CTroyMathis
01 January 2003, 05:38 PM
Dec. 30, 2002, 6:17AM
Groups to work on a blueprint for city's future
Public asked for input in plan
By MIKE SNYDER
Copyright 2002 Houston Chronicle
A diverse group of Houstonians has launched an effort to convince candidates in next year's city elections of the need for long-range planning to guide the area's growth and development.
Leaders of the project, known as Blueprint Houston, are mindful that similar past efforts have failed to penetrate the local policy agenda. This time, they hope to generate such broad public support that candidates will have to pay attention to the document they develop, laying out a set of principles and goals.
If the effort succeeds, it could transform Houston's leadership from a top-down system, with decisions made by a centralized group, to a grass-roots model, through which policy choices bubble up from the residents, said City Councilman Gabriel Vasquez.
Vasquez, who chairs a council committee that recently heard a briefing on Blueprint Houston, said the effort will require participation from a broad group of local constituencies.
"What they're lacking is critical mass," he said. "If they can be inclusive and overcome some of the limitations of previous efforts, they can achieve critical mass. They will have planned appropriately and positioned themselves for the election."
Blueprint Houston, like a similar project begun in 1994 called Imagine Houston, is based on a growing sense that a new approach is needed to deal with the population growth expected in coming decades and its effect on such problems as transportation and air quality.
With local governments facing limited resources and aging infrastructure, "dealing with these competing circumstances will require long-term strategies and planning," says Blueprint Houston's mission statement.
Precisely what form such planning would take is uncertain. Most cities have comprehensive plans for land use and transportation, with land use regulated by zoning ordinances. In Houston, without zoning, a different model must be developed.
Leaders of the effort have devised a two-track process to produce their final document by August, when the campaign season for the November city elections begins.
Blueprint Houston, led by an ethnically and geographically diverse 42-member steering committee, will focus its efforts on the city. The group plans to produce a compendium of existing planning documents, including those from Imagine Houston, to use as a basis for future planning efforts.
The project also will seek to engage a cross-section of Houstonians in identifying local values and principles.
Meanwhile, the Center for Houston's Future, a business organization associated with the Greater Houston Partnership, will consider a range of data to determine current conditions and possible future scenarios throughout the Houston metropolitan area.
The efforts are to converge next summer, and the results will serve as the basis for the final document, to be titled "A Civic Agenda for Houston's Future."
The Center for Houston's Future plans to use a "scenario development process" to examine potential directions for the Houston area, said James D. Calaway, the center's president and chief executive officer.
This process, which involves groups of people secluding themselves in retreats for intensive work sessions, has been used to guide planning by corporations and civic groups, Calaway said.
"You're taking into account all the relevant information -- growth patterns, dreams and aspirations -- and you're just telling stories of what the future might hold if we take certain paths," he said.
Scenario development was one of the tools used to develop agreements that led to the end of racial apartheid in South Africa, Calaway said.
David Crossley, president of the Gulf Coast Institute and a founder of Blueprint Houston, said a good way to think about the purpose of its work is to ask, "In 2050, Houston will be best known for what?"
The question distills the need to set priorities among the many issues facing area leaders and to develop strategies for achieving goals consistent with those priorities, Crossley said.
In some ways, he said, the process is as important as the outcome.
"What we're trying to do," he said, "is somehow institutionalize a kind of planning culture."
Theola Petteway, a community leader in the Third Ward, southeast of downtown, said she agreed to serve on Blueprint Houston's steering committee in part because she was weary of hearing Houston portrayed as the poster child for haphazard development.
"We have such a bad reputation for being out of control down here in Houston," she said. "It's kind of a joke in some instances, the way we do business. It's important to me that we not be dissed by everybody."
Petteway said she also was drawn to the project by the prospect of making it an issue in next year's elections. This greatly increases the chance that the ideas generated will be translated into policy, she said.
Claudia Williamson, a management consultant and one of the original Blueprint Houston leaders, said the group's political strategy is still being formulated.
Williamson, who lost her bid for a citywide council seat in a runoff last year, said Blueprint Houston leaders have begun briefing public officials and likely candidates on the project.
"We want to build on the perception that this is the voice of the citizens," she said. "When I was a candidate, I was coming forth with some of these ideas. But if you've already got some kind of mass movement with a document, that's different. That's much easier to sell."
University of Houston political science professor Richard Murray said candidates will be much more likely to listen if Blueprint Houston leaders are in a position to offer campaign contributions.
"If they can come up with some money, people will pay attention to them," Murray said. "If they just stand there waving a blueprint at people, they're not going to have much luck."
Crossley said he hopes Blueprint Houston will form a political action committee, but he is uncertain whether it will have funding for campaign contributions.
