Creating KeepSpace Communities in Rhode Island

Tags:

CBI Practitioners:

Kate Harvey

Clients:


CBI is working on a holistic approach to community planning and development with residents, local businesses, non-profit organizations, and municipal and state agencies in three Rhode Island communities.


Case Background
Initiated by Rhode Island Housing, a quasi-public agency that focuses on critical housing issues in the state, KeepSpace is a new approach to planning for and directing investment that supports communities where neighbors meet, people work, and children play. In 2009, CBI, with project partners Horsley Witten Group and Dodson Associates, was selected by Rhode Island Housing to lead a public engagement strategy for KeepSpace’s pilot communities in Olyneville, Pawtucket/Central Falls, and Westerly. The team, led by the Horsley Witten Group, was tasked with designing and implementing an innovative public engagement approach that would support information exchange and collaboration on community development issues among a range of interested stakeholders from the state to the community level.


The CBI Approach
By facilitating dialogue between people with diverse interests, responsibilities, and perspectives, community stakeholders can build a common understanding of the challenges, opportunities, priorities, and resources at play in each community. With this common understanding, stakeholders are then able to identify synergies and leverage resources to achieve shared community development goals.

The Horsley Witten-CBI team worked with local project partners in each community to convene participants representing diverse community interests into Working Groups that are responsible for generating community development strategies and project ideas. Working Group participants in Olneyville, Pawtucket/Central Falls, and Westerly, met between six and eight times over a six month period to brainstorm ideas for improving quality of life, leveraging resources, and breaking through agency silos to facilitate positive change in their communities. Each meeting was organized around one of the KeepSpace elements:

  • A Good Home;
  • Sensible Infrastructure;
  • Strong Commerce;
  • Health Environment;
  • Integrated Arts, Recreation, Culture, and Religion;
  • Positive Community Impact.

Each meeting included presentations of existing conditions and complementary or ongoing efforts, and facilitated small group brainstorming sessions. Ideas ranged from specific strategies, such as creating an information exchange network for youth services organizations, to longer-term planning initiatives, such as building agreement around a strategy for reactivating foreclosed properties if/when funding becomes available.

With a list of potential ideas, the Horsley Witten-CBI team worked with local project partners to further refine, test, and prioritize ideas. This whittling process included reaching out to residents, community leaders, and other consultants to get input on the feasibility and priority of certain ideas. With a smaller list of project ideas, Working Group participants were divided into subcommittees and tasked with advancing the implementation of project ideas. Subcommittees will continue their work through Spring 2010.

Outcomes
The final product will take the form of specific projects which will be summarized in Comprehensive Community Design plans and will include concrete implementation plans.


For more information visit: www.keepspace.org or contact Kate Harvey.