Public Participation

Early public participation in this project was part the development of the Storefront Design Guidelines.

This document was completed in 2006 as part of the Windjammer program in cooperation with Harborside stakeholders, including: City staff; consultant; and, the Harborside Shops Association Streetscape Committee (see list of participants on inside cover of Storefront Design Guidelines document).

Public Participation

The rules that govern new development have a significant impact on our city's livability. Therefore, I sent out letters to all the business owners, and property owners in the project area seeking input from those that have a more immediate connectionto the Harborside District.

Expect for two or three telephone calls and a couple of in person chats about the scope of the project, there have been no formal comments on this project forwarded to date.

Translating Windjammer Guidelines

The backbone of this update of the Design Regulations will be the Storefront Design Guidelines published in October 2006 and Streetscape Furnishing Specs draft report. These documents compile the results of work done as part of the City's Windjammer Project and illustrate the main components of the streetscape that affect the character of this district. The documents contains numerous detailed recommendations that help define critical streetscape issues and actions that could improve the sense of place for the area.

The work to develop the recommendations in this document came from a series of cooperative workshops with the City, and the Harborside Shops Association Streetscape Committee.

Why not just adopt the Storefront Design Guidelines? There are two main reasons why simple adoption of these, as they are, is not appropriate:

1. many of the guidelines are too specific (a particular building, solution, or site) to be effective and fair as regulations for the entire area;
2. the guidelines are not written in a way that they can be used to review applications in a consistent and effective way.

Essentially this project will allow us to take one last look at both documents, and translate the many great ideas, and important work contained in them, into regulations that are consistent, fair and effective.

Design Regulations

The rules defined in the Design Regulations & Guidelines document help direct the look and function of new development in our city.

These rules have been created to meet the community's long term goals defined in the Comprehensive Plan.

The rules require design that is human scaled, people oriented, neighborhood appropriate, builds on our community's history and addresses the street and public areas.

Welcome

With this blog I am inviting you to participate in the City's project to update our Design Regulations. This update will focus on specific design provisions for the historic downtown district.

As with the other project blogs, I am using this site as a central location or framework for community participation and communication, and have included many of the same features.

In addition to this blog, small group round table discussions, coffee house meetings, and other methods will again be used to create an open dialog during this project (in addition to standard meeting and notice practices). Check back here regularly to find:

• up-to-date information;
• report videos;
• monthly poll questions;
• discussion items;
• meeting schedules; and
• a variety of supporting documents and web links.