Green Infrastructure Community Engagement
If municipalities and decisionmakers prioritize community engagement when planning for and implementing green infrastructure, communities can reap many environmental, economic, and social benefits. However, as with all kinds of infrastructure improvement, poorly planned green infrastructure can create or amplify existing issues, such as loss of neighborhood history and cultural legacy.
Encouraging meaningful community engagement and empowerment, making space for community organizations to be leaders and partners, and implementing fair planning practices can orient green infrastructure projects to best suit community needs, leading to fairer outcomes and healthy, stable communities. Ask the following questions when deciding on the scope and locations of green infrastructure investment: Who is benefiting from, impacted by, and paying for the investment?
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Engage and Empower the Community
It is a municipality's responsibility to empower affected parties to advocate for their rights and make informed decisions by providing access to information, resources, and education. Community members have the right to participate in making decisions that could impact their environment and their health. Community participation will increase the likelihood that the project meets high priority community needs, give the community a sense of ownership and pride over the project, and lead to positive green infrastructure investments.
The following are engagement best practices:
- Engage the community in every phase of decision-making and implementation, from policymaking and long-term planning to designing and installing specific green infrastructure. Make space for community members to influence project design and planning.
- Emphasize in-person contact and outreach to build trust and relationships.
- Reduce the burden to engage. Have meetings at times and in spaces that work for the community.
- Beyond communicating the specific benefits or amenities that green infrastructure can provide, try to understand what a community knows or does not know about green infrastructure, water quality issues, flooding, and other related topics.
- Consider compensating community members appropriately for their time.
Use Partnerships to Succeed
It is important to develop working relationships with a diverse mix of community organizations. To facilitate comprehensive community engagement, bring everyone to the table and collaborate as partners instead of treating community organizations as only informed stakeholders. This collaboration can improve public perceptions and support for projects because local organizations are trusted community representatives. In addition, partnerships with community organizations increase the number of informed and involved parties in green infrastructure planning, which helps safeguard the continuity of projects and ideas. Having advocacy organizations as project partners is mutually beneficial: these organizations may advocate for community needs that cannot be solved by green infrastructure but can be met by dual-purpose collaborative projects.
The following are examples of how partnerships can be used to achieve community-wide green infrastructure goals:
- Washington, D.C. 11th Street Bridge Park project. The D.C. government and local nonprofits have collaborated to create a park on abandoned piers from an old bridge that links the east and west sides of the city over the Anacostia River. The project engaged multiple community equity partners in creating its Development Plan that focuses on five strategy areas: housing, workforce development, small business enterprise, arts and culture, and health and wellness.
- Richmond 300: A Guide for Growth. This planning document for the city of Richmond, Virginia, is an example of a master plan focused on sustainability that was developed using extensive community engagement.