So, Mayor Gray, good morning, everyone.

I will turn it over to you.

And then after the roll call, I will get started.

Good morning, everyone.

I think most have uh taken their seats now.

And uh welcome to this uh special joint meeting of uh Hampton City Council, Hampton City Council School Board, Hampton Economic Development Authority, Hampton Planning Commission, and the Hampton Redevelopment and Housing Authority.

Uh with that, I'm going to ask the clerk to read the call for the special meeting.

Good morning.

The purpose of this special joint meeting is to enhance the collective ability of the Hampton City Council, the Hampton School Board, the Hampton Economic Development Authority, the Hampton Planning Commission, and the Hampton Redevelopment and Housing Authority to foster new economic and housing opportunities within the city, and it will include discussion around the work of the community planning process, the roles of each of the boards in advancing community and economic development goals, and conducting a facilitated dialogue around future areas of opportunity in business and housing sectors.

Thank you.

And uh please read the uh roll call uh for Hampton City Council.

Councilman Bowman, President, Vice Mayor Brown, here Councilwoman Campbell, present, Councilwoman Fairby, present.

Councilwoman Harper, present, Councilwoman Muggler, present.

Mayor Gray.

Present.

And with that, I'm going to uh turn it over to school board chair uh Richard Mason.

Good morning, colleagues.

At this time, I'll ask Ms.

Charbonneau, will you please call the role?

Miss Safanja.

Present.

Ms.

Cherry.

Dr.

Banks Gray.

Present.

Mr.

Samuels.

Present.

Mr.

Kilgore.

Present.

Dr.

Woodhouse.

Present.

Dr.

Mason.

Present.

Let the record reflect that all board members are present with the exception of Ms.

Cherry, who is on her way.

And I'll turn it back over to you, Mr.

Mayor.

Okay.

Next is Economic Development Authority Chair Pete Peters.

Good morning.

I'll ask Teresa to call the role for the Economic Development Authority.

Mr.

Blake.

Present.

Ms.

Claiborne.

Present.

Ms.

Clark.

Present.

Mr.

Ishin.

Mr.

Pompeii.

Present.

Vice Chair Campbell.

Chair Peterson.

And next Planning Commission Chair Michael Harris.

I would like to uh the Secretary Miss Orlena Calhoun to please call the role to the Planning Commission.

Commissioner Griffith.

Present.

Vice Chair Rogers.

Present.

Commissioner Brooks.

Present.

Commissioner Coleman.

Commissioner Muggler.

Present.

Commissioner DeProfio.

Present.

Chair Harris.

Present.

All are present with the exception of Dr.

Coleman.

I'll turn it back over to the mayor.

Okay.

And next is Chairwoman Teresa Schmidt, the Housing Authority.

I'd like to ask Meredith Clark to call roll, please.

Ms.

Melvin Jones.

Present.

Mr.

Sanford.

Present.

Vice Chair Tucker.

Ms.

Wright.

Mr.

Young.

Here.

Chair Schmidt.

Okay, before we start this special meeting, I want to thank everyone who is here with us today.

Hampton City Council, City Manager Mary Bunting, Superintendent Dr.

Raymond Haynes is here along with our school board.

The Planning Commission is here, the Economic Development Authority is here, and then also the Hampton Redevelopment and Housing Authority.

And to the residents who have come here to join us today, this probably looks like a whole lot of people gathered around these tables, and it is you know, compared to our normal meetings.

But because it's uh it it what what it takes to run our city of 137,000 people, uh, and that we make sure that our operations function cleanly and efficiently.

We all have our separate and specific jobs to do, but in the big picture, we have the same goal.

Putting it simply, we are committed to investing and moving our city forward.

What we do uh and what we see is for Hampton, and we want safe neighborhoods, exceptional schools, a thriving business community, and a strong community, and a city where every resident, every family feels like a part of the Hampton community.

Those are big goals, and achieving them does not come easily.

It takes hard work every week and every uh every week of the year, and every one of the men and women that we have here today.

We have a great responsibility to the Hampton residents, and everyone at the table is asked to give and make sure that we meet our obligations and responsibility to our citizens.

We are proud to serve this city and its residents, and so once again I want to thank you all for coming.

We have important work to do today, and we'll get it done because we're all working together to do it.

So with that, I'm going to turn it over to City Manager Murray Bunting to introduce our facility facilitator for today.

I will be very brief because I know we have a very active agenda, and this is probably the largest retreat Mr.

Silver has ever done.

I told him we like to get make sure all of our key boards are in alignment on big moving the city forward issues, and that's the purpose of the retreat today.

Um I'm not going to go over his whole bio because we included his bio in some articles about his um prolific background and your agenda materials, but I do want to say real quickly that we are very lucky to have Mr.

Silver with us.

I think it's probably due to the fact that he is friends with Scott Martin, our new Fort Monroe executive director.

Um he brought him to work with the Fort Monroe Authority, and I'm a member of that.

I was very impressed.

Knew what he was saying is exactly what our council hopes to achieve, and each of the boards and commissions that we have here also want to achieve.

I thought it would be very good if we could have him come in and work with us today to share his expertise and also to get us through some exercises that might help us advance the ball.

He is a current council member of the Raleigh Council.

Um also is a practicing professor at UNC Chapel Hill, and his career has involved a variety of very key positions and planning and placemaking, including time and in a variety of cities you saw in the bio.

But we're very lucky to have him, and I'm glad to turn the retreat over to him at this time.

I think I have to turn this.

Oh, it is on.

Okay, perfect.

Well, thank you, Mayor.

Uh, thank you, Mary.

It is certainly a pleasure to be here, and yes, this is the largest retreat I've ever facilitated.

Uh, I'm glad I brought the right shoes.

Uh, so you know I'm a marathoner, and so I will certainly get my steps and work out this morning going from side to side.

So I'm very excited to be here.

Uh, I was here, uh believe it was back in April uh to do a retreat for the Fort Monroe, at least one of the speakers in their retreat.

And so I just wanted to go over the agenda for today.

Uh it'll be in two parts.

We're in the morning I'll be doing a lot of talking and presenting, and each presentation will be a discussion, and then we'll have a break.

Uh second presentation, uh, and then after that, we'll break for lunch.

When we come back, then the attention turns to you.

We'll be doing two exercises.

Uh, we'll explain it when we get to it.

I just want to let you all know I'm uh supported by my colleague Eliza Monroe.

Uh, she'll be transcribing and taking notes and help me distribute uh some of the exercises later on.

Uh so that essentially is the program for today, and I really want to keep the schedule because I want to get you out of here on time.

That's always on my commitment.

So uh I was going to do introductions.

There's a large crowd from the roll call.

I know who's here and in the room, so I'll talk about my background uh momentarily.

Uh I'll do an icebreaker because of the size.

I'll probably ask for volunteers, uh, maybe about uh 10 or 15.

I have a question just to prompt you.

Uh, and then I'll go over the expectations uh for today.

A little bit about my background.

Uh Mary said a little bit of it.

Um, I retired from early practice in June when I turned 65, but I could not stop working, and so I do advisory work in public speaking, and as was stated, I teach uh at UNC.

I'm a professor of practice, and because I want to get back to my community, I decided to run for city council, so I understand you.

I'm now worked on both sides on the staff side as plan director, but also on the city council side.

Uh I have been very blessed in my career.

Uh I was able to lead Raleigh their growth for nine plus years.

When I arrived, it was kind of a nice, you know, mid-sized city, and I was hired to help take Raleigh to be one of the leading 21st century cities in the US, and I was able to accomplish that in my term.

Served as president of the American Planning Association and the American Institute of Certified Planners.

It's an organization of planners, about 45,000 members with members in over 90 countries, and so I served in that role as well as our professional institute.

What I'm most excited about, the highlight of my career, I served as commissioner for New York City Parks, ran a very large park system, 10,000 employees, 2,000 parks.

And when I came on board, you'll see it in my presentation.

I had to figure out how to help really build a 21st century park system in New York.

And during those seven and a half years, I've completed, not planned, completed over 850 capital projects.

We were literally cutting a ribbon on a project twice a week.

We've about a hundred a year, and I'll talk about how I got to do that.

I've been very blessed, a lot of awards, and uh both in 2016 and 2023.

I was named as one of the top urbanists uh in the world, one of I think about five or six uh people of color.

So I'm very, very honored to be on that list.

So that is about me.

Um I do want to ask you a question, and because there are so many, uh, I'll ask for someone to raise their hand.

But the question is very simple.

Can you tell us your favorite place to go in Hampton and why?

Please raise your hand if not.

I'm gonna have to pick people.

Hands.

Yes.

Yes, Miss Uh Fort Monroe.

Fort Monroe.

I'd like to go to Fort Monroe.

Why?

Very peaceful, very quiet.

Very peace and quiet.

Anyone else?

Yes, sir.

James D.

Wilson Fishing here.

James, and why is that?

For the fishing, or is it something more?

It's just a relaxing atmosphere.

Outdoors.

Thank you.

Thank you.

That is two.

We need at least another thirteen.

I'm looking coming right to you, Mr.

Kilgore.

I'd say Gosnohoe Park.

Because can you say say that again?

Gosnellhoe Park.

Gosnohoe Park.

Okay, we'll get the spelling.

Enjoy walking there with my wife.

Perfect.

Yes, sir.

I would say Sandy Bottom Nature Park.

Sandy Bottom Nature Park.

And the reason?

You know, as a parks person, you'll just warm in my heart.

Okay, this is all good.

Yes, sir.

The Woodlands Golf Course.

Woodlands golf course.

Great exercise.

I'm gonna come to this side of the table.

Yes, sir.

Just echo what the vice mayor said.

Fort Monroe, green space, a quiet, but it also has a historic context to it.

Nice.

Okay.

Yes, sir.

Uh Buckrow Beach.

Buck Row Beach.

In fact, I went yesterday and just parked and looked at the water.

Perfect, beautiful, beautiful.

Yes.

Anyone else on this side?

I'm looking, looking, looking.

Yes, sir.

Oh, Brian, good to meet you in person.

Yes, nice to nice to meet you.

Um Fort Monroe as well, you know, for some of the reasons that were already mentioned, as well as uh you know, just the architecture there and the for it's just really kind of a cool place to be.

Good, good, good.

Yes.

Grandview Nature Preserve.

Grandview Nature Preserve.

Because it's a peaceful, wonderful walk.

You can take a walk as long as you want to, and you can see all kinds of wonderful wildlife birds.

Wow.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yes.

My favorite place to go is Hampton City School Board meetings because we advocate for kids.

I haven't heard that one before, but thank you.

That was good.

Uh what number are we up to?

And one about 15.

We're not at 15.

We are at 10.

10.

I need five more.

Five more.

Yes.

Paradise Ocean Club.

Paradise Ocean Club.

And the reason?

It truly is paradise.

It's truly is paradise.

Oh, yes, Mayor.

I like visiting Phoebus.

Um Phoebus.

Phoebus.

Yeah, former town, but now kind of a uh section of Hampton, but I did hear I like the street festivals, I like the uh, you know, the kind of historic uh feel of of Phoebus, uh the restaurants there, I go to the American theater, the art galleries.

I mean, it just has a little bit of everything, and I like to uh just stop in to enjoy all of it.

Perfect, yes, council member.

Good morning.

In addition to Fort Monroe and Buckrow Beach, I also love to get in a boat and ride along the shoreline.

Okay, we have we can only give you one council member, so it's right in a boat along the shoreline.

Uh yes.

I'm also going to say Buckrow Beach.

Not only is it a beautiful beach and a family beach, but it's a residential beach, which I think is very unique and unusual, and it's a great neighborhood.

Great, thank you.

We are up to 13, two more.

Okay, yes, sir.

I like the VA.

The VA.

The area is really pristine, and it has a shoreline.

Yes.

When you say the VA, so I understand.

That's what I thought.

So, in terms of the campus, it's setting.

Got it.

Okay.

And one more, we're down to the last one.

Okay.

You're like saying maybe, maybe.

Yes.

Sure.

But for me, it's I know this be different, but it's the North Phoebus Community Center because it's situated in one of our public housing developments, and I get to interact with the families.

Phoebus, Northeast Community Center.

Did you get that?

Okay.

I think we have our 15?

All right.

Well, thank you all very much.

