TY - JOUR
T1 - Using master planning expert panels to achieve planning objectives
AU - Peiser, Richard
AU - Nelson, Arthur C.
N1 - Funding Information:
A variation on R/UDATs called HOME (Housing Opportunity Management Effort) was convened in Washington, DC in the early 1990s to address housing problems. An eleven-member task force sponsored by the Washington, DC AIA and the Washington Architectural Forum spent four days addressing DC’s housing crisis. The National Housing Assistance Team of DC HOME is modeled on the AIA’s R/UDAT process, which has been used successfully in 110 communities over the past 24 years. Unlike R/UDATs, which propose specific improvements in urban neighborhoods, the new housing initiative aims to involve architects in city-wide policy making. For the DC workshops, the AIA orchestrated a mix of organizations and disciplines; architects joined bankers, developers, and housing advocates in devising housing policy recom- mendations. Plans are under way to replicate the DC experience in communities across the country (Dietsch 1991, 13).
Funding Information:
ter relief, historic preservation, or development for special populations. A typical five-day panel costs $80,000. For the ICCB panels, the sponsor is expected to contribute $25,000. The balance is funded by the Urban Land Foundation and by grants that the ULI raises. The ULI conducted its first low-income neighborhood panel in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The panel focused on the problems of deterioration, blight, and disinvestment in a residential area near downtown. The panel’s assignment was to suggest strategies for encouraging investment and improving conditions there and along commercial corridors. The members also looked at a few sites, such as a high school and a hospital, where uncertainty about future uses in the area was beginning to affect investment decisions. The panel’s recommendations read like a textbook on urban revitalization. They call for different strategies depending on the degree of deterioration: preserving the best area, which is just beginning to show signs of deterioration; stemming the tide in those parts that are showing distinct evidence of erosion and decay, and radical redevelopment where serious blight exists. The panel recommendations reveal the benefits of having developers on the team. The strategies rely on marketplace realities that developers face in order to raise financing. The panel identifies where they believe that market forces will, and will not, generate investment. In the most blighted area, they note that there is “no real market for new development” (ULI 1993, 22). They recommend a strong community-based police presence to make the area safer, housing to assist residents with very low income, and coordinated social services including drug trreatment. They also recommend making St. Peter’s church-a beautiful area landmark-the community’s symbolic heart. The report recommends not only housing, but also traffic changes that will reduce truck traffic through the area, and improvements to the essential infrastructure. Finally, the report discusses potential sources of fi- nancing. Other panel studies supported through the low-income neighborhood program have been conducted in West Dallas, the Vermont Avenue Corridor; South Central Los Angeles (after the riots); North Lawndale in Chicago; Oklahoma City; Columbus, Ohio; and Summerhill in Atlanta. In addition to its inner-city panels, the ULI, in a joint venture with the National Association of Installation Developers, is providing advisory services to communities where Armed Forces bases are closing. To date, they have completed two such panel assignments, for Mobile, Alabama and Rantoul, Illinois. In Mobile, the Airport Authority sponsored the panel to suggest strategies for redeveloping and marketing the Brookley Complex, a former Air Force base. The panel recommended an aggressive marketing program through local real estate brokers, a control system for leases, new landscaped entrances, common signage, upgrading the main hangar, and relocating the Army Reserve port activity away from the waterfront. The Mobile Airport Authority followed the panel’s recommendations and attracted a new aircraft overhaul firm to the main hangar, bringing 400 new jobs to the area. The panel study provided “credible support for Brookley’s future development plans. A wide spectrum of the community had a sense of involvement by participating in the interview process” (Cook 1993,2).
PY - 1997
Y1 - 1997
N2 - Workshops and panels are tools that planners are using with increasing frequency to resolve planning dilemmas. Such organizations as the Urban Land Institute (ULI), the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and, recently, the American Planning Association sponsor various forms of expert panel workshops to help public and private organizations solve urban development problems. The problems range from how to apply a master plan to vacant land parcels to what to do with abandoned factories. Expert panels have been used effectively to build community consensus about public policies on land use issues and to design projects to meet the needs of special populations. A thorough review of the literature reveals that workshops as a planning tool have received little serious scholarly attention. Yet their use in ever more situations is indicative of their apparent effectiveness. This article describes the types of panels that are offered by major planning policy organizations. It then presents a new variation on the theme and describes how it was applied to the University of Dallas to help it master plan its surplus property. The competitive master planning expert panel developed for the University of Dallas has since been used in other situations; it has become an important, yet hitherto little-used form of the expert panel. The article concludes by comparing the essential features of each panel type. In the end, we call for systematic evaluation of the effectiveness of different panel types under different situations.
AB - Workshops and panels are tools that planners are using with increasing frequency to resolve planning dilemmas. Such organizations as the Urban Land Institute (ULI), the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and, recently, the American Planning Association sponsor various forms of expert panel workshops to help public and private organizations solve urban development problems. The problems range from how to apply a master plan to vacant land parcels to what to do with abandoned factories. Expert panels have been used effectively to build community consensus about public policies on land use issues and to design projects to meet the needs of special populations. A thorough review of the literature reveals that workshops as a planning tool have received little serious scholarly attention. Yet their use in ever more situations is indicative of their apparent effectiveness. This article describes the types of panels that are offered by major planning policy organizations. It then presents a new variation on the theme and describes how it was applied to the University of Dallas to help it master plan its surplus property. The competitive master planning expert panel developed for the University of Dallas has since been used in other situations; it has become an important, yet hitherto little-used form of the expert panel. The article concludes by comparing the essential features of each panel type. In the end, we call for systematic evaluation of the effectiveness of different panel types under different situations.
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U2 - 10.1080/01944369708975938
DO - 10.1080/01944369708975938
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:0031423252
SN - 0194-4363
VL - 63
SP - 439
EP - 453
JO - Journal of the American Planning Association
JF - Journal of the American Planning Association
IS - 4
ER -