East 9th Street Corridor Project Policies & Procedures:

 

The ArtPlace America East 9th Street Corridor Project has processes in place to ensure that stakeholders in the Lawrence community may fully participate in the project development and to collaborate on corridor design plans and implementation.

 

The full partners in the process are:

City of Lawrence

Lawrence Arts Center

East Lawrence Neighborhood Association

Downtown Lawrence Inc.

 

The project will unfold in the following four phases:

 

Phase 1: Once the selection committee has narrowed down responses to the RFQ, the urban design team finalist will publically present past work and preliminary ideas about community engagement strategies for the 9th Street Corridor Project.  (This has happened)

 

Policies:

 

•      At the public presentation, the design team must solicit, collect, and answer questions and concerns from the audience and stakeholders as a means of demonstrating their capacity for integrating public input into their processes.

 

•      The selection committee will make a recommendation of a design team to the City Commission to begin negotiations on a contract for services.  The City Commission will make the final selection of a design team for the project.

 

•      City staff will engage the community to help form the scope of work and finalize this document detailing full participation.

 

Phase 2: The urban design team will meet with Lawrence citizens and artists, ELNA, and other community, business, and cultural organizations to develop a design for the East 9th Street Corridor.

 

Policies:

Making of the engagement process:

      The design team will collaborate with the project partners to create an inclusive engagement process with the City of Lawrence, Arts Center, ELNA, and the community at large.

Enactment of engagement process:

•    The design team will work with The City, the Arts Center, and ELNA to publish public meetings with reasonable advance notice via social media, (including a Facebook page devoted to the project,) paper and electronic newsletters to each Downtown and East Lawrence address,  (including a devoted email list-serve,) plus modes of communication by phone, post, face to face conversation, and a project mailbox/bulletin on 9th street where information will be stored and posted.

•    This process of regular and frequent communication will continue through design drafts to the final design.

•    The final design will be reviewed by ELNA, Downtown Lawrence Inc., the Lawrence Cultural Arts Commission, and the Historic Resources Commission, for recommendation to the City Commission.  The City Commission will consider the final design for approval. 

 

 

Phase 3: Construction will begin. 

 

Policies:

•    While some decisions surrounding construction may be necessitated by budget, weather, physical feasibility, and other factors beyond the control of both project leaders and stakeholders, the urban design team will communicate all changes to and adaptations of the plans approved by the community through multiple media, including postal mail, email, and public forums, etc.  Any substantial changes to the design will need to be approved by the City Commission.

•    Feedback about the ongoing construction can be received through the same channels utilized during the design process.

 

 

Phase 4: Project completion. 

 

Policies:

•    The design team will remain with the project, continuing to solicit public discussion regarding the project’s progress and success, until the 9th Street Corridor Project is complete. 

•    Throughout the process, the design team and representatives from the City of Lawrence, the Lawrence Arts Center, the East Lawrence Neighborhood Association, Downtown Lawrence, and other stakeholders will actively seek feedback and work in good faith towards a project that represents the interests of the stakeholders which best serves the Lawrence community as a whole.