We're gonna come back to your comments later, because as part of what we're gonna talk about, uh, is about planning, it's about placemaking, and it's about implementation strategies.

All of your regiment material, you want to do great things for this community.

And so we're gonna talk about the planning, you know, making sure we're in alignment, what certain things have to change to help you achieve that goal.

The reason I share with you about the capital projects and others, I have been so blessed that in my career I've been able to on the uh capital side probably implement 90% of the projects that I had recommended on the planning policy side, about 80%.

That didn't happen by accident, and we're gonna talk about how do we get there.

But all of you talked about places, and that's what placemaking all is about.

It's about not the land use, not the zoning, but about the experience.

It's about the experience.

And so, as we talk about this, we're gonna I'll share you in the first presentation, which I'll get to momentarily.

This whole notion about placemaking is a weird concept, it's just making a place, it's creating a destination with experiences.

And so we'll talk a little bit more about it.

Uh, but the thing is I want to share with you an approach and strategies.

It's not the right way or the only way.

I'm gonna share with you my experience of how I've been able to, in a variety of settings in New York.

I was a deputy plan director in DC and in Raleigh, and as a consultant, how we were able to implement and just share with you some strategies and some approaches, not the approach, just an approach.

Uh, I will share you examples, as I mentioned from Raleigh from New York City and other places.

Uh I really am here to help Hampton find a path forward to really create a thriving place to live, to work, to play, and to invest.

You know, I'm just gonna be here to support you any way I can.

The good news is is the way uh the contract is structured.

After I get your feedback, I'll continue to work with Mayor and her team to offer some recommendations based on my observation.

I read uh through some of your documents, uh, spoke to some staff, spoke to Mary at length, and so after hearing you and counsel and other leaders in this room, uh I will start to listen to figure out what is that best path forward uh to you.

Uh so in terms of this first presentation, what I like to call is planning with purpose.

And to me, that's very important that we have to be intentional about the way we do our work.

Uh I call it a blueprint for growth or a blueprint for change.

I like that word because sometimes some citizens don't understand plan, but a blueprint.

And when you design a blueprint, you want to follow that blueprint.

It has to be very predictable, it has to be very intentional, and so we'll go through that.

So I'm actually 10 minutes ahead of schedule.

That is good.

Uh before I begin, are there just any questions?

And if not, I will just drive jump right into the presentation.

So we're gonna talk about emerging trends, why plan, dive into this blue for growth, touch on placemaking, and then we'll have about 15 minutes for a discussion, and then after that, we'll just take a 15-minute break so you can attend to any business or phone calls, any questions before I begin.

Okay, hearing none, uh start.

First, I have to commend you.

Uh in my research, I found out that you have a uh strategic plan with seven themes, and these are great themes, and how to start to take your community forward, focusing on the economy on placemaking, so you already had it a game, living with water.

I'm just gonna stop for a second.

Uh so many places I spoke at Hampton Roads Regional Conference, and people, you know, when I was here and it was about regionalism.

I think uh I was in, I can't remember, maybe it was Virginia Beach, and everybody says, Oh, we're separated by water.

And I said, Oh, that's interesting.

I live in New York.

We're connected by water.

People say we're separated.

No, we're connected because one thing I miss about Raleigh, there's no water, there's no rivers.

I am so jealous when I go to Hampton Roads that you're surrounded by water.

We have to drive two and a half hours to get to water.

And some cities I go to, like, yeah, there's a river.

I was like, wait, wait, you don't understand.

There's something therapeutic, as people said about being on a river.

It's romantic, but it also connects you.

So some can say it separates us.

Yes, there are bridges you have to go to certain places or tunnels, but to me it connects you.

That's what you have in common.

And so I love the fact that you had living with water, it's very true.

Uh, and with the age of changing climate, there are some challenges.

You know, I worked in New York, it's a coastal city, and so I see living with water as a very, very beautiful theme.

Educated citizenry, safe and clean, excellence in government.

And so my goal is as we have this conversation, these are themes, these are focus areas, how do you deliver?

Because right now they're very aspirational.

But I also looked at a lot of your plans uh from your community plans.

I know you had one from 2011, you're now updating it as a 2040 plan, it's still in draft form.

I looked through some of the draft comments, your master plans, some are as old.

Does anybody know the oldest master plan?

I didn't put it up here, but it's on your exercise.

1998, 1998.

So we have to talk about does that continue on, or is it time to retire a plan that all, but we'll get to that.

And so I see that you're really trying.

Uh, didn't get a chance to do a tour, uh, but being in Fort Monroe and driving through, I'm impressed with the city and what you're trying to do, and I want to make sure you either go from good to great or great to greater.

So that's the conversation we're going to have.

And so, first to me, very often when people do a planning process, what they do is what do you want to see?

What do you want to see?

What do you want to see?

What do you want for the future?

That's a good question.

To me, the first question is, what problems are you trying to solve?

That should be first and foremost.

What problems are you trying to solve?

It's a very different community meeting.

When I ask someone, what would you like to see?

A supermarket, a park, those are great.

The first question is, what problems are you trying to solve?

And you'll see momentarily in Raleigh, that was a question we ask.

And as I teach my students, I always challenge them to fall in love with the problem and not the solution.

Very often we have solutions looking for a problem.

I've been in cities where they have all these potholes, and all of a sudden the community is like saying, Please help us, we need to improve quality of life, and all of a sudden bike lanes pop up.

Where did that come from?

Well, we got an ARPA grant.

But but we had community meetings, and we said, please help us with the potholes, and then a bike lane shows up, and the community is confused.

So that was a solution because we want to have transportation alternatives, and so we want to be clear on the problems we're solving.

After you have that conversation, then we can talk about the values and the aspirations.

Uh, and you'll see in a second the challenges we were going through in Raleigh, uh, and that frame the conversation is very different.

You ask someone, here's a problem, help me solve it, then what would you like to see?

Two different types of the brain, so that's one thing.

But we also had to share the emerging trends.

Now, I don't have trends specifically for the Hampton Roads, but I have national trends that you should be aware of that's most likely reflecting what's happening here.

So I often talk about the 10 critical elements that will make tomorrow's communities.

I'm not gonna go through all of them, but the ones highlighted in yellow, demographic change, blueprint for growth, placemaking, and then access to parks and other gathering places, and it seems from what you're all saying, that's near and dear to your heart.

So I'm gonna go for all of these, and then we'll have a discussion after.

The first is I always want to understand what are the emerging trends in the 21st century.

I've been using this list for about 20 years, and I keep changing it because the issues change.

And the reason why I put this up is that we have to, as decision makers, staff has to have the ability to share with you the emerging trends, and you as leaders know exactly what you need to solve.

The thing about this list is it constantly changes.

Constantly, I cannot tell you everything you see in red, some have been there, some have emerged, because we as staff need to be like stockbrokers and watching the market for these trends because it keeps changing, so you know exactly what to solve.

The graying and browning of America.

That was first reported back in uh the early 2000s.

The rise of single person households.

Don't even know if you know that.

You'll see in a second, by 2030, the predominant household in the US will be a single person, not a family.

How does that affect your housing?

How does that affect your schools?

How does that change everything?

We already know about a changing climate.

You're a coastal city.

Housing attainability and affordability, no surprise, anywhere across this country.

Divisive and destructive politics.

I have to make presentations all over this country.

I don't ever use the term DEI.

I don't acronym it because each one of those words means something special.

And right now we're having this national meltdown over this term, because some believe it's affirmative action.

No, but it's not.

We'll get into that in the presentation.

And it's causing us, has now leaked down to local level, but a lot of our conversations are challenging.

The filter has come off.

But we at local government still have to run a city.

We have to solve problems, but it's now infiltrated the work that we do.

It's a challenge.

Mental health crisis, post COVID, we're seeing what is happening, which is why I believe parks and public spaces is one of those antidotes, because everyone said, mental health, how much better I feel.

And so that's important.

Then I have no idea what's gonna happen with AI, artificial intelligence.

I just have a question mark.

But these are the trends that's gonna affect the work that you do.

So I'm gonna go through some of these changes so you have a better understanding of what's going through.

And as you do your update, I encourage you to see what is happening with these trends locally, because it affects the work that you do.

Here's the reality in the US.

More older Americans and they're living longer.

You'll see in a second why.

Regardless of what's happening, there'll still be more diversity and multiculturalism.

That's just the way it is for people who are living here now, regardless of what's happening in immigration policy.

There'll be more people with disabilities, a lot more.

Immigration policy will impact both present and future labor force issues.

We're seeing that play itself out right now.

By 2030, as I stated, the majority of households in the US will be a single person, sole person household.

And then by 2045, maybe now 2050, there'll be no majority race in the US.

The thing is, whites will be a minority.

No, they'll still be the most prevalent race, but they'll drop under 50%.

And that is what's creating a lot of anxiety across the country.

So that's kind of the big one.

We need to understand our aging population.

I have numbers about yours here in Hampton.

By 2030, one in five Americans will be over the age of 65.

One in five will have a disability.

So we have to think about how we design parks and mobility and access and benches.

So we have to change very differently about how we plan our cities.

And then life expectancy, just look at this.

In 1993, 82, I'm sorry, 76 years by 2050, because of healthy living, advances in medicine.

The average life expectancy is 82.6.

They're gonna be with us longer.

And the number of Americans over the age of 85 will triple from 5.4 million to close to 20 million Americans.

Oh, and by the way, we think about mobility.

What do we do?

When on average, this is average, 600,000 people over the age of 70 stop driving every year.

These issues we have to think about.

And you have to understand how it affects you right here in Hampton.

So this is another chart I came up with.

Uh there are generally six generations.

The greatest generation, they're 97 years and older.

If you see them, give them a hug.

In the next 10 years, 15 years, they will no longer exist.

I love the greatest generation because they call them that because they gave their today for our tomorrow.

And reverse is happening today.

We want to give the young generations tomorrow for our today.

That's why they're the greatest generation, and we have to really figure out how we're going to reset to make sure that we go back to the greatest generation and give their give our today for the next generation's tomorrow.

Because right now the answer is oh no.

They're gonna live the way I want them to live because I'm in power and I'm in charge.

And that's what we're gonna have to deal with for the at least the foreseeable future.

So here's the generations, here are the age groups, Gen Alpha is new on the scene.

Uh but what I was able to do is I wanted to do a generational cross section, understand who lives in Hampton, what's your generational profile?

In terms of your greatest, you're about 6.5.

I looked across the board, comparing it to Virginia Beach, Virginia, the US, and then Raleigh, which is a younger city.

Boomers, you're at 23.1%.

Compare it to Raleigh, a younger city, 17.5.

Gen X, 15.6, Raleigh 19.5%, Gen Y, 22%, those are your millennials.

Uh Gen Z, 26.1.

Right now, most of them are in college and younger, and then we have the alphas.

The reason I look at this is I want you to see two important numbers.

Under 40 and under 55.

In Hampton, your population under 40 is roughly 55%.

So the reason why I say it, when we have public meetings and we engage, who's showing up?

Who's talking about the future?

If you go under 55, it's 70%.

But I guarantee you, when you have public meetings, the 30% is well represented, talking about how you need to keep things the same, no change.

Can we give our today for the next generation's tomorrow?

And most cities I go to, the answer is no.

No.

And so we have to understand that 70% of the population's over 70%.

They're looking for different projects and needs and places and opportunities and jobs, and if it's not there, they walk.

So we have to look carefully when we have our public engagement meetings to make sure generationally they're represented and diversity, which I'll get to in a second.

This is hard because anytime I do a public meeting, I scan the room, and I'll tell my client, oh, got to do another public meeting.

30% of your population is over 55, but 90% of people in this meeting are over 55.

We got to make sure we hear the voices.

Everyone, we plan for all, not just who shows up at a public meeting.

Very important.

Why is this important?

Because each one of those generational groups have different values, needs, and aspirations for a place.

It changes.

And we have to understand what does a millennial look for?

What does a family look for?

What does a boomer look for?

And so we have to be able to customize those.

And so I'm gonna show you some shocking statistics so you understand a little bit deeper about what's happening.

Number one, um marriage rates.

This is from 25 to 34, their sweet spot when people get married.

Back in the night back in the 1960s, 90% of people got married.

When you get to the 2000s, it drops.

I remember I was a college campus, and this young man was talking to this lady throughout my entire presentation.

