Dynamic Engagement - Securing rapid approvals
We, or more precisely, a Village Organising Company (VOC) working with our future Villagers through the Village Forum, propose to secure all approvals from the local government in 12 weeks. Yes, it is possible. It requires clarity, efficiency and commitment by elected officials. Permit us to explain:
Normally, it takes months or years to secure approvals for a major subdivision. On examination, one finds about 95% of the elapsed time is either down time (nothing is happening - documents are in the queue) or circular time (an item has been returned to the applicant for an answer). When it is being reviewed, more time is lost due to the inherently conflicting goals of the applicant vs the local government. The applicant is seen as motivated by pecuniary interest; the local government views their job as protecting the public interest. Because the typical subdivision application is broad-brush, the local government expends time looking for loopholes with externalised costs.
In Dynamic Engagement, we approach it differently to eliminate down & circular time by developing a site-specific plan with the officials in the room in which "What You See Is What You Get".
Engagement - The VillageTown is a 10,000 population community, it refers to 21 villages clustered together, where each 500 person/200 home neighbourhood forms a community that has the feeling of a small village. When the land has been identified, the Village Organising Company (VOC) sets out the village wall that forms the boundary between urban and greenbelt. It then sets out the 21 villages, the plaza location and the connecting roads in consensus with the local government, as well as addressing all the utilities and infrastructure issues. It is now ready for the villagers.
A scale model (100:1 works best) is set up, divided like a jigsaw puzzle into the 21 cluster-villages. The villagers who will live in that village then physically, or via the internet, participate in a dynamic engagement exercise in which they actually set out what goes where, including their own home. The first stop is at the model maker, who makes a scale model of the home (& workplace) for each villager. This is important, so the home-owner can appreciate views, sunlight and liveliness of the street they will live on. The villagers will also discuss the look and feel of their cluster-village & its plaza. Much dialogue will have occurred during enrolment, where villagers selected a particular theme; but at this time, they articulate that in terms that architects & designers can reduce to plans. This involves shape, scale, ornament, colour and details as well as types of cafés & shops, smells & sounds and what kind of artist guild hall. The architects, designers, engineers and other professionals will be in the room actively advising throughout this process. A sign at the door will say "leave egos here", reminding the professionals that the villagers must live with the results, and the professionals are there not as artists to impress their peers but as advisors to help the villagers create a wonderful and beautiful place to live.
On whiteboards in the room, magnetic, business-card sized pattern cards will provide assistance to the villagers and their advisors. The first patterns come from Christopher Alexander's A Pattern Language and additional patterns will emerge as the process gets underway. Please see pages 152-3 of How to Build a Village for details on pattern cards.
In the room, but at arms-length, stand the local government planners who will approve the final design. The policy makers at the local government will have already approved in principle the overall Village... for example, 500 acres of land with 25% village, 65% greenbelt and 10% industrial park, freight depot & motorpool. Maximum building limits, such as 2-3 story in 20 clusters and 4 story around the village central plaza, will also have been set. Within these broad parameters however, come the details, and the approving planners will make judgement calls on each detail as it is laid out. Instead of posting back a proposed plan for revision by the applicant, a dialogue will dynamically occur and the issue resolved in minutes. At the end, when everything is set in place, the government planners then do a final review, to assure no cumulative adverse effects.
Reduction - The locked 3D plan is then rendered into standard paperwork seeking zoning changes, subdivision and master plan consents. At this time, if any of the work is rejected by the officials, they would have some explaining to do, and should be under considerable pressure. The intent is to avoid the sort of situation where one set of officials approve something and then another set get involved and change the basis of evaluation. No shifting the goal post.
Construction Consent - If 4,000 plus construction consents were submitted, just examining them might take years. The VOC will propose about 25 master building plans will be developed from which almost all of the homes and workplaces will be built. They will use a min-max basis where engineer-approved variations are included in the plan, so for example, window size and placement can be varied without requiring an amendment to the building plan. The structural element of all buildings are expected to use a single bulk material - Variable Density Concrete, thus the number of variables used in construction will be simplified... for example, there will be no separate insulation specifications because the concrete inherently meets or exceeds the insulation code.
Conclusion - Leading up to the development of this Dynamic Engagement system, considerable consultation was done with local government planners, elected officials, architects, engineers, private planners, developers and builders to identify the most effective way rapidly to get through the permit and design process and still produce an outstanding result. We do expect the first few Villages to have unexpected issues arising, and people will be trained to use lateral thinking and an open mind to work out the best methods. We expect the local government planners will have to be assigned full-time to the dynamic engagement process, with no other distractions, for which the VOC will probably have to pay. If the existing planning staff is over-committed, it may require the local government bring in contract-planners, again seeking compensation from the VOC. We do believe Dynamic Engagement will work, and we expect that it will change the way development applications are processed.
