Richland County’s Neighborhood Master Plan

Background

With a primary objective of establishing a new, revitalized vision for the Sandhills neighborhood, Richland County hired Foth to engage with the Pontiac community in gaining consensus as well as allowing every facet of the public to be informed and have a voice.

Approach

One of the key goals was to assist members within the community to rediscover the place in which they live and for new public and private investment to take place. To best accomplish this, a variety of assessment and engagement techniques were employed. Continual, multi-platform based communication was key to project success; from a project website, tailored public surveys, weekly social media posts, more than 10 stakeholder meetings identifying issues and opportunities, multiple multi-day charrettes providing interaction between individuals and design concepts, 360 degree videos of the project site uploaded to Youtube for real-time discussions, to several public open houses, allowing for staff recommendations to be viewed and commented on by the public.

Results

As a result, approximately 800 acres, consisting of two primary residential neighborhoods and three district business nodes, benefitted from public supported upgrades.