Columbia County invited the community to bring their thoughts to bear on Foundations for the Future, the county’s project to update to its comprehensive plan.
The Project Launch Celebration, coordinated by the planning department, went from 6 to 7:30 p.m., Tuesday evening, and was comprised of an informal community workshop in a classroom in the Columbia County Library, free and open to the public.
There were no presentations or a structured agenda. Rather, attendees, greeted by planning staff, were encouraged to offer their input on the direction the county should take via a series of activities designed to draw insight, and foster engagement, from community members on various development concerns.
“‘Community,’ ‘green space,’ ‘tight knit.’ Those are kind of key words that we can draw goals and objectives from,” said Scott Sterling, division direction of Planning Services on the freeform open house event as a means for the planning department to gather information from locals about the future of the county. “We decide we want more green space, or better green space, or a tight knit community. ‘Well, what does that mean? It could mean a million different things. Here’s some things that we’ve heard through this night’s input.’”
Interactive stations were placed throughout the room, to which attendees were welcomed to freely explore. One station allowed participants to mark up a virtual map of the county through a QR code, and add input about changes they would like, or concerns they have, regarding certain areas in the county.
Another gave access to an online survey, and others urged residents to write out and upload their opinions in their own words. So that attendees would feel welcome to bring their children to the event, there was even a table prepared as a play area.
“This is intended for people to just kind of drop in and take a look at the stations at their leisure,” explained Kari Papelbon, senior planner with Houseal Lavigne—one of the Chicago-based community planning consulting firms with which Columbia County conferred for the project. “There isn’t really an order we have them… People can go wherever, get some information, have their kids go and color, play with blocks… build their own community, or give us the best thing that about their community.”
One station included an activity that let participants drop pompom balls in labeled jars, as a way for those who attended to discreetly offer demographic information.
“It’s a good way to be more approachable, but still get some of that metric sampling that’s really important,” said Abigail Rose with All Together, another Chicago consulting firm working with the county on the project. “So then someone does ask who gave this feedback, we have stuff to back it up, even for our more informal events.”
Another activity is the cloud wall, which invites passersby to write the county’s strengths and weaknesses on paper “clouds.” This is a feature of pop-up events the county is conducting, including two scheduled for Wednesday, to also draw feedback from locals.
“I think municipalities are somewhat noticing that sometimes it’s like they’re hearing same 30 or 40 or 50 voices,” said Rose. “It’s not that their voices aren’t super valid, but it’s nice to hear from others and make it more accessible, and be where people are at… So it’s a strategy to get different scales and styles of engagement.”
Planning will gather all the data accumulated from these activities and analyze them over the next six or seven months, Sterling explains, ultimately synthesizing them into a formal written document.
This report will be released to the public for further comment before being formally approved by the Board of Commissioners. Then it would be sent to the Department of Community Affairs, who would review its compliance to state law and return it to the county to adopt.
“That’s what we use on a daily basis in the in the planning department for applicants who come in,” said Sterling. “Developers who are asking about what can go where and who can do, what, what density can you do… Tell us what you want to see in this part of the community. This is our plan, this is how we’re going to get there.”
The next Foundations for the Future pop-up events will be Wednesday, at the Harlem Library, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., and at Pollard’s Corner gas station at 6007 Clarks Hill Road from 2:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Skyler Andrews is a reporter covering business for The Augusta Press. Reach him at skyler@theaugustapress.com.
