Providence City News: Bonnie Nickerson, Providence Tomorrow city planner

From the City News interview series...

My City: Providence Tomorrow

This week, City News catches up with city planner Bonnie Nickerson, who is also a resident of Washington Park, to get the inside track into how a community comes together to form a neighborhood.

What goes into planning a neighborhood charrette? And what role are you playing?

The citywide charrette that took place in the fall set the stage for this first of ten neighborhood charrettes, which are slated to take place over the next two years. Using the input that resulted from the citywide charrette, we updated the interim comprehensive plan, which is now available for review on our website.

In the plan, we talk about the citywide vision and identified neighborhoods that need further study. We looked at areas that are mostly stable, and those that are most likely to grow and change. From a planning standpoint, aspects like Character, Height, and Density are things that need to be addressed in the neighborhood level.

What steps have you taken to get neighbors involved?

We have a project team that is made up of people from the neighborhood. For the upcoming charrette for example, we have Fran Murphy of the Washington Park Community Center (where the charrette will be taking place), members of the City Council, and representatives from various city departments who have come together to brainstorm about outreach and to come up with an outreach plan.

In addition, there are a number of stakeholders who we rely on to give input. In this case, residents, neighborhood businesses on Broad Street, Eddy, and Allens Avenue, businesses in the Industrial Park, businesses in the Port of Providence, Johnson & Wales University (who has a campus in the neighborhood), the Parks Department (given that Roger Williams Park is located in South Elmwood), schools, families that access the community center, the Casey Family Services, and church congregations.

Every resident in the Washington Park and South Elmwood neighborhood was sent an invitation with a schedule in the mail. Posters were put up in neighborhood businesses, as well as in places like the elderly housing complex Park West, at Laundromats, - all kinds of places. Personal letters were sent to businesses and phone calls were made to organizations. Also, Casey Family Services and the Washington Park Community Center sent out invitations to people who utilize their services.

Certainly, much has been done to get the word out.

Yes. One of the special outreach activities we’ll be doing involves all the fifth graders at the Alan Shawn Feinstein Elementary School on Broad Street. On Friday, March 23 in the afternoon, we will be engaging in an activity with the students called “Box City.” The exercise will include a full floor-sized model of a section of Broad Street (from Miller onto their school) using different sized boxes to represent businesses, houses, etc. The students will be asked to devise a vision of what they’d like their street to look like. We’ll be talking to them about city planning and each of them will receive a certificate from the Mayor stating that they helped to plan their neighborhood.

Each student will receive an invitation to the charrette to take home and kids who bring a parent to the charrette will receive a prize.

That sounds like a great way to get the kids in the neighborhood school involved in the planning process. Why would you encourage Washington Park and South Elmwood residents to attend the upcoming charrette for their neighborhoods?

I would encourage them because they have an opportunity to discuss with their neighbors and with other people that they don’t come in to contact with every day, a vision for what they’d like their neighborhood to be, and to talk about issues that are important to them.

In turn, they get to inform us of bits and pieces that need change, that need help, places that need better pedestrian crosswalks for example, ideas on how to improve the look of the streets in their neighborhood.

The reason this is important is because we’re going to take all the input they give to develop a neighborhood plan that will help guide future city activities related to planning.

If there was one event throughout the week that people won’t want to miss, it’s the one on Saturday (3/24). There are two sessions and people can come in the morning (8:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.) or in the afternoon (1:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.). What we’re going to be doing is asking groups of people to gather around a blank map of the neighborhood. They will be give five topics to think about. With a half hour spent on each topic, using color markers and stickers, they will be given the opportunity to map out their ideal neighborhood.

The topics are:

1) Circulation (bus travel, bus stops, transit, biking ways, walking, car travel, key intersections, and parking)

2) Land Use (for example what kinds of businesses do they want to see that aren’t there now, mixed uses, etc)

3) Character (what do they want their neighborhood to look like? Building height? Density both residential and commercial. Streetscapes)

4) Neighborhood Amenities (parks, “tot lots,” other recreational opportunities)

5) What’s missing?

What do you hope to get out of the charrette?

I hope that a lot of people will come because if we get a lot of people then we know that we will get good discussions going and that we will get a lot of good input from the neighbors. If people come, it will be a real success and we expect to get better results out of it.

As a resident of Washington Park yourself, what do you like most about your neighborhood and where do you see it going in the future?

The thing I love most about it is that I can walk to Roger Williams Park. I have two dogs and I’m there almost everyday. It’s close to downtown. For me, my commute is minimal.

Washington Park is basically a waterfront neighborhood. There is a lot of opportunity to link the resident part to the waterfront. Like Save the Bay is right inside the neighborhood but right now, there’s no real link to it. To me, that’s one asset to build on.