SGOG Charette Only a Week Away

Tuesday, May 05, 2009 03:58 AM

Prince George, B.C. - By this time next week, there will be a design charette underway in Prince George.

The Smart Growth on the Ground team will be facilitating a design charrette to develop a future vision for a more sustainable downtown Prince George. During this time, two public workshops will be held on the evenings of May 13 and May 15, 2009 from 6:00-8:30 at the Ramada Prince George Ballroom .

These workshops will provide an opportunity for you to see results and provide input.

Smart Growth on the Ground is an innovative program designed to help BC communities create more sustainable neighbourhood plans using community-specific solutions. Prince George is the fourth partner community to participate in this process, and the first northern BC community to do so. The Prince George vision will consider climate change and neighbourhood planning issues in the downtown core. The vision derived from this process will help to inform future planning decisions in the downtown.

Since the project was launched on July 8, 2008, the SGOG team has held multiple public workshops, collecting community visions, concerns, and priorities for the downtown. The design charrette will bnring all that information together from May 12 to 15. This intensive, four-day design event will bring together a variety of voices in order to create a vision for downtown Prince George in 2035. The charrette team includes downtown business owners, residents, youth, social advocates, researchers and city staff. The vision will be shaped by previous input, including sustainability targets set by the community,and best management practices.

Two public sessions will be held during the charrette to gather input. On May 13, 2009, after two days of hard work from the charrette team, the team’s work will be made available for public review and comment. This Mid-Course Review and Public Gallery will enable the public to view results to date, and provide comments about the proposed solutions. All comments received at this at this session will be carefully considered by the charrette team and used to inform their work over the remaining two days.

The results from the charrette team – the vision for downtown Prince George in 2035 – will be unveiled at a public session on Friday, May 15, 2009.

Both public sessions will be held from 6:00 pm to 8:30 pm at the Ramada in Prince George.

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Posted on Tuesday, May 05, 2009 03:58 AM in News by 250 News

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Comments

Posted by: metalman on May 5 2009 7:07 AM

What exactly is a 'charrette'?
metalman.

Posted by: gus on May 5 2009 7:30 AM

An intense period of design activity involving parties that typically have varying interest in the issues dealt with. Often, these days, it is a very concentrated land use exercise applied to the urban landscape very much similar to the LRMP process applied to the forested landscape in BC.

Charrettes can go around the clock in a marathon session. That adds a completely different dimension to finding a solution that addresses as many different participants' points of view.

They key is that to be a charrette, it must have a defined deadline and the period of the charrette must be relatively short in terms of day(s) rather than months and years such as the LRMP process.

Posted by: lmorge on May 5 2009 9:57 AM

SOunds like something the mayor would implement...with nothing getting done in the end.

Posted by: Loki on May 5 2009 11:57 AM

using the Google search engine for the charrette, the first in the list gets to wikipedia where it is defined as:

A charrette (pronounced [shuh-ret], often Anglicized to charette and sometimes called a design charrette) consists of an intense period of design activity.
Contents
[hide]

* 1 Charrettes in general
* 2 Specific cases of charrette
* 3 Origins of the term "charrette"
* 4 External links

[edit] Charrettes in general

The word charrette may refer to any collaborative session in which a group of designers drafts a solution to a design problem. While the structure of a charrette varies, depending on the design problem and the individuals in the group, charrettes often take place in multiple sessions in which the group divides into sub-groups. Each sub-group then presents its work to the full group as material for future dialogue. Such charrettes serve as a way of quickly generating a design solution while integrating the aptitudes and interests of a diverse group of people. Compare this term with workshop.

Posted by: Loki on May 5 2009 11:58 AM

oops, sorry gus

Posted by: Rainbow on May 5 2009 3:10 PM

Smart Growth On The Ground involves anyone in the community who wants to provide input into creating a healthy and vibrant downtown. The Mayor, city councillors and city staff are not the only ones involved in this initiative.
I appreciate participating in an inclusive process such as Smart Growth On The Ground. It is far more rewarding than sitting at home in front of the computer and complaining about what's not being done in Prince George.

Posted by: gus on May 5 2009 4:04 PM

Imorge ... I think the Mayor would have approved of it since the City is paying for a portion of it.

The process was agreed to at least a year or more ago. We are the last one of 4 communities who are participating in the process.

It was implemented during the time of Colin Kinsley.

It will be a 25+ year plan, so many mayors will have a chance to apply it .... or not.

Posted by: metalman on May 5 2009 5:30 PM

Thank you, my learned colleagues gus and loki, for the illumination.
metalman.