This Site Now Optimized for Mobile Devices
Thanks to a free Wordpress Plugin called Mippen, you can now get this site in an agreeable format on your iPhone, Blackberry, Palm Device, or other Smartphones and other mobile devices. It’s all a part of my ongoing effort to reach as many people as possible in a manner that is convenient for them.
Don Marsh
Charrette or Charade?
In the previous post, Don talked about the planning charrette to discuss the future of Newberry Village and surrounding area. What purpose does the charrette hold in the formation of public policy?
The misty-eyed answer is that charrettes provide a means of community participation so that all concerns are addressed and all voices are heard.
In fact, there is a textbook about charrettes and I’m not far off the mark: In The Charrette Handbook, published by the American Planning Association, Bill Lennertz and Aarin Lutzenhiser say, “Charrettes engage citizens in envisioning new possibilities for their communities. They foster the collaboration, creativity, and consensus necessary to define a vision shared by citizens, officials, developers, and other stakeholders.”
Note the operative phrases: “engage citizens” … “collaboration” … and “shared by citizens.”
The answer in reality is significantly different. Very few regular Joes and Janes attend charrettes for the obvious reason that charrettes are usually scheduled at times when most people are working. They’re also all day events that are sometimes spread out over two or three days. Very few ordinary citizens can afford (in either time or money) to sit through the whole thing.
Plus, charrettes are process-oriented. They build to a conclusion, or “drive an outcome” as a planner once remarked to me. Thus, one needs to participate in the entire charrette to really have an impact. This becomes an excuse to reject public opinion when it emerges. If a handful of citizens can make only a part of the charrette, here’s what they will experience.
At the beginning of the charrette, they’ll hear community leaders or invited speakers from other cities wax philosophical (er, “envisioning”) about the ideal living arrangements in a particular area. If they show up midway into the process, they’ll get to write their concerns on the poster paper (e.g., traffic congestion) only to be told their specific issue was addressed earlier in the presentation. If they show up at the end to complain about the results, they’ll be told they missed the important collaborative exercises earlier in the process.
The average citizen rightly concludes, “Even if I can squeeze out a long lunch to come to this thing, my view is still inconsequential to the outcome.” It’s as if by design charrettes are used to exclude public opinion while laying claim to the exact opposite.
I’ve sat through a few charrettes, so I’m speaking from experience. I’ve heard the dismissive remarks of planners and other government officials to some very legitimate concerns raised by citizens. I’ve heard a public safety official (who was not on the agenda but came of his own initiative) express concern about how roundabouts would impede the movement of emergency service vehicles only to be told, “We’re confident you will be able to manuever fire trucks successfully and respond in a timely fashion.” (You’ll notice there was simply no room on the agenda of a three-day event to cover public safety concerns regarding the transportation and land-use plans of this area. Curious, no?)
I think readers of this blog would be interested in seeing exactly how many people attended the Newberry Village Charrette and, of those, how many are unaffiliated with government or special interest groups (developers, Sierra Club, etc.). In other words, how many ordinary Joes and Janes took two work days and a Saturday off to participate?
So to get back to my initial question: What purpose does the charrette hold in the formation of public policy? Charrettes are used to legitimize planning decisions under the guise of public participation. They claim to produce a “vision shared by citizens, officials, developers, and other stakeholders.” What could be more representative than that? They claim dynamic participation by all concerned people. What could be more democratic than that? Hey, wait a second … we’re a representative democracy, right?! What a brilliant mechanism for policy decision-making!!!
Elected officials like charrettes because they can claim the results a) represent the will of the people and, when the people finally show up at meetings to object to the implementation of the results they can b) dismiss the will of the people.
This I’ve witnessed, too, especially on the controversial issues like the design of SW 24th Avenue and the narrowing of Main Street. “All of these concerns were discussed in the charrette.” “If you cared enough about this issue, we had a open event where you could have brought this up.” ”It’s a little too late in the process to begin rewriting all of the hard work put into this.” I’ve even heard elected officials express personal discomfort with the transportation plans but vote for implementation anyway because “the people weighed in on this at the charrette.”
The bottom line, therefore, is that charrettes enable planning ideas that are unpopular with the general public to gain legitimacy and approval from elected officials. They allow unelected planners and special interest activists to drive policy decisions, and they allow politicians to both claim popular support for their voting decisions while dismissing popular opposition to their voting decisions.
In practice, charrettes do not ”engage citizens” or ”foster collaboration,” and their results are certainly not “shared by citizens.”
Citizens Invited to Planning Meetings
I just found out about this yesterday, and I was hoping to get more information by now, but I am as busy as the rest of you this time of year. That is why I think it is unlikely that any of the ordinary citizens who have 9-5 jobs will be able to attend anyway. But, you do deserve the opportunity to know how the sausage is made, so to speak. Here is an excerpt from the email I got from the Coalition for Responsible Growth, which is the only public notification I have seen so far:
Starting on December 11th, a 3-day planning program, called a “charrette,” is being hosted by the developer of Newberry Village, an approved development located at Ft. Clarke Boulevard and Newberry Road. The developer together with county planning staff, the MTPO (Metropolitan Transportation Planning Organization), Gainesville Regional Transit System, the University of Florida, the not-for-profit SantaFe HealthCare DRI (Development of Regional Impact), and Carey Graham of the City of Eugene, Oregon will present current ideas and seek input from interested citizens during this 3-day event to help shape the future development of the area north of Newberry Road between I-75 and Ft. Clarke Boulevard. The plans made should guide the future evolution of the area and create the Santa Fe Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) corridor connecting Santa Fe College and the Oaks Mall.
The charrette will be hosted at Santa Fe College in Building R - Room R-01 on December 11th, 12th, and 13th from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. A copy of the daily schedule is attached in a PDF format. Interested citizens are welcome and in fact are being sought to help shape future development plans for this are.
Here is the schedule of events, in pdf format.
I will not be able to attend this, except for a little bit on Saturday if I can sneak out of the house for an hour or so. Although I cannot actually participate, I would at least like to know who is there. These meetings are the places where your most dedicated activists show up, and those with vested interests. If you are one of them, I’d appreciate it if you could email me some details. Send them to dontwc@gmail.com.
About the Author: Don was a candidate for the Alachua County Commission in 2002, and has been actively promoting voter awareness ever since. Originally from Troy, NY, he has been living in Gainesville since 1988. Before that he lived in Gilchrist and Levy counties while commuting to Gainesville run