I said, young man, I said, young lady, he's not serious.

How do I know?

This chart tells me so.

He's not being serious.

Marriages have dropped.

Women are waiting longer, people deciding just to be partners.

So we're seeing this big change, and it was as if you see here, it bumped up a little bit back in 2021, but then it started to decrease again.

For whatever reason, people are prolonging getting married or not getting married at all.

That's a reality.

And so if you look at the change in families from 1960 to 2020, households with children back in 1960 was 44%.

These are US numbers.

By 2022, it dropped to 27%.

Married couples from 67 to 46.

Single persons, however, from 13, moving up to 29.

So when you plan, because we always plan families, there's families, yes, you should plan for families.

And then another group we often forget about other renters.

Because you know, they're not permanent residents or they're in the military, they're transient.

No.

We have to plan because guess what?

Those military families spend money and they go to places and they support restaurants and they support businesses.

And students, yes, they don't have as much.

Actually, they still spend a lot.

And so the whole important thing is if we understand that, and I always say this that a lot of people have this fear about renters, and I said, you know, they do pay taxes too.

What?

Yeah, through their rent.

And so we want to make sure we value homeowners and renters.

They should have a voice.

This one is shocking.

Look at the fragile families of unwed births.

Back in 1960, only 5.3% were unwed by 2020, dropped uh after 2009 by 2022.

40 percent.

40 percent of all children are born to unwed mothers.

And more than half, half half of the mothers under 30 are single.

That's who you're planning for in schools, in parks.

This is the change that we're dealing with across the country.

So I mentioned to you this term, sole person households across the board, clearly boomers, widows, and widowers, they lead the pack, but it's also Gen X at 19%, millennials at 19%, and Gen Z.

There's sole person households.

And so this is something we have to recognize as we plan for places.

They don't want a big house.

They may want a smaller house, a cottage, they may want a condo, they may want an apartment.

And so we have to be sensitive at as we plan, what problems are you solving?

Do they have a place that they can buy and live, or do they have to move out of the region because we do not accommodate for this change?

So I'd mentioned public engagement.

I like to put up this public engagement matrix.

I usually put them into four quadrants thanks to my friends at Justice Sustainability.

And so here are the four.

Sound familiar.

Honestly, don't bother.

They're just not interested, let them go.

You're gonna try your best.

Then there's the not informed but interested and wants to be engaged.

And I know Monica's your community outreach person.

You need to figure out strategies about how to get them more involved.

They want to be, they just can't find a path, because again, every voice matters.

Then isn't well informed but not engaged.

Another opportunity that they want them to weigh in, but the ones that show up, I can guarantee you at Planning Commission, City Council, community, is the well-informed and the well-engaged.

You probably know them by name.

And they drive a lot of decisions.

And all the other residents are out because they're not part.

And I wanted to show you again, remind you about the age, both under 40 and 155, and then your demographics.

And so I'll always scan the room.

Your community is 50%.

Yes, it's changes by neighbor by neighborhood, but I want to scan the room to make sure all those folks are present.

And then there's always this issue with long-term residents versus newcomers.

We have to plan for both because a long-term resident at one point was a newcomer.

And so I go to meetings, and some of them start like, Hi, my name is Mitchell Silver, and I've lived in Hampton for 35 years.

Hi, I've lived here for 60 years, my grandma.

And then someone comes in like, I've been here a year.

Is if their voice doesn't matter, so we have to recognize that we want to be a welcoming place for all.

And we have to make sure as we plan for long-term residents as well as newcomers, because they want them to establish roots and grow in this community.

We have to be sensitive to that as well.

The reason why I say that is that different generations engage differently.

As consultants, Eliza and I who do a lot of public engagement, we don't often do town halls.

We have so many other options.

We go to festivals and table, uh, we connect with the communities at other special events.

It's different.

And so if it's just a town hall meeting, young people like saying that's not my vibe.

I ain't doing that.

And so we have to be creative on how we engage people, and you can see it.

You know, there I am facilitating a meeting.

I always always invite the young people when we did park planning, they come up with the coolest ideas, whether it's the Ferris Wheel in the park, don't know what's up with the Ferris Wheel or a tree house, those are like the two things kids always recommend.

But I love their energy, and I always have them report out to the group, and when they come, the parents and guardians come.

But we have to make sure we engage that we use the entire portfolio because not everyone likes town halls.

Just it's not their vibe.

We do open houses that are interactive, lots of things we do because we have to hear those that don't normally show up.

So as I look at future demand, to me, it's about the values, the needs and aspirations.

It's just not about what's next, it's also about who's next.

And if we want to keep those young people, we have to have special sessions to understand what are their uh concerns, uh, what are their opportunities, what places that they aspire to have here to stay.

And I do believe, and I said this back in 2010, that there will be tension over the next 20 years as the generations who are in leadership start to transform their vision and values as X, Y, and Z step up into leadership roles.

And to me, I do believe, and I've said this, that there'll be a clash of values, it's going on right now.

I'm not saying it's left or right, it's just 20th century versus 21st century values.

We're in the midst of it right now.

But you're a local council, you have to figure out how to move the city forward, but you cannot ignore these facts.

So, having all that groundwork, understand community dynamics, let's now shift gears to a blueprint for growth.

Uh as I stated uh when I came to Raleigh in 2005, it was a nice midtown city.

I came from New York.

They said, help us, help us grow into a big city, and boy, where there's some serious growing pains, people like you from New York, what are you doing here?

Better keep us keep Raleigh Raleigh.

They kept saying that keep Raleigh Raleigh.

And I understand what that meant after six months I did.

But to me, the role of planning is to manage growth and change and deal with the risk and uncertainty about the future.

I had made many predictions as planning director, working with council, and for the most part, most of them came to pass.

And so we had to figure out how do we deal with that risk and uncertainty.

Where are we going as a community?

What is that blueprint?

And to me, this got kind of touchy.

I spoke at a conference in Charlotte, they were doing a comprehensive plan, and I asked one question.

I said, There are two types of cities.

There are plan making cities that come up with a plan and follow the plan, and then there are deal making cities.

It's all about the deal.

Unpredictable, transactional, it depends.

The public doesn't know what's going on, staff doesn't know what's going on.

And I asked Charlotte, which one are you?

And the entire crowd screamed, deal making, and it made the headlines in the news.

And that was the impetus for them to change their comprehensive plan.

And so it's funny because I asked developers which one do you prefer?

And they were on the stage, and the developer said, plan making.

And the whole audience was shocked.

They thought, no, you're in business deals.

They go, no, no.

We want all the rules, we want those predictable, we want to know how to get an approval as quickly as possible.

This deal making is too unpredictable, too risky.

It depends.

And so that's something that I will have to, you have to determine for yourself.

I'll skip the other bullet, but this one thing used to drive me crazy.

And when I was in Raleigh, I kept hearing that word no, no, no.

And so I had to tell the community when you say no, you're saying yes to something else.

In Raleigh, they were saying no to apartments.

So I'm saying, you know what you're saying?

You're saying yes to seniors, veterans, people with disabilities, young professionals, young families, we don't want you here.

Is that what you're saying?

Because there were there were just single family houses, there weren't any apartments.

And so we started talking about density.

So when you say no to something, you're saying yes to something else.

It's okay to say no, but you need to understand what you're saying yes to so you can move forward as a community.

So the purpose of a plan one is as I said, be clear on the problems you're solving, manage the expectations and response, which I mentioned.

It's okay to talk about that, but it's so important to understand what problems are we solving.

Are we growing?

Are we shrinking?

Do we have enough land?

It provides guidance to elected officials and appointed officials, provides predictability to citizens and developers and officials.

People will ask, I just want to know the rules and follow them.

Let's be predictable.

It also houses your policies and actions, but then as a focus on implementation, I'll get to that one after the break.

So when I came to Raleigh, we had so many plans and policies, just like you, and I conducted a policy audit.

I did this in Washington, DC.

We took every single plan that was active, recommendation, policy, action, and we total them all up.

All the documents.

They hated me for this exercise.

How many policies and recommendations and actions do you think we had back then in 2006?

I will take a guess, please, somebody.

What would you guess of all our plans and policies?

Just someone yellow number, yes.

325.

Are you ready?

So how is staff supposed to do that?

You're not implementing what we asked you to do.

I can't.

Five thousand and five hundred.

And the thing is, we didn't even know.

We just said plan after plan.

You know, I want to make sure we had one comprehensive plan, but then we had a sustainability plan and transportation plan and a parks plan and this plan and downtown plan, how as planning director, do I begin to bite that elephant?

One bite at a time.

No, it was just so we went through it, line by line, and recommended what to keep and what to get.

It was impossible.

And a lot of them just were too old.

And so for me, that was illuminating.

I'm not asking you to do this exercise, Mary, but just to total up all the master plans, all the recommendations.

If I had to guess, you'll probably over a thousand.

You'll be over a thousand.

I don't know how staff I can help you deliver.

It's too many.

What do you do?

Prioritize.

But that's something we'll talk about later.

This was overwhelming.

This is how I started the planning process, and I told them, told council, we're not doing this again.

When we reset it, it's going to be more focused, prioritize of what we really want to see done.

Not everything, because we want to be inclusive, include every recommendation.

That's what got us there.

Than being focused on what we want to achieve for this community.

So when I was in Raleigh, I'll show you our challenges.

We're a small town identity, but we had to transition.

I called it May Berry to Metro.

People got so mad.

How you call us Mayberry, I think that's Rocky Mount or Mount Airy.

And I said, Well, we have a statue of Andy Griffith in our park, so it's Mayberry.

But people were offended.

Not Metro.

It's like, you know something.

Charlotte embraced becoming a big city.

Raleigh was like, don't make me become a big city.

It was all just like, oh my goodness.

So we were growing fast, 12 to 15,000 people a year.

We've slowed down.

They were coming.

We would run out of land in 20 years because we were building four units to the acre.

We were absorbing a thousand acres a year, it'd be gone in 20 years.

So we knew we had to do something.

And that woke up the real estate market.

They were like, say what?

Because no one ever did that analysis before.

I had to present the problem.

We cannot build just single family homes.

Sprawl was fiscally irresponsible.

I brought all these demographic shifts.

I was one of the planners to bring this to planning about these demographic shifts.

Wrote an article about it in 2010.

Didn't think it was gonna be as bad as it was today, but that's another story.

We were not tracking our emerging issues.

It was just what do you want?

What do you want to see?

What do you want to do?

Let's preserve this community.

We weren't talking about the challenges, it was just what people wanted to see.

Two-thirds of our conference of plan was small area plans.

We had 68 to kind of fast forward.

I got rid of two-thirds of them.

Just gone.

Just got rid of them, they retired them.

And then we did not offer housing, transportational lifestyle choices.

So I had a problem, but the question is, you know, Hampton, what are your challenges?

I just looked at a couple, looking at articles, not Hampton, but Hampton Roads.

Young folks don't want to stay.

You need them to buy homes, labor, energy, businesses.

Your growth is flat, and you're using losing young people.

And I just happened to look, and like I said, it's Hampton Roads, and a lot of it is there going to places that offer all the places that you mentioned, plus more for that generation.

And so we'll go deeper into this later on, but this is one of the challenges.

Uh this is a trend you have to address.

Why are they not staying?

So we started this process to update our conference of plan, our bulletprint for growth.

What was interesting about it, because I've been teaching not just at UNC and Harvard, but I've been teaching for about 20 years.

I decided this wasn't going to be a process, but a campaign.

Uh refine it, and then adopt it.

And through that, you'll see all these little icons that we educate the public on what is it, because we were the first that coined 21st century city.

This was 2005.

And so I had, whoops, I had a series of these lecture series about what is it to design a 21st century city.

I cannot tell you, people came 90 miles away.

We're in Raleigh, they came as far as Wilmington and Greensboro to come to these sessions because nobody was talking about it.

And every session started with a question.

How do we design a 21st century city?

How do we get from there to here?

Public ground.

How do we create a pedestrian-friendly city?

We found out that people were designing walkability, that some of our subdivisions that were fenced off.

People were jumping the fence just to walk on the sidewalks because most of our streets had no sidewalks.

I called the street a Carolina sidewalk.

There's no sidewalk.

It wasn't a process, it was a campaign.

I wanted everybody on board.

