Neighborhood Planning - Planning Process

Planning Process

After a valid and useful information source has been established, collecting information becomes easier. Collecting information is the first step in neighborhood planning. Planners combine the information they have gathered from residents with other information they have obtained from personal observation and surveying the land. They use all of this information to create a large, more informative picture of the neighborhood.

The second step in the neighborhood planning process is making sense of the information. This entails pinpointing issues and establishing the issues of major concern. Pinpointing issues helps define the ones that take precedence if they conflict with one another.

Setting goals is the third step of neighborhood planning. This step should come easily after certain issues and problems have been discovered. The goals that are set need to represent the community and what would best suit their interests.

The fourth step in the neighborhood planning process is to come up with alternatives and select among them. This involves the planning committee coming up with different alternatives for each goal. After these alternatives are established, the committee discusses and decides which alternatives are best suited to the goals. Probably combining all alternatives in a way that benefits reaching all goals in the least loss-causing way is the best alternative.

The fifth step of neighborhood planning is to put the plan together. Now that goals and policies have been established, strategies and specific courses of action need to be defined. This involves putting all of the elements together to create a plan.

The sixth step is to figure out how to implement the plan the committee has created. This requires the planning committee to decide what actions need to take place effectively implement the plan. The committee must decide what resources are available, and how to create more available resources. This step helps decide where funding and financial stability will come from.

The seventh and final step of neighborhood planning is monitoring, evaluating, and updating your plan. While this may be the final step of neighborhood planning, it does not mean that the planning process is finished. The committee still must decide which parts of the plan work. Plans that do not work should be revised. Because the plan can always be updated and changed, the process is never finished. Planning and sustaining a functional neighborhood involves iterations of work and decision making.