura Weigel, Planning Manager, City of Milwaukie, Oregon
To learn more about how we engage communities, see our McMinneville project.