July 25 th 2013

1. July 25th 2013 ACHIEVING ACTIVE COMMUNITY GOALS

2. Building Blocks of Successful Planning • Communications & Relationships • Political Support • Plans & Policies • Budgets & Codes

3. Communications & Relationships Interdependent & cannot stand alone!!!! Political Support Budgets & Codes Plans and Policies

4. To be successful you will need to take the long view to achieve results.

5. COMMUNICATION & RELATIONSHIPS • Building support for our work to Often focuses on traditional workshops and open houses. • While essential from a statutory and “due process” stand not typically effective to achieve what you want. • The overlooked key is many times personal relationships.

6. COMMUNICATION cont’d • Every community has people who are influential • Local business owners • Professionals….doctors or lawyers • Well respected retirees. • Etc….. • Can determine the success of a project. • building a relationship with them can be essential.

7. COMMUNICATION cont’d When preparing to build a relationship…. think about how your project might benefit them: • Business owner……the economic benefits • A school superintendant……academics and transportation costs • A pediatrician…….children’s health. • Parents………children’s health and safety.

8. COMMUNICATION cont’d • Technical skills are important , but success will generally come down to your ability to communicate and build relationships. • I made this transition. Right out of graduate school I thought of myself as a technical person. • I realized that without communication and relationships all my other skills were moot.

9. COMMUNICATION cont’d Good communication skills will also be key when addressing skepticism or opposition: • “Agenda 21” angst • Fiscal conservatism • Etc.

10. POLITICAL SUPPORT • The support of our elected officials is essential to succeed in our work. • They adopt the plans, codes and budgets that will create an active community. • We all deal with a variety of elected officials: • Sympathetic • Apathetic • Outright hostile

11. POLITICAL SUPPORT cont’d • Those of you with sympathetic commissions ….hurray!! that is great, it will make your task a bit easier. • For those of you with apathetic or hostile commissions…..frankly there is no simple solution…. just a lot of hard work.

12. POLITICAL SUPPORT cont’d Tips and Advice: • First and foremost: practice your communication and relationship building skills. 2. Get the facts into their hands…easy to understand, strong talking points: • Providing transportation choices • Improving safety for children • Saving taxpayers money and time • Etc.

13. POLITICAL SUPPORT cont’d • Elevate the importance of building active communities: • Letters to the editor • Visits by constituents…allies • Questions at candidate forums • Etc. • Make them look good…..give them credit for successes. 5. Don’t assume a supportive commission will remain so…..they need help to stay in office

14. PLANS & POLICIES • Growth policies, CIPs and transportation plans are an expression of a community’s desires. • Provide the legal basis for the decisions. • While statutorily required and simply a good way of making decisions, they are not a means onto themselves.

15. PLANS cont’d • process of developing a plan can become the focus versus the outcomes wanted • Easy to fixate on meetings, public comments, schedules and lose sight of what you want to achieve. • Focus on the outcomes a community wants……the process is simply to achieve this.

16. PLANS cont’d Advice: • Understand why you want to develop a plan • Focus on physical, real world outcomes • Set achievable goals, but very clear goals: • be realistic….understand the political and economic reality • your allies and governing body want to see progress

17. PLANS cont’d • Avoid complex narrative, facts and figures….you will lose people. • Brevity, clarity and conciseness • Use clear graphics and photos • Use a tone and language easily understood and appreciated • Avoid boilerplate language • Working with Consultants……you should “lead” the process

18. Budgets & Codes • Planning documents identify outcomes and steps to achieve them. • “this is where “the rubber meets the road” • For example the growth policy might say the community will: • Construct XX miles of bike lanes or XX feet of sidewalks • Amend the zoning code to promote compact, walkable development • Etc

19. Budgets cont’d • The question becomes will your governing body actually budget money to implement these steps. • Limited fiscal resources has led to an over reliance on codes and regulations or grants monies to achieve goals…..OR • No progress at All!!

20. Budgets cont’d • it important that communities balance the use of codes and public monies to create active communities. • the commitment of public funds to a project related to active communities is an incredible statement of support.

21. Budgets cont’d • A balanced approach is a statement to businesses and developers that the community will share the burden. • may make it easier to implement other projects…codes etc. • thirdly, public-private partnerships are far too often overlooked.

22. Conclusion • Does anyone have any final thoughts, comments or questions about this presentation or about how the BAC webinar series can be designed to most effective for you? • Jerry Grebenc: jerry@future-west.orgor 406-439-0283