COC Makes Front Page News

Following are two recent articles highlighting COC’s work with the City of Keizer, Oregon and the Highlands Neighborhood Association in Longview, Washington. Enjoy!

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The following article on the City of Keizer’s Community Vision appeared on the front page of the Keizertimes newspaper on July 24. It also is available online: http://www.keizertimes.com/news/results.cfm?story_no=11510.

Citizen vision is clean, green
By JASON COX
Of the Keizertimes

What do Keizerites want from their community?

According to a tentatively approved visioning statement prepared by a Portland consulting firm, desires include growing responsibly, keeping the volunteer spirit, more jobs and a green city with lots of recreational opportunities – and no new high schools.

Keizer city councilors received the report at their Monday, July 20, meeting, and asked staff to prepare a resolution formally adopting the visioning statement.

Prepared by Portland firm Cogan Owens Cogan, the report was commissioned to guide city planners and councilors through the next 20 years.

What surprised Community Development Director Nate Brown was a strongly-stated desire for more recycling opportunities and general greenery, along with a general sense that the community should become more sustainable.

“It came through pretty clear, I think, that everyone is pretty engaged with the current issues on the environment and sustainability,” Brown said.

Specifically on the environment, themes included plenty of trees and greenery, protecting groundwater sources, reserving adequate land for outdoor recreation, and encouraging recycling, energy efficiency and reducing waste.

As for growth, it’s difficult to put into specifics what Keizerites mean by keeping the “small-town character,” but Elaine Cogan of Cogan Owens Cogan said the desire is there.

“Even if we grow we want to maintain that,” Cogan said. “As you grow, and obviously you are going to grow, how do you keep that connectedness?”

“It was definitely not an ‘Oh yea, let’s grow.’” Brown said. “It was pretty divided, and I think as we have seen in previous questionnaires, people are pretty divided on the issue, and no one just wants all-out growth.”

The report shows a desire for enough land to support local economic opportunities and diverse housing options, but respondents also want well-planned mixed-use, at least in part to preserve the aforementioned “small-town character.”

Respondents also wanted lots of ways to get around, although overall support for public transit was relatively low in the survey.

In the area of business, there was a desire for “a local economy where people can live and work,” but Cogan also noted Keizer residents “Do not want to be the center of a big renaissance in economic development that’s going to bring lots of big industries here.”

In the report, Cogan cites living-wage jobs, a diverse local economy and businesses with ties and investment into the community.

Another theme was continuing the volunteer activism Keizer has become known for, including chances to celebrate the town’s history, traditions and accomplishments and providing easy access and options to participate in local government.

In the area of civic amenities, residents spoke out about wanting “high-quality parks” and “community gathering places, including an identifiable downtown area, library and community/youth center.”

The “vision” was reached via a citizens advisory committee, two public forums, an online survey, a youth forum with McNary High students and an open house at the recent Keizer Civic Center opening.

Cogan was still beaming – months after the fact – about the youth forum in particular.

“Many of them would like to live here after they grow up,” she said. “They’d like employment opportunities and retaining one high school. This was a very interesting concept.

“McNary is big and it’s going to grow … These young people are very intuitive. (They said) we like McNary the way it is because it brings everybody together in Keizer, and if we have two high schools we have two different communities.”

Cogan added that the students were “very critical of Keizer Station, frankly, because it’s for old people. There’s no places for kids to shop.”

What now?
“I wish we had more specifics in the plan, but I keep having to check myself in that the intent and purpose of a visioning statement is pretty aspirational,” Brown said. “It’s pretty much, ‘What do we want to be when we grow up?’

“From here we’ve got to develop an action plan and sit down with those values and objectives and say just that: What is it we’re going to do to accomplish this value?”

Of course the elephants in the room are these questions: Should Keizer expand its urban growth boundary? If so, by how much? And what’s the political strategy for convincing Salem as well as Marion and Polk counties?

These questions are still “a couple of years” away, Brown said. But a critical component – assessing the land left in Keizer for residential, commercial and industrial building – began with the visioning report and will continue throughout the summer.

Councilor David McKane and Craig Prins are on a regional Economic Opportunities Policy Committee, which is trying to establish a statement on industrial trends in the area and setting some general policies.

“It’s all very foundational stuff at this point,” Brown said.

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The following article on our work as Community Coach for the Highlands Neighborhood Association in Longview, Washington was posted to The Daily News Online on July 28.  It is available online: http://www.tdn.com/articles/2009/07/28/area_news/doc4a6e7c50b0d27291041938.txt

As Highlands residents brave the heat to meet new coach and brainstorm
Tuesday, July 28, 2009 6:19 PM PDT
By Amy M.E. Fischer

It was nearly 100 degrees outside, and inside the community building of the Highlands Baptist Church, it was even hotter.

But despite the heat, roughly 45 neighborhood residents of all ages packed the room for the Highlands Neighborhood Association’s ice cream social and general meeting Monday night.

With the doors propped open, box fans blowing and ice cream digesting, HNA President Janice Barrera introduced the new community coaches, Steve Faust and his supervisor Elaine Cogan, on whom the HNA has invested its hopes in showing them how to turn their blighted neighborhood around.

Cogan, of the Portland land-use planning and communications firm Cogan Owens Cogan, took the floor. In three words, how did residents want to be able to describe their neighborhood three years from now? she asked.

“Clean, more lights and trees,” said a flushed young girl planted on the carpet with her friends.

“No more broken beer bottles in people’s yards,” a woman said.

“Organized, better parks and safe,” chimed in another.

The answers flowed from the audience. “Family oriented.” “A neighborhood of choice.” “Happy.” “Community involvement.” “Less drugs, alcohol and crime.”

Cogan spoke again. “Those are the types of things we’ll be working on and more over the next three years,” she said.

Those may sound like lofty goals, but Faust and Cogan are undaunted. Between the two of them, they’ve helped dozens of neighborhoods organize and develop strategic plans. (To read about their work experience, visit www.coganowens.com and click “Our People.”)

“People have the same basic desires. It’s how they manifest them in their community,” Cogan said.

Monday, Faust and Cogan formally signed a three-year contract with the HNA, which is funding the community coach position with a $221,000 grant from the Northwest Health Foundation.

“We did our research in before putting in our proposal, and we said we think this is a neighborhood we can work with and we can help,” Faust said.

They’re encouraged by the enthusiasm of the HNA board members and the city of Longview’s support for Highlands revitalization, they said.

“Not every neighborhood has that,” Faust added.

Also, Cogan said, for a neighborhood to win such a large grant is unusual.

“It speaks to how they were able to express themselves to a funder who gets lots of requests,” she said.

In the first year of their work, Faust and Cogan plan to focus on building the internal strength of the HNA through training and strategic planning. Many details remain to be hashed out about exactly what the coaches will do from day to day. One challenge will be to work with the HNA to get other neighborhood residents interested in their community, Cogan said.

One thing she’s learned, said Cogan, who established her company in the early 1970s with her husband, is “how important certain values are to people, and you can’t get too far ahead of them.”

She and Faust were impressed by the high turnout at Monday’s meeting and are curious to know what the people do and where they come from.

“It’s a great start,” Cogan said.

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Tags:Planning, Visioning