Village of Greenwich Vision Planning Process

Vision Plan Components

Summary of Process

Over the summer of 2009, the Village of Greenwich contacted the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY ESF) Center for Community Design Research (CCDR) to facilitate a vision planning process. Vision planning is a participatory process in which community members work together to describe their desired future based on common values, strengths, opportunities and challenges. In the village of Greenwich the CCDR worked in partnership with the village mayor David Doonan, an advisory committee, and Kathy Dorgan, a consultant, to plan and facilitate the vision planning process. The CCDR team included landscape architecture faculty, staff and 14 graduate students in the landscape architecture program.

The Village of Greenwich's vision planning process resulted in a Vision Plan, which is comprised of a Vision Statement, Goals and Action Strategies, and a Strategic Areas diagram that illustrates how the vision can guide redevelopment within the Village. The Vision Plan was created through documentation, analysis and confirmation of community dialogue that took place during workshops held in the fall and winter of 2009 and 2010, from a survey distributed during the village's Fall Festival and from observations made by students during visits to the Village. Documentation of this information, along with summaries of workshop results and the final PowerPoint presentation are included in this binder.

During the first workshop, in early October, students facilitated activities with community members to explore their history and sense of place, the recreational and leisure activities in the village, where and how the community gathered, and the important components of the local economy. At the end of the workshop participants also completed a survey asking them how they would like to describe Greenwich ten years from now. The results from these activities and from the Fall Festival survey provided a better understanding of the Village and community members desires and concerns, and from this draft vision and goal ideas were developed.

At the beginning of the second workshop community members viewed posters with the results from the first workshop's activities, and were given the opportunity to contribute to and confirm these results. The combined results from these activities are shown in documents later in this binder. This was followed with a presentation summarizing the results from the first workshop and explaining the vision planning process.

After the presentation students facilitated an activity exploring the themes regarding the desired future for the village that came out of the previous workshop, and asking participants to prioritize them. The results from this activity led to the development of the Vision Statement. Community members then developed ideas for improvements to the village they would like to see in the next five to ten years. After brainstorming these ideas, they were shown six goal categories and were asked to match their ideas up with the appropriate category if it existed. The results from this activity led to the alteration and final development of the Vision Plan's goals. The ideas people developed during this activity, on the Fall Festival Survey and through various other activities were also used to develop Action Strategies for these goals.

During the second workshop's final activity participants reviewed and discussed Design Studies for Greenwich that students had developed. These illustrated alternative approaches to taking advantage of identified opportunities and addressing concerns that had come out during the first workshop. The components of these designs which people thought had potential, the ideas they had concerns about and the questions they raised were later documented and summarized, resulting in a series of strategic ideas and areas that should guide redevelopment decisions. These strategic ideas and areas were illustrated as a mapped diagram, presented at the final workshop and included in this binder, showing how to work with strategic areas in the village.

At the third and final workshop in early January, 2010 the CCDR presented a summary and explanation of the findings from the first two workshops, the final Vision Plan and the Strategic Areas Plan. Participants then prioritized action strategies for each goal and were given a presentation on how to move forward with these action strategies and develop action plans. In the final activity groups developed action plans for two of the highest ranked action strategies, considering why they were important, what steps would need to be taken, what resources were needed, who should be involved and whether it would be a short-term or long-term process. Those present were excited about the potential for these two strategies to be the first of many to be implemented as a result of the Vision Plan.

In addition to the Vision Plan, students developed design alternatives for the Dunbarton Mill Site. The Mill Site, one of the strategic areas for redevelopment identified by community members, is located along the Battenkill. It has been not used for manufacturing for a number of years and contains architectural and site remnants of it former use. The studies were reviewed with members of the advisory committee in January. Each of these alternatives, along with a description of the project, how they can be useful to the village and some guidelines for redevelopment derived from the studies, are located in the digital files.

Possibilities ...

Norman Mintz is an industrial and urban designer who specializes in providing solutions on matters of design, marketing and managment of downtowns, while encouraging community participation in all aspects of the downtown revitalization process. This was recorded Upstairs at OneOneOne during a presentation sponsored by the Greater Greenwich Chamber of Commerce in September 2009.

Norman Mintz from Village of Greenwich, NY on Vimeo.