PHX General Plan Update Visioning Workshop - Assignment Example

Plan PHX General Plan Up Visioning Workshop On November I attended a Plan PHX General Plan up visioning workshop, which was held at Mountain Community Library 7050 South 24th Street starting from 6.00 pm to 8.00 pm. Plan PHX is a conscientious effort by the city of Phoenix to work together with its residents to shape the future of their city. The city has focused on creating public participation around two specific areas – the Phoenix general plan update and planning for neighborhood development around the light rail. Striving to make the update a strong, collaborative, and participatory product, the planning department’s first step in the update process was to establish an advisory group or “leadership committee.” This leadership committee acts as a representative of citizen interests and has been involved in the process since the beginning of the project along with the Mayor’s office and the planning department. These three entities have designed the participatory process and were responsible for the outcome. These actors have broken the general plan update process into two phases – phase one is visioning, and phase two is drafting the goals policies and implementation actions for the update. On my arrival at the meeting place, which was around 6.20, I found most of the leaders had already arrived, and the first thing that hit me was that I had arrived past time. I was given a leaflet containing the day’s main issues to be discussed. They were seated going through the leaflet though the meeting had not officially begun. With a little knowledge I got after perusing through, I realized that they were mainly concerned with changing some agendas that had been discussed in the previous meetings. At this point, I was relieved knowing I had not missed anything important. I sat and waited in the hope of being offered a drink before the main session could begin, but in vain. The meeting was one of the 13 workshops held throughout the valley during the “visioning” phase. These workshops focused on involving citizens in the visioning process. Additionally, they have been promoted as an opportunity to listen and collaborate with one another on what people love about Phoenix and what they would like to be conserved as they continue to grow. There is a chance to share what our “ big ideas” are for our city and what we want to create for our future. Additionally, there is an opportunity to bring everyone’s ideas together so that they connect and provide a clear and comprehensive vision for our future.” For marketing, the City has condensed these goals into the slogan “Conserve, Create, Connect PHX.” The meeting was attended by Phoenix Vice Mayor Johnson, the City of Phoenix planning officials, State Representative from the South Phoenix district, Leadership Committee participants, South Phoenix residents. The 37 Resident/citizen participants were split almost equally by sex and age. The age classification included a fair age distribution from roughly 25 to 80 years. Major minority groups in the area were also represented with about half of the participants with eight Black, seven Hispanic, and two Asian participants. Of these participants, about 80% appeared white-collar professionals. Upon entering the room, all participants were asked to sign in (providing Contact info). They were then given an agenda for the meeting, a flyer about My Plan PHX (the Planning departments website for an update) and welcomed by facilitators. Participants then engaged with each other, facilitators, and leadership committee members. The Head of the update for the planning department then introduced the Vice Mayor And other VIP Participants who talked about why the event and public participation in planning are important. After this introduction, the planning department gave an overview of Plan PHX and facilitated the workshop activities. The activity portion of this event workshop’s participants was broken into groups by table and given two sets of cards one yellow and one blue. Participants were then asked to brainstorm as a group what they loved about Phoenix and what were their big ideas for Phoenix’s future were. Each of these items was to be written down on a separate card, things participants loved on the blue card and big ideas on the yellow. Participants were then given 15 minutes to complete this task, and facilitators floated among the groups to answer any questions. At the end of this activity, each group was asked to nominate a spokesperson to represent the group. Speakers from each table then shared with the whole workshop what the groups had brainstormed as things they loved and what their big ideas were. As each spokesperson completed sharing their groups efforts, workshop facilitators took the cards and taped them to the wall by category (e.g. Transportation, Green space, events, economics, etc.). At the end of this activity, facilitators thanked participants for their input and concluded the workshop. Planning Officials have utilized several different participation techniques to engage the public in the general plan update. The first of these was the citizen Leadership Committee, which has played a large part in dictating what the update process looks like and were present at all the participation events as advocates of the process. Phase 1–The visioning phase of the project was completed through a