V. the solutions
From BeyondVoting
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A new framework for community-based planning should be structured around two simple principles:
• ensure that opportunities to participate in consensus-driven planning are available to everyone;
• ensure that the tools, resources, training, and expertise to create and implement plans are developed and are available to everyone.
Community boards and community-based organizations are excellent starting points for building a new planning framework. The structure is in place, residents have amassed enormous collective knowledge, and there are opportunities to use local networks. Yet if community boards are to plan for their large and diverse constituencies, they must be truly inclusive, representative, and accountable. Their membership needs to reflect the diverse populations that live and work in their districts. They need to work closely with community-based organizations and support plans that are designed to equitably distribute burdens and benefits citywide.
Once the framing principles have been implemented, the city must also take steps to ensure that an effective planning process is in place. The process must be created according to the following principles:
• transform city agencies into local planning partners;
• define the planning process with benchmarks and ensure outcomes;
• ensure the implementation of community-based plans.
The steps required to enact these principles are multi-dimensional, spanning the function of agencies, the roles of elected officials, the city budget process, and possibly the city Charter. The following policy, legislative, and administrative changes will provide the local planning framework for community-based planning with resources and a predictable process.
Overarching, and critical to the success of an initiative that spans many aspects of government, is the support of the mayor. The mayor’s leadership is critical and decisive in determining the budget and setting policy and priorities for the Department of City Planning and the city’s operating agencies.
A. Policy change recommendations by agency
- Community Assistance Unit (CAU)
The Community Assistance Unit, a part of the mayor’s office, is responsible for coordinating the activities of city agencies with regard to the implementation and operation of the city Charter provisions concerning community boards and district service cabinets. During the current administration, CAU has made considerable progress in improving its communication with community boards, allowing for regular meetings on issues of local concern as well as the administrative and technical needs of the boards. In conjunction with borough presidents, the CAU provides orientation and training for new community board members. This role could be made more efficient and effective. Here’s how the mayor can expand the role of the CAU:
• Direct CAU to consult with community organizers on the design of methods and materials aimed at publicizing community boards and attracting members of underrepresented groups to join boards and committees.
• Call on CAU to develop a partnership with the Department of City Planning and the Department of Education to promote community board membership and planning curricula at public schools.9
• Ensure that CAU has the ability (either internally or in partnership with local community organizers, churches, mosques, etc.) to communicate in different languages and has knowledge of and access to all community-based organizations in the district.
• Direct CAU to conduct an annual media campaign about community board membership—utilizing community-based organizations, churches, television and radio public service announcements, subway and bus advertisements, and local newspapers, including the foreign language press.
• Direct CAU to coordinate with Con Edison, the Board of Elections, the Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications, and other relevant sources to develop a comprehensive district mailing list of residents. These lists should be given to each board in electronic form and updated yearly.10
• Direct CAU to provide systematic annual training to all community board members and interested community members in government structure and process, technology and communications, planning, budgeting, and all areas of city service delivery.
• Make CAU responsible for coordinating with other city agencies and assisting in the preparation and circulation of a “tool kit” and manual to complement training.(11)
• Engage CAU in the neighborhood planning process. Assign CAU staff to monitor the planning process to ensure that relevant city agencies confer with communities as they prepare and implement plans, both 197-a and other community-based plans.
Photo: Micaéla Birmingham
High school students in Bushwick, Brooklyn, provide GIS maps via projector during meetings of Community Board 4.
- Department of City Planning (DCP)
Included in the Charter responsibilities of DCP is the duty to provide community boards “with such staff assistance and other professional and technical assistance as may be necessary to permit such boards to perform their planning duties and responsibilities….” In more recent history, this mandate has often been narrowly defined and generally assumed to be satisfied by the presence of borough office planners whose work is divided geographically.
Under the current administration, DCP has demonstrated a significant commitment to engaging the community in the beginning phases of planning. In its study of planning options for Harlem’s 125th Street corridor, DCP began the effort by establishing a 100+ member advisory committee that has been involved at every stage and has opportunity to consult directly with each involved agency. DCP worked similarly on the Sherman Creek Initiative.
This new cooperative framework, however, is not used in all communities, and may survive only as long as the current administration holds office. To permanently transfer the benefits of this cooperative framework to community-based planning and to ensure that DCP also becomes a partner in plan implementation, more fundamental changes need to be made.
Here’s how to strengthen DCP’s ability to be an effective partner in community-based planning:
• Explore strategies that would enable community boards to benefit fully from the Charter provision for professional planning assistance such as expanding the role of DCP’s borough offices to establish a more formalized partnership between boards and DCP staff assigned to work with them; and ensuring that borough office staff are assigned to a manageable number of community districts to facilitate sufficient direct assistance.
