Speaking up for community planning at libraries and recreation centers

Two of the most common venues for holding community meetings are in town halls (or their equivalent in cities and boroughs) or large rooms provided by Town hall rooms and the open rooms of large religious institutions.  But these may not be the best places to get people engaged.

Where you have a community meeting is critical.  You want it to be in a place that's convenient and where the audiences will feel welcome and comfortable.  If you work in a community where there's widespread distrust of government  (or the community is divided along political lines), some audience members might be tense when they go into the room.  (This is especially true if a lot of your audience members go to Town Hall only to pay taxes or fines, or to complain about the government.)

Having a meeting at a religious institution has a lot of benefits. The environment encourages people to be more respectful of one another.  If community stakeholders are members of the institution, they will likely feel more comfortable there than in town halls. But people who are members of different faiths may not feel as comfortable or as welcome there.

In many communities, there are other neutral locations:

• For small group meetings, consider using the local library.  More and more, libraries are reinventing themselves as community service centers.  Besides circulating books, many libraries offer computers with Internet access (which many people need just to apply for jobs), and provide space for other information services.   
• Check out a local recreation center for larger group meetings.  These centers are often designed with large spaces for sports activities.  It's often easy to add tables and chairs.
• Local schools often have classrooms for small group sessions, large rooms for interactive sessions, and auditoriums for presentations. 
• If your budget can handle it, try using space in a local restaurant or catering hall. Because people often associate these spaces with happy events, the location can help put participants more at ease.

In any case, always check to make sure the places you consider are not controversial in the community.  (It's best to check local blogs or discussion boards, or ask neutral sources.)  If a seemingly neutral location is known to be dominated by a faction in the community that is in conflict with another, try to find a difference space.

For community outreach, where you say it can be as important as how you say it.

--Leonardo Vazquez, AICP/PP

Knowing RLUIPA more important as communities get more diverse

By Lora Lucero, 
Guest contributor


Land use regulation, property rights, and religion – a potentially volatile mix in any community. Add to the brew the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (RLUIPA) and, depending on who you talk to, there’s either an explosion or a celebration.  Some consider RLUIPA a shield to protect religious land use applicants (particularly minority religions) from the abusive, exclusionary zoning practices of local officials. Others view RLUIPA as a sword wielded by bullying applicants who want special treatment or want to avoid the land use regulatory process altogether. The truth probably rests somewhere in the middle.

RLUIPA was enacted by Congress in 2000. This year, Boulder County, Colorado has declared its intention to file a petition for certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court asking the Justices to declare the statute unconstitutional. Boulder County v. Rocky Mountain Christian Church. This will certainly be the case to watch if the Court accepts review.

RLUIPA cautions local governments not to “substantially burden” a religious land use applicant’s right to free exercise, but provides little guidance about what actions might constitute a substantial burden. Congress failed to define ‘substantial burden.’

No government shall impose or implement a land use regulation in a manner that imposes a substantial burden on the religious exercise of a person, including a religious assembly or institution, unless the government demonstrates that [the land use regulation is] in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest [and] is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest. 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc(a)(1).

Religious land use applicants have prevailed in “substantial burden” claims less than 25% of the time - pretty good odds from the local government’s perspective! The statistics, however, fail to account for two important factors: (1) the very high monetary judgments that the local government might have to pay if unsuccessful, and (2) the number of municipalities that capitulate when threatened with RLUIPA litigation to avoid the risk. In that regard, Congress stacked the deck in favor of the religious land use applicant because RLUIPA authorizes attorney fees for the prevailing land use applicant, but none for the local government when it successfully defends itself against a RLUIPA challenge.

Planners and local government officials must be informed about, and sensitive to, RLUIPA issues and proactively plan for the needs of religious land uses in their communities, just as they do for other types of development.  The RLUIPA Reader – Religious Land Uses, Zoning, and the Courts is a good, practical resource. (Michael S. Giaimo and Lora A. Lucero, eds. RLUIPA Reader – Religious Land Uses, Zoning, and the Courts, ABA and APA (2009).)