series of workshops over the course of 2 Months (Sept20–Nov 15). The choice to engage residents through workshop allowed for broad and interactive participation. This was seen at the event where a diverse group of people came together to participate in the decision-making process. A combination of the brainstorming and “yellow stickies” techniques as described by Creighton (156-158) were also employed in order to generate a large number of ideas quickly. Throughout the workshop, participants seemed comfortable talking to each other and facilitators, as well as participating in activities. It is likely that the large number of friendly facilitators (about 1 Per 4 participants) helped us establish a lively, talkative atmosphere. Additionally, it helped to create an environment that felt safe, accepting, and free of conflict. While this particular workshop was held in English, facilitators also helped to ensure that language barriers were minimized by being available to provide translation whenever needed during activities. However, even with a large number of facilitators present at the event it seemed as if they failed to provide any direction on individual group facilitation during the workshop activities. The participation techniques used by planners for this update process were appropriate; however, the manner in which they were used highlighted the techniques strengths and weaknesses. Engaging participants through workshops allowed the planners to “deal with complex topics.” However, this was because they provided time for detailed consideration and a high level of interaction” (Creighton 134). Planners were also able to engage a large number of diverse participants throughout the city by holding a number of different events catered to the area. For example, city and state officials were present at events held in their districts and when relevant events were translated into or held entirely in Spanish thus ensuring a diverse group could participate. Breaking the workshop into smaller groups for the brainstorming activity also seemed an appropriate technique to use. However, in doing so the facilitators merely divided the room by tables. As Creighton points out, this can be problematic because “people with similar viewpoints tend to sit together. They tend to offer some groups with relatively homogeneous viewpoint” (Creighton 152). Workshop facilitators also failed to participate actively in these brainstorming activities effectively missing the opportunity to prompt participants to think more critically, consider potential conflicts, challenge preconceptions, and guide conversations in new directions. Incorporating the “yellow stickies” technique was also a good idea on the planners part effectively “ eliminating the need for recording and organizing ideas” (Creighton, p.159). However, while the facilitators did then post these cards on the wall they failed to explain why or even direct the participants’ attention to them. By failing to follow up in this way event facilitators missed the opportunity to generate additional feedback on proposed “ big ideas” by engaging participants in further conversation or a ranking process. One of the weaknesses of this public participation event is that the outcomes were not clear. Facilitators spent a lot of time talking about the general plan update, the nature of the process, and the nature of the potential outcomes. Introducing the brainstorming activities to the participants, facilitators seemed excited to collaborate and get new input for the plan update. However, there was no real indication of how the comments and ideas presented by workshop participants would be used. This was evident at the end of the activity as facilitators closed the workshop without synthesizing any of the information gathered, or relaying any next steps. It was somewhat surprising that the majority of the ideas presented by participants were infrastructure related (e.g. High Speed rail, express lanes, green spaces, parks, etc.). There were very few participant ideas that focused on economics, the environment, or community. I doubt that this reflects actual participant views and may be related to participant perspectives on “what planners do.” Better facilitation during activities would be one way to encourage participants to think outside of their perceived “planning context.” Participants were encouraged to focus on other critical areas, like the economy, environment, and community, that the general plan update will also include. Overall, the most surprising aspects of this workshop were how poorly the participation techniques were used, and that there were no tangible outcomes. Future, similar workshops would benefit greatly from taking full advantage of all techniques used. Better activity facilitation during the brainstorming activity, as well as soliciting feedback or engaging in a ranking process with the “yellow stickies” could have resulted in much more rigorous participation results. Additional engagement in these simple ways would also help planner understand what is important to the public. Additionally, it helps both planners and the public understand what potential outcomes may be or how the information gathered will be used. Works cited Creighton, James L. The Public Participation Handbook: Making Better Decisions Through Citizen Involvement. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2005. Print. Read More