• The agency’s recently released report, “The Newest New Yorkers 2000,” is a valuable analysis of the distribution, demographics, and socioeconomic characteristics of New York City’s foreign-born population that will be an asset to planners at both the citywide and community level. Study results (in tabular and map form), indicating trends in foreign-born population by community district, should be distributed to all community boards.
• The city should consider community plans as building blocks for the development of citywide plans and strategies. DCP, in particular, should advocate for the integration of community plans with broader city policies and budget priorities, the Strategic Plan, the Consolidated Plan and other planning initiatives.
• Community boards should be included in pre-certification meetings with ULURP applicants in select instances to assess the new development proposal’s adherence to the 197-a plan.
• DCP and the Department of Buildings should notify the community board whenever any new large-scale development (over 10,000 square feet, for example) is proposed, even as-of-right projects.
- Department of Information Technology and Telecommunication (DOITT)
DOITT staff has the responsibility of making sure that the city uses existing and new technologies effectively. DOITT is also responsible for the 311 system. Here are ways in which DOITT can become a more effective planning partner:
• DOITT should conduct a needs assessment of a representative sampling of community boards in each borough to examine their technical needs and priorities. In doing so, DOITT could gain insights from and update the 2003 survey by the City Council Committee on Technology in Government on the technological capacity of community boards.(12)
• DOITT should provide IT staff to assist boards with evaluation, selection and operation of computers, communications technology and software (such as operating systems, word processing, GIS and database programs).
• DOITT should provide a standard web address to all community boards that utilizes the nyc.gov naming convention. A website template and hosting services should be made available for community boards unable to host their own websites.
• New intranet and internet applications offered by DOITT to community boards and the public should be tested in focus groups and research and development sessions with users and other community members before their implementation.
• DOITT should work with DCP to expand functionality of DOITT’s Map Portal to allow for online queries and layering of planning-related GIS data such as existing and proposed zoning areas and PLUTO (Primary Land Use Tax Lot Output) data.
• DOITT should continue its dialogue with community boards and the City Council Committee on Technology in Government to develop a plan and timeline for providing boards relevant 311 data geocoded by cross street (in a manner that does not compromise the identity of callers).
• DOITT should partner with non-profit organizations, vendors, and educational institutions that currently provide IT training and support to community-based organizations to develop a standardized, comprehensive technology training program and/or handbook for use by community boards and other community-based organizations.
- Office of Management and Budget (OMB)
The OMB prepares the Mayor’s Preliminary and Executive Budgets and advises the mayor on the efficiency of city services. The OMB maintains an Office of Community Board Relations, which provides minimal annual training to new board members and additional training upon request. The OMB is generally responsible for assisting community boards throughout the budget year in the preparation of budgets, budget consultations with city agencies, public hearings on budgets, community board comments on the Mayor’s Preliminary and Executive Budgets, and preparation of capital and expense requests.
While there are many opportunities for boards to comment on how the city’s funds are spent, there is little opportunity for the public to decide how city funds are spent in their districts. The boards’ role is advisory only. The link between the city’s expenditures and the community districts’ needs is vague, and there is little accountability aside from the annual borough budget consultations. Boards’ roles can be strengthened by using 197-a plans as officially-recognized blueprints to guide the prioritization of budget items. A more definitive link among 197-a recommendations, capital and expense requests, the boards’ annual District Needs Statement, and the Mayor’s Budgets will demystify the complex budget process and allow greater access for people who want to be involved.
Here’s how OMB’s relationship to community boards can be transformed:
• Provide complete and accurate budget information to community boards by sharing all studies, evaluations, and analyses relevant to budget items under discussion with community boards.
• Provide training and support in drafting budgets for 197-a plans.
• Analyze agency budgets for compliance with 197-a recommendations.
• Monitor boards’ budget requests throughout the city’s budget process.
B. Policy Change by Elected Officials
- Borough Presidents (BP)
The borough president is responsible for assuring that there is adequate representation on community boards from the different neighborhoods within each community district. The BP must assess whether each board’s composition accurately reflects all groups within the district. Community boards, civic groups, and other community groups and neighborhood associations may submit nominations to the borough president and to council members for consideration. The BPs play a critical role because they ultimately appoint all the board members and generally have close ties with the boards. BPs also have a natural connection to planning in that they are obliged by the Charter to maintain planning offices. There is much that BPs can do to overcome the current challenges to community-based planning:
• Submit a standardized annual report to the public advocate documenting the applications received for each board in his or her borough, the number of available seats on each board, and a profile of the composition of each community board.
• In coordination with City Council members, the DCP, and the CAU, demonstrate in an annual report that community boards accurately represent community districts. If representation is lacking, there should be a detailed description of the plan to rectify this deficiency. Oversight and accountability should rest with the public advocate.
• Working with CAU, study each community board to determine ways to increase participation in planning efforts and community board meetings. Explore whether provision of child care, transportation, meals, and varying meeting times and locations would encourage participation.