And I spoke everywhere, from NASCAR dance to soccer moms, we just cover the city to make sure they understood.

It was so cute.

We had a children's museum.

We put all these little tapes, blocks, and lots on the floor.

A child would pick a box, they'd have to go to the table for a permit.

What was so cute is if they recommended this industrial use for downtown, and we told this child, I'm sorry, we can't issue that permit because that use isn't allowed.

And they're like, Oh, mommy!

And I told the mothers, I'm sorry, you can go to the Board of Adjustment to appeal your case.

Uh we're not letting the child build that there.

It was so educational, but we wanted to involve all generations.

It was exciting.

And who knew that our Sunday supplement, the newspaper, started talking about I was in a state of shock that all the conversation, everyone was invested.

What will we look like in 2030 was this full-on conversation?

Sunday supplement, I still have that copy, and I was like, wow, this is not normal.

But it was a campaign to educate the public.

When you have public engagement, it's transactional.

I need information from you, I want to give you something in return.

We'll get to that later.

And so this became a really bonding experience.

And so you know, when a plan was adopted, over 90% of the public supported or greatly supported the plan.

So, like you, we came up with themes.

You know, I won't go through them, you can see them.

What we did because we knew implementation was key, we put a number on each policy and recommendation, and the plan did not have must or shell because it's advisory, it's not a code.

Those words belong in a code, not in a plan.

So I did a research, I told staff I don't want to see one, not one must or shell in that plan.

In the end of the day, this became our profile that we communicated growth centers and growth corridors, that's we wanted the magic to happen.

That's where we wanted to grow.

We were gonna grow by 170,000 people, 60 to 70 percent had to go in those brown areas.

The rest of the community, you're safe.

You don't have to worry about coming to public meetings and banging the door down.

And so it was adopted in 2009, and then we decided that's where the work begins.

We had to implement it.

We had to implement this policy document.

There are three ways you implement.

It is policy guidance and actions, development code, and funding.

Three ways.

That's it, three ways.

And the funding could be public-private partnerships.

So we took this blueprint for growth, very abstract to the community, and decided had to unpack placemaking.

So they understood these are the places, now we go to the next level.

How do we make them a place?

How do we make them great?

And so we focused on placemaking, people centered.

Now that we had our blueprint, now that the developers, the public, elected officials knew where we had to grow, so there are no surprises.

And we just don't you love that photo?

That's in Martinique, beautiful artist.

She saw a tree, she painted a mural.

Anyway, I'm digressing.

We talked about the anatomy and soul of a place.

Every city, every community, every neighborhood has a park, has a soul, has an identity.

We could talk about later on.

As I said, creating experience is about placemaking.

Authentic and memorable.

Hampton, you're unique in Hampton Roads.

You're unique in the United States.

What is that uniqueness that you can communicate to the world?

Fort Monroe is one of them.

Power of 10, I'll get to in a second.

People centered, and it's not just a project, it's a place.

When I work with the developer, don't just tell me on your property line.

You're putting a building in a context.

How you adding to that experience?

How are you adding to that place?

What I loved about Charlotte when they planned it, when you put a building downtown, they were very clear.

You're part of the uptown campus, not your property lines.

When you build in Raleigh, you're not just your property lines, you're part of the downtown experience, the midtown experience.

And that was my job to communicate it.

Not a project, but a place.

And you'll see some master plan projects when developer does something with all the mixed uses, they design a place.

You go downtown, multiple owners, they just do a project.

How do you create a place that is cohesive and connected?

So the Pair of 10, if you hadn't heard it, it was coined by a project for public spaces.

Every town, city, and village should strive to have 10 destinations with 10 things to do within each destination.

I was in Mobile talking to them, they said, Well, building a museum.

I said, That gives you three things.

You visit, gift shop, you eat, and you leave.

Only three.

Not saying you shouldn't do it, but I was trying to show them the power of 10.

10 destinations in your region, so people have choices.

They have places they can go to.

They're consumers of experiences.

And so the question is that we shouldn't just be designers and planners, but we should be experience builders to think about the experience as we plan.

It's very different.

And you'll see some examples of what that looks like.

So I believe we eat and sleep in our homes and apartments, but we live in public space.

All of you, most of you who mentioned the place, were all outdoors in the public round.

So it shows you the value of those outdoor public spaces.

No hit on those that are in love with land use, but I remember when we did our downtown plan, and I didn't know it got caught as one of the top 100 quotes for urban planning of all time.

And what I said is that I I don't want to plan based on land uses.

I want to plan based on experiences.

Who goes downtown to visit land uses?

Hey, let's go downtown and check out those commercial uses.

Hey, let's go downtown to check.

We don't do that.

We don't.

And so we have to talk about shopping, playing, and eating and laughing.

Those are experiences.

Residential, commercial, institutional, retail.

Those are important, but I'm just trying to show you changing the language from land use to experiences because all of you, none of you said, Oh, I checked out this cool commercial land use.

Well, this wonderful green open space designation.

You didn't.

We got to focus on experiences.

So we took all those growth centers and decided, I branded it.

It's called Great Streets, Great Spaces, and Great Places.

Now we have this blueprint.

Now, how are we gonna make it happen?

That's the next level.

And so we focused on all these areas.

On the west side, I was a visionary behind Raleigh Union Station, the warehouse district.

It's a cool location.

This was an empty shell.

Decided Antrack is coming from Richmond down to Raleigh.

Uh took some doing, failed three times.

We got it done, uh, and now it's this amazing facility uh that we're proud of.

Uh, and now when the high speed comes, this is where you're gonna arrive when you come to Raleigh.

But all that stuff you see there is all new.

As a result of looking at that growth center and putting out a vision, uh, we got federal money, we got state money, we got private money, and now it's built.

Taking it from growth center to placemaking, and my goodness, is this a place where we have all of our special events?

It is now a destination people go to.

I was also the visionary behind downtown south.

I don't know if you see downtown.

We didn't, our downtown wasn't big enough, so we planned downtown north and south.

This is a rendering.

We're hoping to get our soccer stadium there, but this is something else now that people can see from that orange blob to a place with experiences, and this so this we're very excited to see that come on board.

Uh, I was also the help to create our midtown location, North Hills.

This was an old JC Penny disgusting fail shopping center.

We worked and I branded it midtown.

Once again, one of those blobs that we focus on place making.

The developer didn't have to do that, but they're focused on creating places and experience, not just to live, but where people can enjoy.

This started to come out the ground.

I'm so excited.

I spoke to them and they said, What are we missing?

I said, Water, water, water, we don't have any water.

And so they integrated it's called the social exchange, also part of Midtown.

This did not exist before the map, didn't exist.

Blueprint, focus on places, yes, the zoning and other things happened.

Yes, we're a different market, we're a growing market, but still having that predictable plan-making approach, made all this happen, working with the development community to make things happen.

Okay, went back.

Uh 2012, I came up with a vision of putting an entertainment center around our hockey team, the hurricanes, are way, way out in rest Raleigh.

They're never gonna put the arena downtown in my lifetime.

So I said, if we can't bring the arena downtown, let's bring downtown to the arena, and Lenovo just came up with a plan, a billion-dollar plan.

They got their approval, they're starting construction next year.

Once again, placemaking, I'm focusing on the ground level experience.

Our downtown square, more square, recommended that we now create the open space for our downtown.

That was done.

Check it on time.

Smoky Hollow, all this we changed the zoning, gave a predictable blueprint, all these projects in those blocks that we now follow through to make them happen.

But plus placemaking was the key.

This one just opened up this summer.

Seaboard station, uh, another exciting place.

These did not exist three years ago.

Hillsborough Street.

This is the main street of our university.

We were getting 30 to 50 students being hit by cars.

This was our way to get to one of our interstates.

This is the front door to the campus, brought us in to figure out how do we change the orientation of the street.

We remove the lane, and that's what it is today.

You have these streets.

You have these opportunities.

Once you have a blueprint, you start to initiate how you start to make that change.

And our young people, they're moving to Raleigh.

They don't want to leave.

They go to UNC, they want to go to NC State, they go to Duke.

I remember I was interviewed from a magazine up in New York and Connecticut.

I don't have any plan to take your kids, but there's a there.

I'm from New Jersey.

I went to NC State, I'm staying.

And that's what we're able to do is capture that young generation.

These are more projects.

This one we're going to vote on on October 7th.

Downtown North, we're building a park, and then that project is coming in to get the return on investment for investing in the park.

All these happened because we had a blueprint.

We then took those and went to the next level and focused on how do we create a place out of all of these because the public doesn't understand an orange blob.

But it wasn't just us.

The private sector is now taking the lead.

All these projects are now private realm, but they understand when they build new projects in mixed use, it's not just a big shopping center with a sea of parking.

They want to create an experience.

If you don't have that, they're not coming to your downtown.

Where do I go for those three things?

Because I realized as commissioner, we had to create those environments for people.

And so just look at the joy of people's faces.

I take pictures seeing people laughing and expressing joy.

I want to create that.

I want Hampton to be known for a place.

Oh my goodness, I went there, I had so much fun, it was so joyful.

Honestly, coming here, the welcoming I received at this hotel, right, Eliza?

Thank you so much, Mary.

The greeting, the room, the little gift basket.

Those are little things that make me smile, make me happy.

You don't know it, but that's important.

Hampton, keep it up.

This is in Research Triangle Park, it's called uh Boxyard.

They took these containers.

This is private sector and created a space.

Uh, this is another one in North Hills.

Every shopping center now has a social gathering place.

Are they shopping?

No.

But they have a place.

You have all that asphalt.

You can do mixed use to create great places.

And so now they do it on their own.

We don't even suggest it.

They get it, they understand the value.

And you see this again and again and again for all the projects.

This is one just opened up, movie theater, restaurant framed on a square.

The private sector gets it.

They're now getting the importance of placemaking in all those projects, so we can kind of sit back.

We can't provide a park, but the private sector is doing it all.

And this one was so creative, this was a warehouse district.

They put in these slides and open spaces.

This is in our midtown east location.

Now they understand this growth framework, they understand placemaking, and wow, are they creating experiences for fun, for joy, and happiness.

And that to me was our counter to fixing downtowns.

Like right now, we're debating.

Should we redo our main street with a streetscape plan?

And I'm on council, so I can speak up.

And I said, we'll just have a pretty street with no people.

We've got to figure out what's happening on the side of the buildings.

Where's the restaurants and the retails?

So right now we have to work with the property owners because they're doing game banks and galleries, there's a Scientology, there's a dental office and a medical office.

That's fine, but not if we want to create an outdoor experience because people are drawn to people.

When you walk down the street and it's active, it's like I want to go there.

You got on the street, there's no people, it's like, no, thank you.

We're dealing with this right now in real time.

I love adult play.

I'm not saying this, and this is in Boston where they put out these swings, and I remember when I was commissioner, I wish I thought about it in New York City, put out these swings and the garment dist.

I'm seeing these seesaws.

I'm like, that is so cool.

These are creating those experiences that people just like, oh my goodness, I had so much fun.

It was temporary, which they were.

I'm seeing all these smiling people in the audience.

This is so cool.

I wish I thought about it, I didn't, but it was up for a while, but it added so much joy and happiness.

In Governor's Island, they're coming up with creative things, just think of the fun, the joy and happiness that you want to deliver.

And you know, I know I talked to Fort Monroe about the possibility of doing this, but these are the things we have to think about to really be a destination.

And I love Greenways.

Look at the joy on that man's face.

It's priceless.

And I have to tell you the 55 plus, they're moving, they have money, they're looking for places to live.

In Hampton, how do you capture that very important demographic that is so connected to outdoors and pickleball?

Y'all have pickleball?

And pick a ball and biking and walking and healthy for living.

And I want to talk about parks.

Yes, this is New York City.

Yes, we had I co-wrote an article with Carol Coletta.

Uh, because we were trying to tell people during the COVID period, if you want to jump your jumpstart your city, don't underestimate the power parks.

And all of you validated that by saying when you're in parks and green spaces, it was valuable.

There's a bigger picture.

This is Domino Park, very unique park next to the East River.

Uh other new examples coming online, downtown Carey Park.

This is next level.

They have a doggy bar and two dog parks for big dogs, small dogs.

It is just so popular, they have to shuttle people in.

There's not enough parking.

That one's very exciting.

In Raleigh, we just opened up Gibson Play Plaza in Art Dix Park.

