Early this year, Orange County embarked on an exciting quest to develop Orlando’s Innovation Way. Innovation Way is a project in Southeast Orange County that will link some of our most important regional assets, the University of Central Florida, the Central Florida Research Park and the Orlando International Airport. Critical to Mayor Crotty’s Planning Strategy, Innovation Way is a cornerstone project for regional growth in Central Florida, one of those projects that comes along occasionally and defines our community while also shaping our region.
Innovation Way partners sought to involve Central Florida’s citizens in determining how best to take advantage of this unique opportunity to create a community. For a traditional planning person this is easy, let's dream up a vibrant place to live, work, and play, but for a pragmatic and busy citizenry that is concerned about how we grow, this process is different. The public participated in a charrette (planning) exercise after an extensive meeting. The charrette addressed issues such as the environment, land use, transportation, design and economic development for Innovation Way. One of the big public concerns was once you come up with the holistic plan, who keeps the torch burning and makes sure implementation is achieved?
The Community Planning Collaborative Conference hosted by PlaceMatters/Orton Family Foundation and the Orange County Planning Division attempted to tackle these questions in their annual conference, which was held October 27-30, 2005, at the Sheraton World Center. The conference gathered planning experts, professionals, and citizens to discuss how to implement democracy and planning in action by using technological tools. Some panel discussions focused on how to keep the torch burning and how to implement “democratic plans” once they are developed by communities.
For the first time, Central Florida citizens got to participate in scenarios on development and growth decisions, using technology to justify their ideas for development and growth in Innovation Way and the rest of the County.
The conference participants concluded some of the final outcomes in using the planning process and technology tools were fuzzy and uncertain, but the opportunities to develop, learn, and partner technologies was evident in the creativity and ideas that were brought forward. One of the participants pondered out loud “there is a need to manage expectations because the bridges, the partnerships, this way of civic planning with technology is all so new.”
The most important outcome of the conference was that it left participants feeling hopeful because community leaders and planning experts care enough to seek public involvement for regional projects such as Innovation Way. Furthermore, the planning experts were left hopeful because they acknowledged that more fruitful opportunities are possible when using new planning technologies and yielding the power to the people to engage in planning.
All the experts agreed that civic planning efforts that are led by non-traditional agencies such as myregion.org have a better track record in leading the planning process that seeks to engage citizens and calls for planning in action and implementation.
