Increasing Public Participation in Rural Planning & Community Development

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This article is part of our Cyburbia series, featuring interesting conversations and perspectives from planners in the trenches on public engagement challenges they face in their daily work. Cyburbia Forums is the oldest and most active urban planning message board on the Internet.

A community planner from the “Back 40”, working on a multi-jurisdictional planning process for a small, rural community recently posed this question on Cyburbia. Planner.tk, a local design firm associate and community planner with a passion for 'saving the environment', inquires about how to drum up successful public participation in their county of less than 30,000 people. Insights and ideas came in from fellow Cyburbia members regarding useful techniques in community development as well as unique challenges faced by planners focused on rural areas.  Below are the highlights from respondents to this inquiry on Cyburbia:

Consider Consultants With A Specific Rural Area Background

Cyburbian, carroll564 provided a case study, answering, “We are a very rural (185,318 crop acres) Indiana county of 21,000. We have nearly completed our new Comprehensive Development Plan and will be updating all our zoning ordinances next. We had our APC select a group of 12, from a list of approximately 125 residents to participate on a Steering Committee. Initially they were to work with a consultant hired to draft the CDP, however the firm was from a metropolitan area and totally out of touch with our needs and concerns, so we decided (with approval from APC) to tackle the project ourselves. Unfortunately we still had to pay [...] the consultant, but ended up with a much better document and because it has already been to the public several times (through open committee meetings and public hearings) will hopefully take less time to adopt."

Start With a List of Existing Resources Within The Community

Cyburbian, Richi, agreed with carroll564 stating, “If you can find some local "experts" and if they will get involved, you just might find that you have a catalyst to get things started. Talk to some local opinion leaders. They are not necessarily the politicians, etc. You might find a pastor somewhere that has an interest, or a barber that has a lot of contact with citizens. A small business owner that interacts with a lot of people. Retired professors or teachers that have expertise in planning, environmental issues, etc often are invaluable. Start out by listing the resources the community has available. The 10 worst problems and outline the steps that will need to be taken.”        

American Planning Association (APA) Online Resources

Cyburbian, Montannie provided links to a valuable APA online resources, referencing how helpful Jennifer Evans-Cowley’s recent APA webcast on Creating Citizen Engagement in Small/Rural Communities has been. “It was great. Jennifer went through the process that she had undertaken in Harrison County for a large community planning process and it was incredibly successful. I believe the community plan is available online at OSU's planning department website as well.”

Cyburbian, rsstone also offered some insightful strategies that have worked well with some of their projects in small cities and towns in the Northeast and Rocky Mountain West:

• Issue personal invitations. “At every public meeting we run, we ask people how they heard about it and why they came. We usually find that 60-80% of people came because someone personally invited them - not because they saw a poster or read an article in the paper.”
   
• Storytelling “is a good way to start a process. Instead of asking people to jump right into a public planning process, just ask them to tell their story or talk about what they love most (or need) in their community. We've done story circles where people come together to share ideas, and also one-on-one storytelling where the stories are then produced and shared with the whole community at a celebration. The values and ideas that emerge from the stories can then be used to inform the planning process.”
   
• Involving youth and schools is key - “if you can get a class to do a project or participate in a public meeting in some way, then their parents will have to come to see them and participate too. You'll get the opinions and participation of youth, who have great ideas themselves.”

Read rsstone’s full list of strategies >>
   
Learn how other Cyburbians responded regarding public participation in  rural planning & community development >>