Charrette ends with plan for village

Melissa Maracle, Staff writer. Franklin Press (Macon County, Georgia), 2007.

This article provides a nice overview of New Urbanism, and of how charrettes were used in a Georgia town.

Charrettes

Charrettes are typically a potent combination of modern design studio and town meeting, with a dash of the teamwork from an old-fashioned barnraising mixed in. Most start with a hands-on session for citizens and continue in an around-the-clock, energetic push until a plan is finished about a week later. A charrette can be a breakthrough event that helps overcome inertia and creates a meaningful master plan. Properly executed, this technique can produce a master plan that is more useful, better understood, and more quickly produced than one formed by other methods.

Resource Link: http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/reports/pittd/charrett.htm

Charrettes in Site Design and Land Use Regulation

Dino C. La Fiandra. Maryland Bar Journal. September/October, 2006.

There is a relatively new planning and zoning tool gaining popularity in Maryland known as "charrettes." A charrette is a series of meetings involving the stakeholders and the charrette team. Contrary to traditional zoning and development principles which apply a rigid set of regulations to proposed development within a defined geographic area, charrettes use a different methodology to design a project uniquely from scratch, or almost from scratch. In Maryland and elsewhere, charrettes have been used as a catalyst to permit a departure from restrictive zoning regulations which obstruct creative development. This article examines the use of charrettes in Maryland and elsewhere as they have emerged over the past few years.

Resource Link: http://www.wtplaw.com/publication.cfm?sp=publication&id=216

Design Charrette

A charrette is an intensive, multi-disciplinary design workshop designed to facilitate open discussion between major stakeholders of a development project. A team of design experts meets with community groups, developers and neighbors over a period from three or four days to two weeks long, gathering information on the issues a community is facing.

Meaningful Public Involvement: Charrettes for Community Change

National Charrette Institute for the National Association of REALTORS.

Achieving true citizen participation in community planning is always a challenge. To address the need for a better participation process, communities and developers are turning to the "charrette," a multi-day intensive planning workshop that includes all stakeholders in a community and results in a plan that can be implemented and built. This PowerPoint presentation, which includes both slides and a script, describes what a charrette is and how it can be used to improve the planning process in your community.

Resource Link: http://www.realtor.org/sg3.nsf/pages/Charrettes

National Charrette Institute (NCI)

The National Charrette Institute (NCI) is a nonprofit educational institution. We help people build community capacity for collaboration to create healthy community plans. We teach professionals and community leaders the art and science of Dynamic Planning, a holistic, collaborative planning process that harnesses the talents and energies of all interested parties to create and support a feasible plan. And we advance the fields of community planning and public involvement through research and publications.

Resource Link: http://www.charretteinstitute.org