Scenario Planning Peer Workshop Report - Vancouver, Washington
Appendix A. Small Group Breakouts and Participant Responses
This appendix includes responses compiled from small group breakout sessions that occurred during the workshop. During the first small group breakout session, workshop participants discussed Alan Matheson's presentation and its relevance to Clark County. During the second small group breakout session, participants answered and discussed five questions that explored how Clark County might get started with scenario planning.
Small Group Breakout Session #1
1) What are the top three ideas most relevant to Clark County that you learned from Envision Utah's values presentation?
Most common responses:
- Values laddering exercise.
- Community ownership of planning process.
- Identity - who are we as a region?
Other responses:
- Focusing more on common values among communities in the region.
- Mistrust of government as a challenge to scenario planning.
- What will Vancouver be when it grows up?
- Leadership is important to drive the process.
- Make sure to incorporate all members of the community, especially minority populations.
- Baseline information and the chips exercise helps bring credibility to the process.
- Each planning process will produce different results for each region.
- Need for a common vision.
- Early involvement with the community helps.
- Recognition that lifestyles in the future may be very different, especially in regards to different life stages.
- Historical roots can help guide the future.
- How will community be able to preserve land for transportation?
- Understanding that the choices made today will affect the future.
- Need to think regionally, including areas outside of Clark County.
- One choice enables the other. For example, two-thirds of the population wants to live in single-family housing and one-third wants townhomes. This works because there is not enough land to build single-family homes for the entire population.
2) What values might guide future land use and transportation planning in Clark County?
Most common responses:
- Housing and transportation choices.
- Identity.
- Safety and security.
- Economic sustainability.
Compilation of all responses:
- Housing and transportation choices.
- Security in neighborhoods but also economic and transit security.
- Access to nature.
- Preservation of rural lands.
- Community identity and its relationship to land use and transportation planning.
- Collaborative planning process.
- Travel time versus personal time.
- Economic development.
- Family values.
- Safe and secure community.
- Healthy, livable, and sustainable community.
- Community identity, including the “history of place.”
- Multimodal transportation choices will be important as we continue to grow.
- Security, especially in transportation.
- Identify. We want to be Vancouver more than we want to be a suburban Portland.
- Jobs and education: will we send children away to other places to learn and work?
- Self-sustaining region: we are looking to grow in a healthy way.
- Walking is important to young people and seniors.
- Real-time information will affect how we interact and use transportation.
- Sense of belonging.
- Food security and movement of urban food.
- Understanding where food comes from.
- Waterways and salmon are defining characteristics of this community.
- Sense of place or quality of place. There should be a mix of opportunities (e.g., jobs, housing) to attract new people and businesses.
- Local control and local involvement in decision-making.
- Although 80 percent of values across the country are common, there might be a different set of priorities within these values because Vancouver is a unique place.
- True community involvement and making sure everyone is involved.
- Work toward a common purpose.
Small Group Breakout Session #2
1) Based on what you know about scenario planning so far, what about it do you think would be most useful to Clark County and what about it might be challenging?
Why scenario planning would be useful:
- Build sense of community.
- Connect plans together and from that build new plans.
- Develop a community view of the region.
- The existing plan is static. Scenario planning allows for planning for multiple situations.
- Scenario planning can help connect rural populations to urban populations.
- Visioning process driven by the public.
- Provide an opportunity to think outside of the box.
- Developing a regional identity and celebrate history.
Challenges that might be encountered:
- Funding.
- Linking to existing plans.
- Some existing jurisdictional structures present challenges.
- May be difficult to convince the community of the importance of starting scenario planning now.
- Important to keep power in local governments.
- What qualities of leadership will want to take on scenario planning.
2) If this region were to move forward with scenario planning, who might be the core stakeholders and local champions?
Potential stakeholders could include:
- Advocates.
- Chambers of commerce.
- Churches.
- Columbia economic council and its clients and board of directors.
- Contractors.
- Banking representatives.
- Building industry.
- Business community.
- Disabled populations.
- Educational organizations.
- Environmental organizations (e.g., Sierra Club, National Audubon Society).
- Healthcare organizations or representatives.
- Historical societies.
- Labor groups.
- Land use attorneys.
- Local governments.
- Media.
- Modal groups.
- Neighborhood associations.
- Parent-teacher associations.
- Realtors.
- Regional transit agencies.
- Service clubs (e.g., Rotary).
- Sierra Club.
- State DOTs.
- Transportation and engineering consultants.
- Tribal governments and Tribal members.
- Vancouver farmers' markets.
Potential champions could include the mayor of Vancouver, city managers, business executives, chamber of commerce leaders, the president of the University of Washington-Clark County, or local staff from Washington senators' and representatives' offices.
3) How might scenario planning work within existing planning processes (e.g. regional planning)?
All responses:
- Scenario planning could fit into existing county and comprehensive plans.
- Scenario planning could fit into existing MPO long-range transportation plans.
- The scenario plan needs to be separate from other plans so that it is not overly influenced by those documents; however, there still need to be linkages. This becomes a balancing act.
- The framework plan has not been updated in 20 years. Updating the framework plan would link well with a scenario planning exercise.
- The regional economic development strategy is currently in revision and could also be linked to a scenario planning process.
4) What resources do we already have for scenario planning?
All responses:
- Capable city managers.
- City administrators and executive directors who work well together.
- Community framework plan.
- Good baseline data.
- Local planners.
- RTC.
- Port managers.
- University of Washington-Clark County.
5) How could scenario planning be successful in the current local political/social context?
All responses:
- Scenario planning could be a good way to reevaluate the community framework plan, which is due for an update.
- Using scenario planning on smaller projects can help test the process.
- It would help give community members accountability for their choices.
- We would like to include populations who have not been traditionally involved in the planning process.
- Build credibility. Participants need to believe in the process and that a plan will be implemented.
- The first step is to convince three county commissioners of the importance of the process. It is good timing to use scenario planning to help update the community framework. The Growth Management Act plan was postponed this year but will have to be completed soon.
- With financial constraints, the region needs to work together to solve problems jointly.
- Scenario planning will be more successful if there is an agreed-upon purpose.