When it opened up in June until September, it attracted over four hundred thousand people.

And it was only second to the state to Riceville Beach by opening up a park.

And it was a play space.

And so some people say we don't have the money to invest.

This one we did with a lot of philanthropic money.

We got it built, and it now, in terms of the economic generation, it is unbelievable.

Everyone from every state in the United States came to visit, and every county in North Carolina came to visit.

Just from that simple play space.

It is amazing.

I'm only showing you a small part of it, but it is amazing.

This is Thomas Lee Park, the woman I wrote the article with in Memphis, an amazing space that's winning all sorts of awards by the river, looking at parks as an economic generator.

You have a river, you have a lot of opportunities.

And then there are the streets.

You'll see in the second segment how we're able to do a lot of amazing work in our streets.

I'll just go through some of these.

We're also looking at rooftops.

If you can't build on the ground, you can build on a roof.

And we're seeing project after project.

Even this little tiny corner, you know, found a place, uh restaurant where they were able to put people they want to be above ground.

I'm sure you have roofs in Hampton.

Uh we also like to have mobile play.

This is what we were doing in the parks department.

We bought the joy in one in a box.

We had tons of stuff.

We just popped up in a park, invited kids, and it was just magical.

Didn't have to build a new playground.

We just had a kit in advan.

Um, so this is just more.

Um, this program I absolutely love.

By the way, I do not know how to play the piano.

That was just what we had to do for the camp.

But this program called Sing for Hope.

People donate pianos.

Artists, and that's the artist who painted that piano, paint it, and then they take these pianos and put it out into the public realm.

You've got to see videos on YouTube of people playing.

And it just what it does to ease stress and anxiety, and it's just a beautiful work of art.

It's up for one month, and then they donate it to a local school.

Just a beautiful wraparound program that is great for placemaking and helps bring that fun, that joy, that happiness.

Love that program.

So I just say this as I come to an end for this segment.

I like to look at some of the fun cities.

When I look at this, I'm still surprised.

How did Atlanta get number four on the list?

No, anybody from Atlanta here?

Good.

I don't can someone explain to me.

I get Vegas, I get it.

What was that?

Are you from?

How did y'all get on this list?

Please tell me.

Vegas, I get Orlando, I get Miami, okay.

Atlanta ahead of New York.

Okay, we got to talk.

But anyway, just to let you know that they look at what entertainment, recreation, lifetime parties cost.

Uh, this is a great fun fact.

They change it every year.

I have the global list as well.

Uh but any of that and the globalist, Chicago's number one, so that's also a surprise.

So, Raleigh.

We have, I didn't look at Hampton.

I'm just I'll back at the break to see where Hampton sits.

But the result of all this work, Raleigh for the past 20 years, has consistently been in the top 10 real estate markets.

When developers come and they say you have a blueprint, you're predictable, you know where you're going, I want to invest here.

I don't want to go in where well we don't have the infrastructure, which is a good idea, we have to make a comp plan amendment, you have to go.

I'm out.

Plan making, follow the plan, and when I come there, it's like I the word is out.

I want to invest here.

And so these are just some of the things I'm showing you the beneficiary, not the only approach and approach.

And so as we go to the next session, we have four minutes before we go to a break to go from plan making to place making, but ultimately, you want to produce this great place that's not just gonna attract people, but you want to keep the people who are here and move forward to make a better place.

So with that, I'm gonna stop now and entertain questions, and then at 11 30, correct, we're gonna take a 15 minute break.

So thank you all.

Hope um that gave you some insight uh to what's possible in this community.

I recognize, and I have at the beginning of the slide, you're 137, we're 498 in terms of population, your budget is 677, odds 1.7 billion, but still that is enough to be strategic and to make a difference.

And so after the break, we're gonna shift gears.

This is the what I'm now gonna show you the how we did it.

Yes, Mayor.

How much was the public involved when you drive place more?

Okay, sorry.

How much was the public involved in driving that?

Yeah, I know you talked about uh community engagement.

Yes.

Was it staff driven?

Was it public driven, or what it was?

It was a partnership.

We use a term called co-create.

And so, but when we meet with the public, if not carte blanche, we talk about the program.

Remember, I said now I'm not planning director anymore.

They deploy back to the wants to wants the wants.

When you do that, I'm now forcing objects we have to put into a project.

So I did this project, Ailey Young, we did this together, and I told the public we're not gonna ask for things because someone said, I want a gazebo, I want a statue, I wanted this.

It's like I'm now stuck with these objects, I gotta sit somewhere when I take a whole different approach.

So we set the program and tell them here are the things we want to weigh, aren't you to weigh on?

And so the answer is they do play a role.

We make sure, and you'll see in the second segment, how I do our outreach to make sure we capture diversity in age, demographics, generation, all those things, and so it is co-created, but we're real with people.

I'm not afraid to say no, it's not gonna work.

Or how about if we do it this way?

So that we want to manage expectations, but we'll create, we give them kind of an area.

You can talk about the program, you could talk about the experiences, but I avoid specific objects because I don't know if I can deliver a supermarket.

I don't know.

I that you're putting that whoa, stop, timeout.

We'll create a great place.

Let's agree on that.

So the answer is we co-create, but we manage expectations as we have that dialogue.

Okay.

Councilman, I think you had a question.

Okay.

Uh we have about 15 minutes for questions, yes.

I I really enjoy what I what I saw on the screen, but it does generate quite a few questions for me, which you'll probably address in the how-to portion of your presentation.

But some of the areas I'm really interested in is whenever you bring in these type of growth opportunities in the community, housing prices increase, um, you cause demographics of the area to change, how are you all dealing or addressing things such as gentrification, how you're addressing public safety with this growth, etc.

Okay.

Let me take housing prices first.

If you're a city, there are three trajectories.

You're gonna grow, you're gonna shrink, you're gonna remain flat.

You're flat.

I can tell you as a community, I'd rather grow than shrink the remain flat because it does affect your tax base, your ability to do what you need to do.

I believe you should grow, and how do you manage that?

It is very difficult to control the housing market because government has very little control.

And I'm gonna share something with you, which you don't often hear.

If any of you, and I'll get to your second party question, has a home up for sale.

Uh let me just take Mr.

Dr.

Haynes.

Your home is worth 400,000.

I come in from California and I said, Dr.

Haynes, I'll give you 650.

Dr.

Haynes is gonna say no.

It's worth 400.

No, no, you you you're gonna take the 400.

If you take the 650, and what has happened between COVID, between I did the analysis in the Wake County where Raleigh's located between 2020 and 2023, over 72,000 homes exchange hands, most of them over the asking price.

Our median price went from 325 to 425, and government had nothing to do with it.

It was homeowners saying, I will take top dollar, because I would do it, you would do it, everyone in this room would do it.

But what does that do?

It raises up all home prices, it raises up the rental prices, and rather than saying, Dr.

Haynes, why didn't you just take the 400?

They're saying government, you need to do something.

It's unaffordable.

The people who sold their homes took the check and walked away.

What you and we're left solving this problem.

So that is another equation.

If we're gonna control affordable housing, it is our capitalist system, places that are desirable, and places that people want to live, will always have an affordability problem.

I can show you places in the deep south and out west where you can got a house.

Flint, Michigan, you can get a house.

Not knocked to Flint.

So my whole point is we have to be able to understand that as we grow, there will be implications.

I'd rather grow than shrink.

We need to manage our growth in terms of gentrification.

Um I think we do have to take a lead role working with development community and other programs to provide affordable housing.

But you know and I know you recommend affordable housing project in the neighborhood, and you saw the slide.

What you're gonna hear is no.

Yes, we want affordable housing, no, not here.

And so these are challenges you have to face.

Uh my role was not to focus on the clean and safe, but as you grow, there'll be growing pains.

You have to be straight up with the community.

You have to let them know that housing prices is somewhat a private market homeowner issue, but we still have to do our part.

We have to provide affordable housing.

We have to, what we're now doing is an anti-displacement strategy.

We know the areas that are vulnerable.

Why are we waiting for a project to come along?

We know the areas that are so right now, working in the city of Raleigh and did other projects in Denton, Texas, we identify the areas that are vulnerable, just like you have a heat map for health, you can do the same thing for housing, and then you can be very strategic on how you work with that community, whether it's a preservation overlay, whether it's direct resources.

But to me, rather than just this global thing of gentrification, let us focus on the communities that are vulnerable, so then you can come up with strategies to help protect them versus this broad blanket across the entire city.

I'll never forget when I was commissioner, they didn't want me to do park improvements.

They said it would lead to green gentrification, and I said, okay, hold up, hold up, hold up, hold up.

I I hear you.

So I saw this park, you'll see them in a second, it was disgusting.

So I had two choices.

If I did nothing, you accuse me of neglect.

But if I did something, you accuse me of gentrification.

I can't win.

So I chose to improve the park, gentrification did not happen.

But to answer your question, you need to be proactive, get ahead of the curve, come up with anti-displacement strategies that are specific to that place, versus having this broad brush.

Uh, and that's how I'll kind of answer that question before we move on.

We have 10 minutes.

Are there other uh so you'll know I'm from New York, I tend to be just straight.

I hope you'll appreciate that.

Uh I care.

This work, I told you I retired, but I'm committed to do advisory work and helping cities find a direction and a path, and so that's something that um I just feel I'll give you the love and be straight.

Yes.

Yes, you have a lot of the development in Raleigh, and I've been there and I like the things that have been done.

Obviously, like you said, there are some of the older generations or more entrenched people who have been resistant to the change.

So, how did you handle that?

Because obviously a lot of the development, how did you handle the pushback when it was unpopular?

Um, but still went forward with the development, even though the some of the stakeholders said it.

So the question is um, how did you deal with the pushback?

Uh Raleigh kind of did it on his own when I first got there.

Um, we started having these informal community engagement sessions in beer gardens and taverns, uh informal places, but then I started having these tables where we had community groups, and I purposely put an older resident with a younger resident, and had them just talk it out to understand their points of view.

We're so good at putting people in bubble bulls and categories, and there was this young white woman that just graduated from NC State with this older woman that was anti-renter, and I put them at the same table.

And I said, ma'am, just to let you know, she just graduated, she's looking for an apartment, and I never forget what this woman said.

Oh, I wasn't talking about her.

Got you.

For us, we shared the implications of saying no.

I had to be very direct and take the keat and share with them the implications.

Far too often we let these comments go off the hook.

Now, in today's environment that's divisive, truth and reality is now negotiable, so I don't know how those conversations would go, but we kind of explained the implications.

I work with a colleague, Joe Mendicosi, that came with return on investment slides to show what happens if you just rely on single family, your taxes will go up.

And so we we kind of unpack the conversation, and hoping reasonable people will understand, but the best way is we just put people at a table and let them talk.

And council, the previous one was kind of very focused on what the community had to say.

We now have a new council that's willing to make hard decisions, uh, but to do what's right for the city.

But those conversations, being straight with people, sharing the implication, and also knowing from the demographics, I I don't want a stereotype, I've been doing this for 40 years, but generally, white or black want in a room.

The more people get over 55, uh, the more likely we're gonna hear no.

Hands down.

I was in Texas, we were doing a project, uh, most of the people are over 70 and were black.

They were so angry and negative, and I told my client, uh, this is not can't do this.

So we had to purposely go out and Eliza wasn't with us today.

We had to go out to uh rec centers and community centers to get parents on their way out.

Totally different perspective, totally different perspective.

The older residents were angry about the racism that happened, and they would just the young people like we love it here.

Oh my goodness, we're so happy we moved.

And if I would have relied on that public meeting comments, would have gone the wrong direction.

But we got balance.

You need balance, and you'll see in a second session.

How do you capture that balance?

All right, we have a few more minutes.

Yes, council member.

Yes.

Um, what type of strategies did you use to get away from what people want to see versus trying to look at the overall problem that is trying to be solved?

Our good question, thank you.

We start with the problems.

The meetings aren't what you want to see.

We first do our homework and say, well, losing hypothetically, we are losing young people.

What do we do?

We are running out of land.

What do we do?

Developers don't want to do business here because our process is too unpredictable and cumbersome.

What do we do?

We start with a question and a problem that is looking for a solution.

Very different than, and it's a hard question.

What do you want Hampton to look like in 2040?

And here I am.

