Arch Bridge/Bolton Concept Plan wins award for public involvement

Arch Bridge

The Oregon Chapter of the American Planning Association has announced the winners of its annual Planning Award program, which recognizes individuals and projects that have made a significant contribution to urban planning in Oregon. 

West Linn received the award for Public Involvement and Participation for its Arch Bridge-Bolton Concept Plan. The plan was an effort to create a vision for an underutilized area that once served as the historic heart of the city.

At the beginning of the planning process, the West Linn City Council identified public engagement and participation as the key component to developing a plan that they could, and did, adopt with confidence and with community support.

“To me, including the community from the start was important. We wanted this to be a plan the entire community would support,” Council President Thomas Frank said. “I’ve never seen this level of community involvement in a project in West Linn.  I believe the time and effort we put into working with the community on this project resulted in a superior plan.”

In December 2014, the city council unanimously approved the concept plan, which established a vision and a strategy for the area of West Linn near the Willamette Falls. However, the planning process was not without its obstacles. The plan area contains two distinctly different parts, one more mature and developed than the other, which made public involvement and participation important and challenging.

The city used a variety of outreach methods to educate the 25,000 residents about the history of the area and the potential to revitalize it. These activities got the community interested, engaged and invested in the process. A mix of traditional and contemporary public participation methods were employed over the course of a year.

They included:

  • Volunteer advisory committee of 18
  • Three-day storefront studio
  • Online survey
  • Two walking tours of the plan area
  • School outreach
  • Postcards
  • Updates in weekly email newsletters
  • Updates in monthly newsletters in utility bills
  • Updates on city councilors’ newsletters
  • Regular updates presented at meetings of the city council and planning commission
  • Online open house
  • Open house
  • Name the Neighborhood contest
  • #bitesizehistory campaign on Facebook
  • YouTube
  • Developers Roundtable
  • News articles
  • Project pages on the website – westlinnoregon.gov/archbridge

Social media was used throughout the project to ask questions, give information, and
provide information on meetings, events and milestones. All of these outreach mechanisms
led to increased involvement, and ultimately, effective participation that allowed different
segments of the community to influence the final plan.

“The level of public involvement and participation in this project was continuous from the very beginning. The city used innumerable tools to get citizen input on the study. I dare say I have never seen a more extensive and intensive outreach for citizen involvement,” Arch Bridge/Bolton Advisory Committee member Jim Mattis wrote in a letter of support to OAPA.

The city’s efforts were expanded several times during the process to ensure the community had the necessary understanding of the planning process and the trade-offs associated with different alternatives. A number of meetings were added once the written vision was transforming into a design the community could see, respond to, and adjust as necessary.

These extra meetings were also important to ensure understanding of the implementation actions and allow the community to weigh in on capital improvements and the anticipated costs to bring the vision to reality. These extra meetings developed a buy-in from the community and the plan being adopted by the city council.

In the end, the variety of outreach and public participation methods allowed the city to reach an unprecedented number of community members who engaged during the project, in the manner which met their needs. Gleaning input from the community was critical to the city council during the project, so they could adopt the plan with confidence knowing the residents, business owners, property owners and all other stakeholders had been heard.

“I am pleased to see the city and our consultants receive this award from the Oregon chapter of the American Planners Associations. We all worked hard to keep the community involved every step of the way of this plan and this award recognizes that effort,” Councilor Jenni Tan said.

Award recipients will be honored at an awards ceremony held during the annual OAPA conference, Oct. 15 -16, 2015, at the Oregon Convention Center. The awards ceremony will be Friday, Oct. 16, at 11:30 a.m.