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You Decide

Karen Brackenamericadontforget.com

Charrette or

Charade?

+What is a Charrette?

Charrettes take place in many disciplines, including land use planning, or urban planning. In planning, the charrette has become a technique for consulting with all stakeholders. This type of charrette (sometimes called an enquiry by design) typically involves intense and possibly multi-day meetings, involving municipal officials, developers, and residents. A successful charrette promotes joint ownership of solutions and attempts to defuse typical confrontational attitudes between residents and developers. Charrettes tend to involve small groups, however the residents participating may not represent all the residents nor have the moral authority to represent them. Residents who do participate get early input into the planning process. For developers and municipal officials charrettes achieve community involvement, may satisfy consultation criteria, with the objective of avoiding costly legal battles. Other uses of the term "charrette" occur within an academic or professional setting, whereas urban planners invite the general public to their planning charrettes. Thus most people (unless they happen to be design students) encounter the term "charrette" in an urban-planning context.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charrette

+How Did We Prepare for the Charrette?

Get a team organized (the bigger the better)

Conduct a face to face meeting to assign tasks and discuss plan

Get a volunteer to be the scout(s)

The rest of the group become “visitors”

No one arrives at the Charrette until given instructions

Schedule in advance a conference call or face to face meeting for the evening after the first day of Charrette has ended (this applies to multi day Charette)

If Charrette is more than 1 day your visitors should not attend until the last day/evening of the Charrette

Try to get some people from outside of your area to attend

+ What is the Role of the Scout(s)

Scout(s) must arrive as soon as the doors open (bring paper, pen, recording device)

Put down your belongings – you are there for the duration or until relief arrives

Walk around the room and get a complete layout of the room and what is expected

Engage the consultant for an explanation of every station

Be sure to record what you are told (video or audio recording)

Once you feel you know what is to be done call the point person (to discuss plan and message to be delivered to the rest of the team)

Documentation of observations is critical

Talk with regular citizens not on your team. Ask them questions?

Like: Gee do you know what brown fields are? Do you know what redevelopment or infill means? What is multi-modal transportation?

When consultants are talking to people that are not from your team be sure to join in. Ask questions. Ask questions. Ask questions. Challenge, Challenge, Challenge

Be sure to fill out surveys, comments cards etc.

Be sure to take as many pictures as possible, before you leave count the number or people that registered. Check the register periodically because several sheets might get used.

Be sure to get copies of EVERYTHNG they have to offer

+What is the Role of the Visitor?

Visitor will come into the room and if they attended meetings will know what to do. If they did not attend meetings they need to be briefed by Scout

Visitor will fill out comment card, surveys, write on walls etc.

Fill out surveys and forms as negatively as you can. Use a combination of Disagree and Strongly Disagree.

Write comments regarding property rights, individual freedom, no government funding, statements are too vague with no explanation or meanings of new terms that are not familiar to the public, general comments about statements, how will ???? be accomplished, who pays for all of this when federal money no longer comes.

+Multiple Day Charrette

Our Charrette was three days. Day 1 and Day 2 were for Surveys and Day 3 was to be a read out of the survey results.

If your Charrette is more than one day get as many people as possible to attend on the last day.

People can come on Day 1 too (pre-plan) if they get hit with a lot of negatives on one day they will be suspicious.

Conducting a call or meeting after Day 1 is critical. This is where you can give your team read direction and insight on what to expect and how to fill out the Surveys.

You might want to mix your answers – Disagree and Strongly Disagree.

+What Happened at My Charrette? The room had 3 maps on a long table with an explanation

as to the proposed changes to each section of the town. Each map displayed different parts of the town.

There were lengthy descriptions, small copies of the map and a questionnaire for each map

There was a computer with pictures that correlated to a form

There were individual sheets with principles listed on the wall with large comment sheets below so people could write comments on them.

The other half of the room had tables where committees/consultants where working on maps and plans.

+What Happened at My Charrette?

Minimal interaction with people

Very polite

The day flew by

It was great fun!!!

Can you believe the owner of the consulting firm accused me of sabotaging the project???

+Observations Room was at the very end of the mall which allowed for

minimal traffic

People had NO CLUE what they were responding too

There was an overload of information that no one took the time to read.

People read comments on the wall from other people and just followed suit – this is why you want your people to put a lot of comments on the board about property rights, freedom, no government money, statements are too vague etc.

It was obvious this was just a stamp on the dance card

The consultants could care less if people filled out the forms or if they understood what they were doing

+Feedback Session

SUCCESS!!!

There was no feedback session

Why? Too many negative comments

60 forms with total negative feedback

14 forms with positive feedback

Obviously they want to discount negative feedback and only count positive. When they had so much negative they blamed it on a movement to subvert the project.

Now we attend the next City Council and County Commission meeting to express our disfavor with the cancellation of the feedback session!

We also placed an ad in the paper with the results of the Charrette. A Planner allowed us to photograph every survey that was handed in.

+Sample Questionnaire

+Principles and White Paper

+Slide Show

+Conclusion Be careful about letting your strategy go outside your group

Do not converge on one day – spread it out (do not want to draw suspicion)

Do not select ALL Strongly Disagree (do not want to tip them off to an orchestrated attempt to tip the scales in our favor) Circle Disagree and Strongly Disagree. Circle more of the one than the other.

You must organize and you must DOCUMENT EVERYTHING

You must conduct a meeting (face to face or conference call) after Day 1

Our Charrette was supposed to be the last meeting before the plan was created. Because of the negative results they attended community events that were not advertised.

They removed all surveys that were straight #5’s but left all #1’s to be counted. They were tipped off about our plan!!!

Your Charrette information and set up might be different than mine. This is why it is so important to have a briefing session after Day 1.