I'm 85, I didn't even know where to be.

No, I don't want to go there.

Um it's a different part of the brain.

Because the trends in 2040 are not going to be like they are today.

So to ask someone this ideal utopia, it's hard.

So we ask them, what are the problems we need to solve?

Where can we create great places in Hampton?

How do we enhance the so when you ask a question that's looking for a solution is very different than what do you want to see?

And so that has worked for us.

We do, as a second part, ask, what do you want to see?

Because people are going to say it anyway.

Remember when Ellie Young, we kept asking people, what are places that bring you joy?

Where do you go with your family?

They didn't know what I was doing, but there's one man kept saying, I want a gazebo.

I want a statue, I want a kid's educational area.

Remember him?

And I was like, Thank you, sir.

You can't avoid it.

But to me, getting to what problems you need to solve is very useful in these meetings, and that's how we were able to do it.

Because if not, you're now making promises for things that you haven't vetted.

Is there proper infrastructure?

Is there funding?

Is there staff capacity?

You're saying yes without all these knowns, and you're setting yourself up for failure and disappointment.

So that's why it's good to first ask the questions.

You go back, what's possible, what's vetted, we'll do that part two after the break, uh, and then you're able to find a path forward.

But to me, managing expectations is key, and I'll tell people we can't do a supermarket.

That's not something the city can do.

We can ask and encourage and have our economic developers figure out a deal, but that's not something we can deliver or promise.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yes, sir.

Just real quick question.

Um as part of the process, is there ever an involvement with the community where you look at the folks who are already doing the work there and say how can we involve them in the process and walk alongside them in order to get to our goals for these places?

And if so, um is it done through like a small area plan, or do you go back and say, all right, this master plan is older than the people we're trying to involve?

Well, okay, as I told you, uh the question was we do involve what we call the stakeholders, the businesses.

We reach out to anyone who has a stake.

We call them stakeholders.

Uh, the other part, okay, teach a class I call the family of plans.

There are a long list.

There's framework plans, vision plans, area plans, comprehensive plans, community plans, street key plans, what I have to find out what is the right plan.

A master plan is one, but there are street shape plans, area plans.

It depends.

I first have to talk about what is your expectation, what do you want to achieve, then of these family of plans, I'll figure out which one is the best for you.

I always promise that they're going to be very focused documents.

If it has too many recommendations, and I'll get to this later.

This is my concern with the 5,000.

If you prioritize everything, you prioritize nothing.

And it's left up to the implementer to figure it out.

Some staff's good at that, others are not.

So to your plan, you'd have to find out what is the best plan.

Uh area plan is primarily policy.

If you want a strategic plan, it's based on action.

So it all depends on what plan or what you want to achieve.

All right, so uh we're gonna take a 15-minute break.

I will start exactly at 11:45.

So there's coffee, don't know where the water is.

Oh, perfect.

Uh, there's coffee, there's water, the restrooms are right outside.

You've probably been here, so you know.

So I will see you all in about 15 minutes.

So this is another uh presentation.

After this segment, we'll go to lunch.

I stop talking, and y'all start working.

Okay.

I know that.

So it's a pleasure.

My pleasure.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

Uh so in our first segment, we talked about a blueprint, uh, talked about what we did.

Now I'm gonna how we did it.

Uh so I'll talk about you know getting it done.

Uh, some a phrase I coined and use in my planning practice, what I call reality-based planning.

Uh, we're gonna talk about reactive versus proactive.

I'll kind of embed that in the conversation.

That is always a big challenge.

Uh, just before I get into it a little bit deeper, there are some staff that's very good at being reactive, and there are some that are good at being proactive.

It's very hard for a staff person to do both, and so we'll get to the approach I took when I was in the parks department because it's a reality.

You have a plan, and issues emerge, you have to do something.

Uh, and some staff are good at multitasking, others are not.

And if you want to retain staff, make sure you understand the difference.

And then I'm going to share with you some implementation approaches.

And so that way you can see some of the ways that I have been effective, and then we'll move into a conversation.

So earlier we talked about from plan to action how is it what was implemented?

Now I'm going to talk about how it was implemented.

And I'll be giving examples from New York and from Raleigh and from other places, and I want to make sure you understood the difference between our two jurisdictions.

But you still have a budget that you have to work with the city manager and council to prioritize, as well as the other partners.

So for me, that's something that's very important.

I'm not going to have your eyes glaze over, but I'm going to show the approach, not the budget.

In New York, they were dead serious about parks.

I say it I had 10,000 employees, and Mary, you probably didn't hear this before.

My operating budget just for the parks department was 600 million.

That would have been nice, I know.

My capital budget was 1.2 billion annually.

And so, but for me, the challenge was I had a lot of projects.

You'll see in a second that I had to get done, and we found a path forward.

So it's another approach, it's more not about the budget, but about the implementation strategies.

I want to go back to this chart again and focus in that there are only three ways you can implement.

When you have a recommendation, a focus area, we're gonna go through what you have to do.

Now I'm gonna acknowledge the work right now the city is doing because they do have an approach they're using, but you either have policy guidance, policies that council uses to make decisions, there are actions which are things not the private sector will do, but you as government are gonna do through expense funding straight away.

Then there is the development code, your zoning code, that's another way to implement, and then it's the funding, and I include public private partnerships.

Someone asked me a question during the break how do we get that done?

Many of the projects you saw were private projects, but we played a partnership role.

In some cases, we subsidized the parking deck, in some cases we did the infrastructure.

So it was a public-private partnership, but the main thing we did is we found a way to get to yes, and we supported the development by having rules that were predictable.

So that was my role as playing director is to make sure we had a clear path and we were willing to say yes, and not it depends.

Because there are many markets, and they can just pick up and go to Kerry, pick up, go to Charlotte, pick up, go to DC.

If it's too hard, I'm out.

And so we want to make sure we did the right thing.

So uh Hampton has an implementation approach.

Uh I'm aware you have strategic initiative meetings to track some of these initiatives, and they meet on a weekly basis, outstanding.

I know you're updating your 2011 community plan.

There's a draft underway, which is the 2040 plan.

Uh, these are all good.

So, as you're doing this process, I'm gonna give you some suggestions to help you focus for both staff, for council, and some of the partners.

You will, I think find value in the work that you do uh as well.

So the first thing we did after our plan was adopted was I created an implementation team.

And there was a person that chaired it, that was her job was to track implementation because we wanted to move from plan to action.

Uh, and so that was her primary role, and she had to work with all the department heads, it was housed in the planning department.

We wanted to be sure that there was consistency among all the plans.

We created this matrix, which you'll see momentarily.

Uh we started to look at cost estimates straight away.

Uh, so we knew exactly what the path forward would be.

We you'll see in a second.

We prepared annual reports to the city council about our plans progress, but those meetings were quite interesting.

I'll get to that momentarily.

Uh we started to identify the funding options.

We played a major role in the capital improvement program because you'll see a second in the matrix, it kind of hinted what need to be capital improvement funded, and then we asked each department to develop a work plan.

Uh, here's a sample of the list we put together back then.

Uh I would share this with council and actually have a cue to say when it would start and when it would finish.

Why that was important is that this was our proactive attempt.

I now serve on city council, I get it.

And so city council, we did this during our annual meeting, and they would say we have this new property.

I'm like, great, we'll do it.

What gets bumped back?

What gets taken off the list?

We can't do it all.

And so we had this conversation that we told the community we're doing a downtown study, it's kicking off in the first quarter of 2022.

We told the community after that is the station era planning.

We actually listed a cue of when it would start.

So when another came in, it kind of short-circuited the process, but I'll show you how we dealt with that momentarily.

But this is a real list, and looking at this list, this was done in 2012.

All this got done.

All of it.

So you can't see it, but this was our matrix.

This was our guide.

If you remember, we numbered every action in the conference of plan.

That was tied to a policy that was tied to a theme.

So it flowed.

You have seven themes, we had a flow.

The first one is what is the action?

Now you're seeing the short version, it was very specific, and you'll see in a second, we framed it so it was actionable and understood.

It wasn't vague.

We had to make sure it was crystal clear.

Then we had the responsible agency.

The first agency is the lead agency, and we also knew who were the supporting agencies.

This was vetted from the beginning of the process throughout.

This was not a surprise.

Then we had a time frame, we had a program type, priority level, and then the last column, capital.

Yes or no.

At the end of each year, we had a list of everything that had a why for capital, and it became part of the capital process.

Now we start seeing a flow, now we start seeing a connection.

Did everything that was why get on the plan?

If you have a five-year or ten-year capital plan, it landed there somewhere because we wanted to show our credibility to the public that it was short-term or midterm or long term, it showed up on the list.

And if it didn't, we had to explain why or why not.

So this document became the guiding document.

Agencies had to report back quarterly.

We gave them reminders because we knew at the end of the year we're gonna have an annual meeting with council.

And I wanted to see the ED responses, not the ING.

Do you know what I mean by that?

ED completed, accomplished, executed.

I didn't want to see stuff like thinking, planning, meeting, no ING.

ED, E D E D.

And we kept reminding the all the department heads.

Um, you know, we're gonna send us to council.

We're giving you a heads up, so you know I'll get into a second.

We vetted all these recommendations with the department heads that they said yes, I can do this.

They had an option to say we can't do it, we can't do it.

So they actually bought into it, agreed to it, and so this became very interesting, but this was our tool to guide implementation.

But before we did that, all of these action items went through what I called a reality-based planning checklist.

I will read some of them because this is so important.

We discussed implementation at the first kickoff meeting, not at the end, at the beginning.

Who are the implementing agencies?

What budget do you have?

What capacity do you have?

So we had an outreach strategy, but we also had an in-reach strategy because I learned from all my planning years that the biggest offenders wasn't the public, it was our own departments.

That's the planning department's plan.

And I had a city management said no.

They communicated to everyone this is the city's plan.

And every agency had a role, and so we formed these inner agency working groups from the beginning, and we talked about implementation day one.

Because ultimately, when you're done with the plan, that's what is going to get you there.

So that's reality-based planning.

We discuss implementation, how we're going to do it.

So, as we guide the public, we can manage those expectations versus saying let's just have a conversation and figure it out at the end.

I figured out first meeting.

Number two, identify the lead department and supporting partners.

You saw that on the matrix.

Engage the implementers throughout the planning process.

If public works felt this is something they cannot do, we want them to make their case.

We run up the city manager so that they understand since you said yes, you can't say no later.

You signed on.

So there was this ongoing negotiation to make sure the experts in those departments understood what was being asked of, and they had to commit to it.

And as a side note, the city manager put it on all their performance evaluations, their ability.

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to say that, but that is just something that because I was going through some stuff when I got to Raleigh, they were like, who's he think he is?

And I'm like, I'm just trying to help create great city.

In the end, they all said, Thank you, you're right, we're on board, we're going in the right direction.

So there's the external outreach, internal outreach.

Uh we have to make sure these recommendations are attainable from day one.

What is the funding?

What is the path?

And if I found out it wasn't going to work, as great as it sounds, it didn't make the cut.

The community asked for it, it didn't make the cut.

I'm not going to recommend something we can't deliver because you lose credibility and trust.

You're putting out an expectation you can't deliver on.

So why is it in there?

It looks good.

Take it out.

So we went through this very deep vetting funding.

Is there staffing in place?

Is it a partment?

Because I don't want to hear we don't have staff capacity.

That all should be thought about in advance.

We don't have the infrastructure, that all should be thought about in advance.

So you have to do that due diligence and do that vetting up front, it'll save you a great deal of pain.

Recommendations must be actionable and informed.

They must be focused.

What top of action, what type of action it is.

I mentioned is that you have to develop priorities.

So when it comes down to what you want to fund first, it's helpful to staff because if I had 5,500 policies, do I pick?

Do I pick the right one?

And I already know that with these themes, working with city manager, you already have those themes.

It has to be practical, realistic, what is the time frame?

We'll get to that in a second.

The recommendations must be responsive to the problem you are solving.

Very often I see solutions, as I said earlier, looking for a problem.

So I want to be crystal clear what we're solving, are capital funds needed, and is it consistent with the stated missions and values?

So typically we have the conversation up front, and then before the plan becomes final, what we focus on the most is the implementation strategy.

We spend hours, it's a group effort, all the departments, we go through it, and I'd rather have less great recommendations, a lot of recommendations that are just there because it looks like it's a lot of volume.

