Hord Coplan Macht (HCM) has always recognized the importance of stakeholder engagement during the design process. However, community engagement takes on an additional level of importance when planning a public space – whether a park, school or publically-funded housing project. Below, we have interviewed several of our lead Planning and Landscape Architecture experts to learn how they are leading engagement efforts during the age of social distancing, the tools they are utilizing, and the changes they think are here to stay.
Missed part one of “Planning Public Spaces?” Click here to learn how our experts are leading engagement efforts during the age of social distancing, the tools they are utilizing, and the changes they think are here to stay.
How do you target and engage a broad audience in the community engagement process?
Often, our team provides the content and engagement tools for community engagement meetings, and we rely on the client or engagement specialist to promote meetings to attract a diverse audience. Meeting people where they are is also a useful in-person strategy to ensure diversity in the community engagement process; this can look like meetings at libraries or schools, or a booth at community-specific events.
For Poe Homes in Baltimore, Maryland, HCM was selected to lead a two-year, community-driven process to establish a roadmap to meet the needs for Poe Homes, the City’s oldest public housing community, and the surrounding Poppleton-Hollins Market neighborhoods. As a part of this process, we set up an information booth at a local festival to allow people to talk freely with the planning team about the project. We offered an easy and accessible coloring book page activity for people to illustrate their ideas about the future of the historic Poe House. The coloring book captured feedback from a broad range of people, from kids to seniors.
We always come prepared to address the needs of a multigenerational audience, particularly children. Providing an activity and snacks to occupy kids allows parents to feel more inclined to engage and participate. Kids offer a lot of insight, as well. We often provide sketching tools and paper to allow children to sketch ideas and pictures. We’ll photograph their artwork and incorporate it into future meeting slides. This gives kids a voice, as well as helps to make parents feel comfortable bringing their children to these important sessions. Although we make efforts to engage a diverse audience, this is something that we need to continue to explore. Virtual engagement requires different tactics than in-person engagement, and it has been more challenging to target certain groups. We have looked to partner with student interns as part of our community engagement process, but this has not yet been implemented. It would be interesting to reach out to other agencies to see what they have been doing, and what has been successful.
How have you made virtual meetings friendly to an audience who may not have the access or the technology available at their fingertips?
One advantage of virtual meetings that we have discovered is better accessibility options for users. A difficulty during standard community meetings is that the large group size can make it difficult for all stakeholders to see the information and graphics. Virtual communication tools make it easy for all participants to see and read the information presented.
We understand that not all clients have access to the same resources. For a recent community meeting in a disadvantaged neighborhood, we used a multi-prong approach. We hosted an online Zoom meeting, which was recorded for those who may not have been able to attend initially, and used the Zoom chat feature for a Q&A at the end of the meeting. Afterward, a survey hosted through Google Docs was available for attendees. All stakeholder groups were sent a recording of the meeting and a survey after the event, although unfortunately, this did not allow for an interactive approach for all users. We coupled this approach with printed boards and surveys in the lobbies of two nearby recreation centers. There was a stakeholder representative available at key times to discuss the plan. We did investigate other interactive online tools, such as Miro, but determined that they were not a good fit for our meeting goals or community.
Another example of flexible methods was for a project at Poe Homes, a project mentioned earlier. We delivered printed presentations to participants who lacked access to the internet and could only join by telephone. During Q&A, we offered a chance for everyone to comment, both online and on the phone. It was more time consuming than a standard Zoom meeting but helped garner support from people who couldn’t post an online chat comment or raise their online hand.
Missed part one of “Planning Public Spaces?” Click here to learn how our experts are leading engagement efforts during the age of social distancing, the tools they are utilizing, and the changes they think are here to stay.
