Planning 101
WHERE THE NEWSPAPER STANDS
Copyright © 2006, Daily Press
March 3, 2006
Lessons about citizen input from Buckroe and downtown Hampton
Change is not a linear process. Neither is planning. Lessons to that effect are evident in Hampton.
The city's approach to planning is one of its signature strengths. It goes on across the city, from Buckroe to Coliseum Central to the Kecoughtan Corridor and, in the latest incarnation, the King Street area. Under the deft hand of Planning Director Terry O'Neill and his staff, it is done the way planning should be: in the open, with lots of opportunities for residents, business operators, anyone to ask a question or voice a suggestion or critique a proposal.
Carrying that off is no small feat, because citizen participation can be a slow, messy, contentious way to go about planning. But it's the best way. The fact that no matter how deep the slog becomes along the way, the staff is committed to the process - and never defensive - holds out hope that this city will work its way out of its doldrums.
The City Council took a step forward when it agreed last week to re-do some of the planning for Buckroe. Controversy over what to do with the vacant lots just off the waterfront park showed no signs of abating, and trying to muscle through a solution would have brought closure, but at the price of lingering civic misery. So the council was wise to decide that it's back to the drawing board to see if a compromise can be reached. It would behoove all involved to seek that common ground on the open ground, because finding and getting behind a solution is key to turning around that part of the city, for the people who love to live there and those who love to visit.
Switch to downtown, and the city seems to be learning a lesson about the strengths and pitfalls of its approach, about the expectations it creates among participants, as it tries to right a misstep. The plan that participants thought they had tucked into bed called for retail under both the apartment and condo projects that are key elements of the redevelopment. But last spring, city staff decided that it would be better to dispense with retail under the apartments and consolidate retail under the condos. (The amount that will attract new uses is further reduced by the decision that an existing downtown business, SunTrust Bank, will occupy part of the space.)
At the time that staff determined that the retail component should be redistributed, it was probably not apparent that they needed to give more thought to inclusiveness and openness. They ran the change past the city's consultant and a downtown business group, and last June the City Council approved it - quietly, sitting as the Redevelopment and Housing Authority, whose sessions attract no public interest.
But when some citizens who took part in all the meetings and musings that led to the downtown master plan recently found out about the change, they were not happy. It's understandable why the change would loom large in the eyes of merchants, especially those who have hung in through downtown's down times and are looking to the plan to bring a retail resurgence. It's understandable why they'd think they should have been informed - or even asked - about the change.
There are arguments for and against reducing the retail space, for and against consolidating it. The best way to approach the issue would be to air those arguments in the open, to allow all points of view to marshal their best case - and make sure that interests other than the developer's are represented. The misstep of staff and council members was failing to anticipate the extent to which people who helped birth a plan would want to be involved in its unfolding, and be dismayed if the end product didn't look like the baby picture they'd taken. That sense of citizen ownership is at once the advantage and the disadvantage of inclusive planning.
More eyes than those in downtown or Buckroe are watching these developments. People who devoted time and caring to plans for other parts of the city, or who will when invited to do so in the future, will reach conclusions about whether their contributions will be respected, or altered in ways that will distress them when implementation time comes.
Hampton has invested much in its approach to planning. Sticking to that process, even when it gets messy and cumbersome, will serve the city well.
Copyright (c) 2006, Daily Press