In Chapter Ten, Vivian Kahn, FAICP, shares the top ten tips for planners to remember.

           

*          Understand and appreciate RLUIPA’s scope and purpose.

*          Plan for religious land use comprehensively.

*          Audit your comprehensive plan and land use regulations.

*          Work with applicants early in the development review process.

*          Ensure that design regulations do not conflict with religious values and traditions.

*          Incorporate strong findings in the record.

*          Treat every land use applicant fairly.

*          Don’t unduly burden religious practices.

*          Provide alternate means of relief.

*          Hold practice sessions.

Lora is a city planner and land use attorney in Albuquerque, New Mexico.  She is Editor of Planning & Environmental Law and, along with Michael S. Giaimo (Robinson and Cole LLC), edited RLUIPA Reader: Religious Land Uses, Zoning, and the Courts published by the American Bar Association and American Planning Association in April 2009. 


In January 2011, Lora will be teaching “Current Trends in Land Use Law,” in the Bloustein Online Continuing Education Program.   The course provides a thorough discussion of RLUIPA and how planners and local government officials should prepare themselves to successfully address religious land use applications in their zoning regulations and development review processes.

In today's economic climate, everyone needs to be a rainmaker

Now more than ever in our lifetimes, the job security of many placebuilders depends on their being able to bring in resources.

In the private sector, infrastructure spending hasn't led to widespread bumps in job hiring.  According to the U.S. Department of Labor, there are about 21,000 fewer jobs in architectural and engineering organizations in the United States, compared to September of 2009.  In good times, technical professionals who hate marketing and networking could rely on others to bring in the money.  Today, any professional who is not overly busy doing billable work or generating it might be seen as a cost that a firm can't afford right now.

(The back office professionals -- mapmakers, researchers, and others who do little direct work with clients or communities -- are especially vulnerable.  Technology is making it possible for others to do the same work at less cost.  And that's not going to change, even when the economy fully recovers.)

To make things more difficult, the lean times are causing more competition.  In strong economies, bigger firms can afford to turn away smaller jobs, confident that something else will come around.  Now, they are chasing the smaller game.  (This is especially tough for the mid-size firms, which might not have the resources of large firms or the flexibility and low overhead costs of small ones.)

In difficult economies, many nonprofit organizations tend to struggle with increased demands for services and reduced giving by foundations and corporate entities.  Community based organizations, most of whom were created to address social issues, tend to spend more time on direct service and less time on planning.

The public sector has been a good landing spot for placebuilders who wanted to do good works without the risks and uncertainty of working in the private and nonprofit sectors.  Not anymore. Since September 2009,  around 249,000 public sector jobs have been lost, according to the Department of Labor's September 2010 jobs report.  Placebuilders are especially at risk because unlike the work of police, firefighters, teachers and road crews,  it is harder for placebuilders to show direct or immediate benefits from their work.

What if you have someone in your organization who is great at raising funds, getting contracts or retaining clients.  Those people are going to be the ones in most demand from other places.  It's a big risk to rely on just a few people for sustainability.

If you want to be seen as more valuable to your firm, organization or agency:

• Demonstrate how your work can or does generate more revenue or helps the organization retain clients. Being smart is not enough.  There might be plenty of other smart people who are willing to do your job for less money.  Talk about the value of your work, and your organization's work, to everyone who might affect it -- elected officials, civic and business leaders, potential clients. Urban planners in particular need to be promoting the value of planning.  Consider: If they don't know what you do or what value it gives them, why should they pay you to do it?
  
• Always Be Marketing.  If you're not writing proposals or meeting with potential clients, you should be looking for opportunities and being aware of trends or conditions that could pose threats or provide opportunities for your organization.
  
• If you don't have experience in marketing or business development, learn how to do this work.  It's more difficult and complex than it looks. If you think it's just putting a nice spin on what you already do, you need to learn more about this work.
  
• Offer to get more involved in marketing and business development. Work with others in your organization who are good at getting contracts and grants. But don't just copy what they do -- find ways of marketing and business development that work for you and your organization.  If you're uncomfortable asking your supervisors for this kind of work, volunteer to help raise money or write proposals for a nonprofit that you believe in.  They are likely to appreciate whatever help they can get, and you can develop experience and a track record for generating revenue.

