Community collaboration involves all private and public interests in making determinations at the local level to benefit the community.  Creativity and an expansive sense of "community" replaces advocacy and one-interest domination of planning processes.  Incorporating esthetic, environmental and community interests into the public-private dialogue allows decisions to be made in the context of smart and managed growth.

Our facilitators contact all interested parties to understand the various issues presented and to secure each party's buy-in to the collaborative process.  Once the issues have been properly scoped, the parties meet to discuss feasible goals or outcomes (in the broad sense like a park, or a school, or a mixed use development). We then design a system for addressing concerns and reaching agreement.  The system could include multi-party convenings, retaining experts, securing additional facts, forming committees to identify issues and suggest solutions and the many other facilitation tools we have at our disposal.  This work results in the development of options for the community.  Our goal is not to reach unanimity but consensus--an agreement that the parties can live with and enhances the community's quality of life.

Contact:  Dick Bayer