Groups to work on a blueprint for city's future
Public asked for input in plan
By MIKE SNYDER
Copyright 2002 Houston Chronicle
A diverse group of Houstonians has launched an effort to convince candidates in next year's city elections of the need for long-range planning to guide the area's growth and development.
Leaders of the project, known as Blueprint Houston, are mindful that similar past efforts have failed to penetrate the local policy agenda. This time, they hope to generate such broad public support that candidates will have to pay attention to the document they develop, laying out a set of principles and goals.
If the effort succeeds, it could transform Houston's leadership from a top-down system, with decisions made by a centralized group, to a grass-roots model, through which policy choices bubble up from the residents, said City Councilman Gabriel Vasquez.
Vasquez, who chairs a council committee that recently heard a briefing on Blueprint Houston, said the effort will require participation from a broad group of local constituencies.
"What they're lacking is critical mass," he said. "If they can be inclusive and overcome some of the limitations of previous efforts, they can achieve critical mass. They will have planned appropriately and positioned themselves for the election."
Blueprint Houston, like a similar project begun in 1994 called Imagine Houston, is based on a growing sense that a new approach is needed to deal with the population growth expected in coming decades and its effect on such problems as transportation and air quality.
With local governments facing limited resources and aging infrastructure, "dealing with these competing circumstances will require long-term strategies and planning," says Blueprint Houston's mission statement.
Precisely what form such planning would take is uncertain. Most cities have comprehensive plans for land use and transportation, with land use regulated by zoning ordinances. In Houston, without zoning, a different model must be developed.
Leaders of the effort have devised a two-track process to produce their final document by August, when the campaign season for the November city elections begins.
Blueprint Houston, led by an ethnically and geographically diverse 42-member steering committee, will focus its efforts on the city. The group plans to produce a compendium of existing planning documents, including those from Imagine Houston, to use as a basis for future planning efforts.
The project also will seek to engage a cross-section of Houstonians in identifying local values and principles.
Meanwhile, the Center for Houston's Future, a business organization associated with the Greater Houston Partnership, will consider a range of data to determine current conditions and possible future scenarios throughout the Houston metropolitan area.
The efforts are to converge next summer, and the results will serve as the basis for the final document, to be titled "A Civic Agenda for Houston's Future."
The Center for Houston's Future plans to use a "scenario development process" to examine potential directions for the Houston area, said James D. Calaway, the center's president and chief executive officer.
This process, which involves groups of people secluding themselves in retreats for intensive work sessions, has been used to guide planning by corporations and civic groups, Calaway said.
"You're taking into account all the relevant information -- growth patterns, dreams and aspirations -- and you're just telling stories of what the future might hold if we take certain paths," he said.
Scenario development was one of the tools used to develop agreements that led to the end of racial apartheid in South Africa, Calaway said.
David Crossley, president of the Gulf Coast Institute and a founder of Blueprint Houston, said a good way to think about the purpose of its work is to ask, "In 2050, Houston will be best known for what?"
The question distills the need to set priorities among the many issues facing area leaders and to develop strategies for achieving goals consistent with those priorities, Crossley said.
In some ways, he said, the process is as important as the outcome.
"What we're trying to do," he said, "is somehow institutionalize a kind of planning culture."
Theola Petteway, a community leader in the Third Ward, southeast of downtown, said she agreed to serve on Blueprint Houston's steering committee in part because she was weary of hearing Houston portrayed as the poster child for haphazard development.
"We have such a bad reputation for being out of control down here in Houston," she said. "It's kind of a joke in some instances, the way we do business. It's important to me that we not be dissed by everybody."
Petteway said she also was drawn to the project by the prospect of making it an issue in next year's elections. This greatly increases the chance that the ideas generated will be translated into policy, she said.
Claudia Williamson, a management consultant and one of the original Blueprint Houston leaders, said the group's political strategy is still being formulated.
Williamson, who lost her bid for a citywide council seat in a runoff last year, said Blueprint Houston leaders have begun briefing public officials and likely candidates on the project.
"We want to build on the perception that this is the voice of the citizens," she said. "When I was a candidate, I was coming forth with some of these ideas. But if you've already got some kind of mass movement with a document, that's different. That's much easier to sell."
University of Houston political science professor Richard Murray said candidates will be much more likely to listen if Blueprint Houston leaders are in a position to offer campaign contributions.
"If they can come up with some money, people will pay attention to them," Murray said. "If they just stand there waving a blueprint at people, they're not going to have much luck."
Crossley said he hopes Blueprint Houston will form a political action committee, but he is uncertain whether it will have funding for campaign contributions.