We really start to have that conversation because that becomes the implementation tool as council, as all the entities, that's the blueprint you're giving the staff to execute and the public to say, I know what to expect.

So let's talk about timeline.

It varies from different jurisdictions, there's short range, mid-range, long range, but I'm gonna talk about one that doesn't normally surface.

I call immediate actions, quick wins.

That's typically not part of the process, because I want you to understand, let's take an area plan.

So I'm a member of the public, you invite me to a meeting, I give you my heart, my soul, my input.

What do I get back in return?

Are you gonna build something?

No.

When to give you a recommendation, we'll give you a promissory note.

Maybe.

Wait a minute, I just spent the last year and a half with these public meetings, and you get a plan, you get a pace, you get a plan.

No, they we ask for their input and exchange.

We have to give them something in return.

And so we we the immediate actions, so you know, if you need capital funding, it'll take some time.

In this implementation strategy, I always want to figure out what are the quick wins.

What are the immediate actions I can do straight away to say you came to a meeting, this is what you get.

I'll give an example, uh, and now we do it during the planning process.

I was in Denton, Texas.

Uh, it's in the Dallas metro area.

Uh, underserved community, Quaker town, a community that was wiped out, whole community was wiped out and moved out, and so there was a lot of trauma in this community.

And I traveled the city and I noticed there were these dog disposal things where you pull a bag and they were on the one side of town, it wasn't in their community, and so as we're meeting and saying, Yeah, we want these, we have dogs too.

And I told staff, put it in immediately.

And they did.

There was this other issue about a park sign, the nice part of town had these beautiful park ID signs.

Theirs just had some painted, and I said, just put up the sign.

When people came to public meeting, like, whoa, wait a wait, whoa, whoa, whoa.

We just made that request and it's done.

It's like, oh, I'm coming to these meetings.

This stuff gets done.

Far too often people invest their time and they get a promissory note.

And then you're back three years later.

Let's do it again for another promissory note.

Oh, and let's do it again, and let's do another plan, and let's do another plan.

It's like, you know, you have no trust and credibility.

You don't implement what you said you're gonna do.

I'm out.

So this is contractual.

I give you my input, and I'm expecting something back in return by what you promised.

The quick wins, the first six months is one way of that you can afford.

It's expense funding, it's staff resources, it's not going out, doing a long study, it's what you can do that may be small and incremental, but it's a down payment of goodwill.

You gave me your time, I'm gonna give you something back in return through the recommendations.

And then the short, medium, and long range, we'll get to that in a second.

It has to be thoughtful, long range, anything beyond 10 years.

I don't usually advocate it because it rarely happens.

You're so focused on short and mid, maybe long, but to me beyond 10 years, I struggle because councils change, staff changes, budget changes, community changes, issues change, but I like to focus on these.

That's just me personally.

So here's his annual report.

I remember the press said, Who does he think he is?

It's like, I'm just giving a report because during this meeting we did a couple of things.

One, we talked about emerging issues they need to pay attention to.

At that time, we were talking about life cycle housing, local food systems, health impact.

So I always, as a planner, wanted to tell the council this is what's emerging, you need to be aware of.

The second thing we did is we talked about the policies and actions that were implemented, but also the policies and actions that were not implemented, where council in council meetings I'm not gonna do it.

So I had to say, then we have to take it out of the plan.

That got interesting.

If you're not gonna do it by keeping it in the plan, is giving the false expectation that you're going to do it.

That was probably the most fascinating debate because if you could it's okay to change your mind.

And they said, Yeah, we change our mind, then take it out.

No, I don't want to take it out.

Then why is it in there?

So there was this big debate.

If you don't want to do it, you can't do it, let's take it out because it's still in there, and the public expects you to do it.

It was a fascinating debate.

They eventually listened to me, and we took it out, but that's okay.

Uh, and then we went through this queue, and this is where the reactive stuff came in.

Well, this is an emerging issue, there's this project, what do we do?

And I said, time out.

If you're gonna put something on, you gotta take something off.

We can't do it all.

If we have a queue, if you want to move this and jump the line, that's your call.

We just have to explain to the public.

So those two were interesting meetings because I had limited staff capacity.

I did not want to overpromise, and so I had to say, I know you want to do this.

The best I can do is you gotta move it up on the queue, but something comes off, and we have to tell the community, I know we're gonna start next year, sorry, you're gonna have to wait till 2027.

And that was also a very interesting conversation.

And we had to deprioritize, so this was a very important meeting.

Um, and so this is something I just want you to be aware of.

You can't do it all, and so this is where the difficult choices come in.

You have an exercise later, well, you're gonna have to make some difficult choices.

So I'm gonna show you the plan making.

This is the zoning code approach because we had a plan that's policy.

Now we needed to fix the rules.

Robbers is a mess.

Our code wasn't really updated in 1970.

It was confusing.

Developers came in, like saying, I'm confused.

So after we did the plan, we took all the work we did in our comprehensive plan and we updated our code.

We did one after the other.

It was a horrible four years, but we got it done, and everyone is happier as a result.

Similar to the comprehensive plan, we did another, not just process, but campaign to educate the public as to why we're doing this.

Same approach, but we all know a plan is a lot easier to understand than a zoning code about rules, and so we did our best to do the same thing of have these meetings.

Uh, because we did a land use map, that became the frame on how we were gonna rezone our city, including that growth framework map.

So we just basically codified our future land use map by using zoning, new zoning designations.

We called it right rules, right places.

That's simple.

Because the way our code worked, it made no sense.

We allowed suburban type development in our downtown.

It was crazy.

And so we were upfront saying we want to increase predictability for citizens and developers and staff.

We wanted to offer flexibility to developers, streamline our development process.

I had a slide which I took out to show you how to get approval, give you a headache.

Now we just had one quick path.

We wanted to make it easy to do the right thing.

We wanted to make it easy to do what we wanted to see.

Very often, I remember when I got to Raleigh, it's like, oh, we want housing downtown.

And I said, no, you don't.

Yes, we do.

No, you don't.

So why are you saying you don't?

I looked at your rules.

It is almost impossible.

With all these standards and rules, it's like it's impossible.

So they're gonna go out to greenfield development and do suburban development because it's easier to do.

If you want to see something done, make it easier to do.

And that's what the code sought out to do.

Address market trends, and so I again the press picked up on designing a new Raleigh.

We did this deep diagnostic report, it was painful.

We did some work during the comp plan, but we did this diagnostic report to find out what's broken, and I told the consultants, be straight.

It's like when you go to a doctor, you take a blood test, all the tests you take, give it to me straight, doctor.

Yeah, they did, and it was ouch, but we now knew what we had to do.

Our cholesterol, what we're eating, we had to change.

And so we identified these hop topics, some of these carried over from the conference to plan.

Uh we knew that we had now a roadmap that we share with the public, and they were on board that we had these conversations, and it was so easy to do.

We want to reduce conditional use zoning.

I called it crack.

I'm sorry, um, it's just we love it, we can't get off of it, and so we had to reduce customized zoning because it was just getting too difficult for staff to administer.

Tree protection, infill, density.

So all this was part of our zoning code reform up front, and so we knew what we had to do.

Because in order to get those great places that you saw, we had to fix the rules, and we had to fix the approval process, otherwise, it wasn't gonna happen.

So we had to fix the rules.

So it was adopted in 2013.

I'm not gonna go through the whole code.

We shifted to what's called a form-based hybrid.

No more floor area, no text, tons of pictures and illustrations.

Here's an example, we're showing the context-based types of what you can build from detached homes to attached to townhouse to apartment to general office to mix use.

But we came up with something unique because for us the front was so important.

We didn't like parking lots as it met the street if it was an urban context.

So our zone had a frontage, a district, and a height, and so you pick the frontage, the height, what goes in it.

Ah, it's up to you.

We had these mixed use zones that didn't weren't prescriptive, and then we had uh transitions we'll get to.

So this is our we had residential mixed use.

Development get approval, it could be commercial, it could be residential.

Your choice, prime dominate residential, neighborhood mixed use, whatever you want.

It just became totally flexible, so that we can help offer that flexibility you're looking for, but also that predictability.

And so we came to these mixed use categories.

The development community loves this because if they have a proposal and it's neighboring mixed use, they can now flick the program without coming back to city council or planning commission.

It was so easy to do.

Then we had our special districts.

I came up with this campus special district, so it gave Hampton and other universities more flexibility and have to abide by one of our so we just met with the universities, came up with this campus, and they love it because some of the universities were gonna go to the state to get special legislation to override local zoning, but because we have this campus zoning, it gives them overlay, gives them flexibility.

So these were the districts.

Sorry, here were the so you could have a whoops, go back.

Wrong way, one more.

So this gave us the parkway, which you have to have parking, but it has to be behind some trees.

Uh you could have, so then it shows you the parking lot right in the front of the building, but then the bottom three, as you can see, we wanted the building to meet the street to create that more urban environment in a downtown.

You cannot have a sidewalk and a parking lot meeting the street.

Can't do it.

That's that's suburban.

Not right rules, right places, and we were able to adjust that.

And if you come to Raleigh, you'll see it.

It just worked.

We followed plan, we we wanted this, and now we had the rules to make it not a policy, a rule.

And so we were by doing that, it's been in place now for 12 years.

Uh we just follow the plan, and it's really created a great environment.

And so that is taking the zoning approach.

Now, implementation is not just land use and zoning.

Let me repeat, implementation is not just land use and zoning.

There are other ways you can implement, and I'm going to share you a couple of other approaches.

This one, I'd have to say, is when funds are allocated up front.

It's rare, but it happens.

As a consultant, when I'm hired to do an area plan, the first thing I have, usually want to meet with a city manager is how much money do you have to implement?

What?

We don't have any.

Okay, I just need to understand.

Because now I understand how to navigate the meeting, whether I'm planning for a promissory note, or there's real dollars.

This was a unique project.

I was hired in Philadelphia.

This is called a targeted neighborhood initiative.

This was 1999.

Pew Charitable Trust selected three neighborhoods and gave them three million dollars each to make community improvements.

My job as a consultant was to work with the three neighborhoods to come up with a plan for those improvements.

Let me tell you, a meeting is very different when you're starting off with a fund than when you're starting off with a hope.

People were just so focused on, you know, they were asking stuff.

I kept saying that's a great idea, it's more than three million.

In the end of the day, what they came up with was great.

That was kind of the picture of the report.

There was this old kind of a junkyard, not contaminated, they recreated it into a park, outdoor movie theater for the community.

They came up with this mural.

It was a black and Hispanic community, it was a lot of confusion between language, so we did murals.

It was just amazing.

So my whole point is that it was very different when you have funding in place than when you don't.

So you end up with a plan that the state may have five million that'll cost you 25 million.

So that's just something you have to consider.

It's tough, but if you want to manage expectations, you kind of have to go through that uh exercise.

And uh, so the community knew what they would receive, and I have to tell you uh in the parks department I had that benefit because I had funds up front, you'll see that in a second.

So that's one approach that if you have funds allocated.

Uh and like I said, most communities that I work in get a promissory note, but that's okay so long as you have a track record of delivering and paying on that promissory note.

That's why the immediate action quick wins, the one year is such a critical time frame.

To the point you can set that up to implement straight away, uh, the better off that you will be.

Another approach is very focused.

Uh, this happened before I got to Raleigh.

Downtown was not a pleasant place.

Uh and so they came up with this livable streets, five and five.

Five major recommendations done in five years.

It wasn't exactly five years, but they got all this done.

Very focused.

All they're gonna do is five and five.

Five and five, five and five, not a lot of other stuff, very focused.

And so they wanted to reopen Faithful Street.

We had mauled it, you couldn't walk, it killed the street, and everybody's like, why are you gonna open it up on opening day?

Over a hundred thousand people showed up.

Now the street's going through its hard times, but uh we built a new convention center, we improved the pedestrian environment, we changed our rules to do downtown development, and we came up with a business improvement district to help us manage all that got done.

Five and five.

So that's the focused approach, but you have to channel all your resources.

We did get some flag.

What about investments in my community?

Why is everything all downtown?

Uh but we had to let them know it's the economic driver.

We will move around and focus on other areas, but this is your focused uh approach toward implementation.

Fewer recommendations.

This is something you're doing, you're a strategic plan.