• Appoint people who are committed to community-based planning and neighborhood-level, proactive involvement in land use decisions.
• Require, monitor, and document committee attendance within all boards. Consider committee attendance (in addition to general meeting attendance) as a requirement for reappointment.
• BP planning offices, like DCP borough offices, are often already partners with community boards, supplying maps, data, information, land use training, and technical assistance to community planning efforts. BP offices can be expanded and formalized into technical assistance and training centers, dependent on sufficient funding and staffing.
• Make BP capital projects consistent with 197-a plans.
• Promote community board activities in newsletters and websites.
- City Council Actions/Legislation
The role of the council in making the city’s laws, approving the city’s budget, and deciding on land use issues means that it can make enormous contributions to the effort to make community-based planning part of city policy. Here are steps that the council could take now:
• Approve only those candidates for city agency appointments who support community-based planning and commit themselves to sharing information and partnering with communities. This is important not just for the City Planning Commissioner and Commission and Board of Standards and Appeals appointees, but for all departments and public corporations and authorities, especially Parks, Sanitation, Transportation, Housing Preservation and Development, and the Economic Development Corporation.
• Provide oversight of city support for community-based planning and the 197-a process. The City Council’s Land Use Committee (or other committees, as appropriate) should hold oversight hearings to assess the current status of community–based plans and the planning process, and to give the public an opportunity to provide input.
• Require DCP to provide regular reports on relevant planning issues and the status of local plans.
• Conduct regular oversight hearings to monitor city agency responsiveness to community needs and enforcement of regulations.
• Track community plans and their recommendations and support their implementation through funding. When preparing the capital and expense budgets, include items from community plans. Based on an equitable distribution, commit funding for implementation through the city’s capital and expense budget process.13
• Promote community board activities in newsletters and websites.
• Guarantee that community plans are considered when the council takes land use actions. For all decisions, the Council should consider recommendations from community plans as public input in decision-making and should ensure that proposed projects are consistent with 197-a as well as other community plans.
• Devote a percentage of application fees (ULURP, variance requests, etc.) for an “intervenor” fund that would enable the community to access the information and expertise necessary to make an informed review.(14)
• Propose legislation and policy that respond to city-wide concerns addressed in community-based plans.(15)
• Revise the city’s rules for 197-a plans to require that the planning process be inclusive and reflect diversity within the community.
C. Mayoral Directive
In the many cities where community-based planning has been adopted as official policy, the city executive played a crucial role in reinventing government culture to make agency staff more responsive to working with communities, addressing community needs, and engaging communities as planning partners. Within New York’s “strong mayor” system, mayoral action is vital to the creation of a new approach to planning.
• Working with an advisory board of community-based groups and community boards, a task force from the Mayor’s Office should devise and implement standards and measures for the appointment of community board members throughout the five boroughs. Appointment criteria should be documented and publicized on the city’s website and community board websites and updated every two years. This advisory board should also develop a standardized application form, and maintain a composite profile of every community board in the city. The advisory board should have input from the Department of City Planning and the Office of Immigrant Affairs.
• Direct the chair of the City Planning Commission, the chair of the Board of Standards and Appeals, and the commissioner of the Community Assistance Unit, in consultation with commissioners of other agencies, to set a primary role for community-based planning and plans.
• Commit to working with community boards and organizations to create a plan for every community district in the city within five years.
• Sufficiently fund community boards to enable them to fulfill their Charter-mandated responsibilities.
• Explore ways to ensure that the 311 system relieves district office staff of day-to-day service delivery work and allows them to refocus on district planning.
Section Notes:
(9) The model for such a partnership already exists—the Academy of Urban Planning in Bushwick, Brooklyn, for example, operates a program in which interns provide technology assistance at community board meetings.
(10) This should also include an intensive local effort to contact residents who are not registered voters and who are not themselves on record with utility companies.
(11) A community-based planning “tool kit” should include curricula for land use training and GIS training, an up-to-date zoning guide, how-to guides on using tools and programs for neighborhood economic development and housing, a how-to guide for conducting visioning workshops and charrettes in diverse communities, and a directory of sources for assistance with community-based planning.
(12) For more information on the City Council survey, see Technology in Government Survey No. 1. “Technology Capacity at New York City’s Community Boards,” March 2003, The Select Committee on Technology in Government. Hon. Gale. A. Brewer, Chair.
(13) New York should consider making certain that at least 1 percent of the city’s annual capital and expense budget allocations go toward expenditures identified in the recommendations of community-based plans.
(14) New York State Article X siting guidelines for power-generating facilities includes a provision that part of an applicant’s filing fee is distributed to community groups for their use to fund an independent analysis of the proposal.
(15) Many communities share common burdens such as solid waste facilities and power plants. Research by the MAS Planning Center from 2001-2004 has shown several common themes in community-based plans such as a need for open space, affordable housing, and economic development and concerns about transportation facilities and services.
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