--Leonardo Vazquez, AICP/PP

The Bloustein Online Continuing Education Program offers several classes to help you get more contracts and grants, and retain clients.  The next course in this topic is Business Development for Planners, running from November 3 to December 18, 2010. (Scholarships still available at the time of this writing.) Questions about BOCEP or the class?  Contact us

Tips for collaborative writing

Software like wikis and change-tracking features can make it easier for groups of people to work together on reports and plans.  But the software can't help with the hardest part of collaborative writing -- the human side.

Team writing is hard because even similar people have different ways of communicating information, have access to different facts (which seem to come out at the last minute) and interpret the same information differently.  Also, some people are comfortable writing in an organized, step-by-step fashion, while others do their best work in what seems to others to be a mad and maddening rush.

Here are some tips that can help you work better with your co-authors, and more importantly, keep you from wanting to grab their pens and stick it...

1. The team should decide on a way to write collaboratively. If you use a wiki - a document that allows for multiple collaborators -- or software features like 'track changes' in Microsoft Word, be sure that everyone knows how to use the tools.  If a team member is not comfortable with a type of technology, it might be easier to pick someone to take that team member's work and upload it to the team document.  Once the team has selected an approach to collaboration, every member of the team is responsible for knowing how to use the technology.
   
   
2. The team should create an electronic library of shared documents that all authors can use as a resource for their writing.  The library should include all relevant plans, reports and memos, as well as raw information (such as data tables from government sources.)  There are a number of services that offer file sharing, either free or on a monthly subscription basis.
   
   
3. Ensure that all members understand their roles and responsibilities. Members of the writing team have to know whether they are providing data for someone else to write, writing portions of the document, reviewing other people's work, or making edits themselves.
   
   
4. Make deadlines clear, and make them at least 20% longer than what the authors say they need to complete their work.  No matter how well planned the writing project is, things are going to happen.  Somebody might get sick or have a work/family emergency. Somebody is not going to get things done in time for any variety of reasons.   Another reason for extending the deadlines is that the process of drafting -- or seeing others' drafts -- helps you see new connections and gaps and create new ideas.  An extra few days can help you create a much better product.
   
   
5. The team should pick a lead author and final editor. The lead author's role is to bring everything together.  The final editor's role is to make sure the work reads as if it were written by a single person.  If only one person can fulfill both roles, plan some time for the lead author to step away from the document and come back to it with a fresh set of eyes. Editing your own work is difficult, because you tend to see what you expect to see, rather than what's there.  That's why we can find typos and grammatical errors in others' writings, and miss them in our own.
   
   
6. Unless there is a good reason to do otherwise, the lead author should make the team document available to everyone to look at while it is being drafted.  It is everyone's responsibility to read their teammates' work, and to alert the lead author to any factual errors, inconsistencies or new ideas that come from connecting the dots in others' work.
   
   
7. Everyone should respect the fact that everyone else has a different way of working.  If you're the kind of person who can write over a long period and in steps, don't get so huffy about the people who get their bursts of inspiration under the stress of a deadline.  But, if you're a last-minute writer, and others need your work to complete theirs, waiting for the spark of inspiration is not artistic -- it's rude. As with any relationship, the more everyone talks about what they need, what they like and what ticks them off, the happier they will be.
   
   
8. When it's all done, enjoy and celebrate the hard work. Even if you feel like you never want to talk to the collaborator again, go have a drink or a cup together.  Whatever it was that drove you crazy about the other person's work, it probably wasn't that big a deal.
   
   
9. If you're going to work with the same people again, talk  with them about how things can be done better.  Remember to say first what you would do differently before you ask someone else to change their ways.  If you're going to work with different people, reflect on your experiences and help your next set of teammates to work better.

--Leonardo Vazquez, AICP/PP

The Bloustein Online Continuing Education Program offers a number of courses on teamwork, writing and other aspects of professional practice.  Please see the course catalog for more on upcoming courses.