I'll go through what I did in New York City.

Um our strategic plan was a five to seven years, similar to your time frame.

But for this one, I was shocked when I came to New York City that it was more dysfunctional than I thought, so we had to take a step back.

I had to build staff, vision, mission, strategic direction, strengthen staff morale, develop work plans, streamline the process, build a capital tracker, and then came up with this mission that was very simple that all staff could understand, which was plan, build, and care.

Plan, build, and care.

And of those 10,000 employees, they all knew plan build care, plan build care.

Each of them played a role in that.

This was our Christmas card.

I always like that card, but this is where I came up with the idea that we had to be Department of Fun, Health and Happiness.

That was our image.

You have the fire department, the police department with department of fund.

Every city should have a department of fund.

And we said, we'll be it, we'll be a department of fund.

And I wanted staff to kind of embrace that.

But also, because of what you all said about parks, I want to communicate their important role that we're also protectors, we're also guardians, we're also healers to our parks because people are suffering.

And what can we do through our parks and public spaces?

And so you saw the other stuff, led with a culture of care, far deeper.

Um I try to explain to staff.

There's a difference between maintenance and care.

I have a 27-year-old daughter.

When I raised her, I didn't maintain her.

I care for her.

Caring comes from a different part of the soul.

And so I had to teach staff maintenance and care.

When our volunteers come to our parks, they're not coming to maintain it.

They love that space.

There's something about them that wants to give back.

And so I had to talk about this culture of care.

That when I go to a park, I don't want someone to say, the city doesn't care.

Look at that.

I want the opposite.

And believe it or not, staff got it.

So this was our vision and mission.

Came up with these five strategic priorities equity, innovation, technology, caring for parks, planning and placemaking, managing communications.

Once I did that one, if anybody came up with a good idea, great idea, wait for the next commissioner.

Not gonna happen.

I have to be focused on these priorities in order to get it done.

Now, I'm a commissioner, I have a mayor.

The mayor would call me, and what we did was in order to not take away from the strategic plan, I created a special projects group, just like the city manager did, to do those more reactive things because I had to focus on getting this done.

I did have the capacity to do both, and so any time an urtual request came in, I separated the reactive team from the proactive team because it was too hard to do both.

And some staff struggled.

I just I just can't think that way.

There are some staff that love the task, just give me what to do.

There are others like saying, I'm a big thinker, this is what I want to do.

I had to separate the two.

So when it no to the mayor, and so we were able to do both.

So we got a little bit deeper.

You'll see in a second, a community parks initiative.

I delineated exactly the programs under each one of those strategic priorities.

Of course, we did work plans, uh, caring for parks, it shows standardized maintenance.

I mean, we did stuff like our parks department, five boroughs, each borough had a different cleaning product to clean rooms.

Some, if you didn't choke on ammonia, it wasn't clean.

I walk in the bathroom, and that's like, oh my God.

And we just went from 10 cleaning products to three for the entire park system.

You don't know how much money we saved by ordering all these supplies.

So that's just a side note.

Standardize that placemaking, you'll see some of those programs in a second.

And so we had to report out our success.

You'll see that in a second, because I want to be proud of the staff.

You did this.

You know, you did this.

And so for us, that was kind of our approach.

So, but that was tough.

I mean, telling the mayor, I couldn't say no, but I also knew, even by own commissioners saying, hey, we have a new idea for edible gardens, great idea.

No.

If it doesn't fit with one of those themes, it's not on that list.

Wait for the next commissioner, not doing it, have to be very focused, unless it was an emergency like COVID and civil unrest, other than that, and guess what?

All that stuff you saw, we got it all done.

All of it within seven years.

So the first one was this community parks initiative.

What I had to do is uh you can check it out, it's so cool.

We created this capital projects tracker.

I was managing 540 projects at once, too many, so we had this tracker.

You can't see it, but you can have a copy of the slide deck.

Uh it's gonna show you active projects 528.

I was 540.

This is now real, live, updated daily, and it shows the borough, it shows active, proposed, partners, and so the first year we got 70,000 hits.

The public knew exactly where it stood in the process.

It was, and I was more accountable, so this was a great tool, and then we streamlined the process.

Used to take us six years to do a project.

When I was done, we were down to three years, and we were able to deliver the projects a lot sooner.

Whoops, wrong button.

Uh so we launched this program to recreate 67 parks from the ground up.

Yes, it was a lot of money, but while that planning process was underway, we started doing these targeted.

Remember the quick wins?

We started doing that straight away.

We started sprucing up basketball courts with staff.

We started putting in flowers and plants and repairing benches with staff.

That's the down payment of goodwill while we waited for the capital process, which took three to four years.

We want to do something.

We neglected you for these are projects that hadn't seen investment in 20 years.

That's how bad it was in New York.

We put those to the top of the list, but we said in the meantime, we're gonna do something as a down payment of goodwill for more things to come.

And the community was like, What wait, what wait, what did this come from?

We've been neglected for two decades, and all of a sudden, stuff was happening.

So there's one of the parks.

We had this walk score, everybody had to be within a 10-minute walk to a park.

Well, there's one of them.

Wouldn't you want to go there right now and hang out and roll around on the asphalt?

And that's what I grew up in.

That's a Robert Moses, that's a playground in New York City.

And I kept saying, no, no, no, no, no.

So we transformed it.

What I loved about this one, we talked about engagement, and we do it for Ed Park Project.

This one involved an older aging community and some young black residents.

There was a high school at the periphery of this playground.

At the report, I'll never forget the black students went up first, and I watched all the Asian people tense up because, like, oh my goodness, it's gonna be basketball.

What are they gonna recommend?

And that young man, you can't see him.

He is wearing, yeah, he you can't really see him.

He's in front of the boy with a white shirt.

He got up, and I was with the council member, and the first thing he says, you want to know something?

Um, what we want to see in this park is a plaza, the Asian people uh to do Tai Chi, because that's what they do every morning, and all the folks looked, and I saw this amazing blend of community happening before my very eyes.

It wasn't basketball, it was the fact that they cared that they wanted to see Tai Chi continue.

So here is the design of that horrible asphalt, and then this is what it looked like today after it was completed.

Rain gardens, full transformation.

Um, what I love about it is that there is the space for the Tai Chi.

We deliver on our promises, we have credibility, we got it done, and this is now a space, a diverse community that's bringing people together.

You know, we had the money in place to fund it, but we just followed the program, we engaged it, very powerful program.

We finished 62 of the 67 before I left.

Another program is without borders.

Uh, this one went international.

Um, I just noticed and hated the fact that New York City had all these faces, fences, and gates uh around their park.

So the mayor gave me a pilot program because a lot of people like, why are you taking down our fences?

We need the fences, it makes parks safer.

I said, No, it doesn't.

Is somebody gonna mug the swing of the slide?

I didn't understand, and it had spikes on top, but it came from an era where people were very fearful and felt they had to have a step spike fence around the park, and so my recommendation was taken down, lower them, to take the kids out of prison and enjoy public spaces, and so plus it reimagined sidewalks.

We all have sidewalks and streets.

We all have streets.

Uh, and so we were able to do some amazing work.

The program was simple.

It was a new design approach to look at the edges, entrances, and adjacent park spaces.

This, I don't know if this laser is working.

See this fence?

All this is parkland.

We owned it.

We didn't have to acquire anything.

And so I wanted to reimagine public space that we already owned, that we had to reimagine without any acquisition cost, just using our imagination.

And so I'm gonna show you an example of what this looks like in Travis Park, and let me tell you, I got some pushback, don't take down our fences, it is scary, you can't do it.

And so we were able to do this pilot, and one we put out the first pilots.

Every project, people said, wait, why can't I have that park without borders on my park?

We did when I left over a hundred transformations of this program by reimagining parks and public spaces you had a sidewalk.

So here's an example.

We took a park, a playground, we took a street and a schoolyard and merged them together to create one park.

Once again, at fault, tall fence.

I want your nose where the trees are.

Our goal was to create the sidewalk and the park to be seamless.

This is again a Robert Moses playground.

And what we decided to do, we did this.

This was a vision.

Bring the park out to the street, create a space, parks or outdoor living rooms, front yard, backyard.

We wanted to create this welcoming space.

So this was the design.

And those trees that were sitting in isolation now becomes part of the sidewalk experience.

We didn't have to acquire any land.

We owned it.

And so there's what it looks like.

I like to have interactive benches.

When I talk to Eliza, I don't say, hey Eliza, how are you doing?

Like my living room.

I wanted to be seated so I can have a conversation.

The experience that I talked about.

This is that road that connected the school and the playground, which they use for street fairs and festivals and farmers markets.

That's what it was envisioned to be.

Parks, sidewalks are never closed.

People can now enjoy the outdoor experience.

And you can see the young people talking to one another.

It's about the experience, and this was a sidewalk that now created a space where people can be there in the evening and enjoy the beauty of a green canopy.

And the park is closed, the sidewalk is not closed.

That was the expensive version.

I always look for options that you can do because people say we don't have the resources, we're not in New York.

Well, this is in Brooklyn.

I'm a runner.

I was drive running by one day, and I'm like, what is up with this fence around this green space?

Like, why is it fenced off?

But this is typical of New York.

What are you protecting?

You think the trees are going to run away at night, so you put a fence around us, they don't run.

It made no sense.

And so I told my staff, unleash this space, take down the fence, and this is what my staff did.

Someone emailed me and said, Commissioner, I can't tell you how you changed my walk to work because that's I passed this space to go catch the train.

You've now put a smile on my face.

I start my day with joy.

All I did was take down the fence and let that green space be the garden.

It was fulfilled.

Cheap.

You know how much it costs?

Nothing.

We have blacksmiths in staff.

They took down the fence.

Our gardeners came in, put in the flowers, and it instantly became a healing space for people on their way to work.

Cost me nothing.

Zero.

Didn't have to wait.

That when I saw it from the time it was implemented, it took 60 days.

When I hear don't have staff resources, takes too long, that forces me.

It's like how now can we be innovative and creative?

With, you know, so I think this is the opportunity, and I'm saying this to staff that is uh you know in the road that this is what is possible with little or no money.

Speaking of another one with little or more no money, this is where I'm kind of coming to an end.

So this is uh expense funding.

I talked about really no money, this expense funding.

So by the way, that is the new commissioner of parks, Iris.

I appointed a bronze commissioner.

I'm so happy.

We have that you can see we have the same vibe.

I am overjoyed that she was appointed.

Um, next to our public housing, we have some disgusting uh pool decks.

And uh I said, this is not right, and so I challenged my staff to come up with uh this new program.

I saw something called swim filly in Philadelphia.

I said, We're in New York, we could be better.

And so we came with the concept of cool pools, we want to cool people down, but it's New York.

We also wanted them to be cool.

So the program was cool pools.

Uh there's some public housing, uh, that's what the pool looked like.

Nobody went there.

It was a very depressing place, chipping paint, old, you can see it was just horrible looking.

Uh it was just not a pleasant place to be.

And so we did not have a lot of capital money.

And I asked uh my staff, we had a design staff to come up with some ideas.

We reached out for some money, and for a hundred and fifty thousand per pool, we got paint donated by Benjamin Moore, we got benches donated from uh West Elm.

I mean, it just came in because they said this is a great concept.

We'll give you money.

So between expense funding staff and donations, we took that space and turned into this.

Now, before people didn't come, we actually had to, after two hours, tell them to leave the pool to let the next group come in.

There were lines going down the block.

They now started calling this the resort.

You know, we got all those cute little aneurys chairs for kids.

We had Marco, Polo around the end.

This now became a destination, and people in the neighbor like saying, wait, this this is for us.

And it was done cheap.

Not big, lofty big idea, and it made such an impact.

You better read the articles about this cool pools.

It's like they call it now the resort.

And and you know, I can't begin to tell you, you know, how amazing it was.

They did these cute sequences, and rather having uh, you know, they had a penguin, and so this is the one that was funny.

Reporters came out to this one, and they kept saying, like, where's the margaritas with the umbrellas?

It's like it's not that kind of park.

But this is when they said it was a resort, and I could not believe that this was a pool area with just some intervention, low cost, 150,000 per pool.

That to me about placemaking, it's not just a pool, it's a place with an experience for families, for kids learning how to swim at the first time.

The police were there doing cornhole, it became this amazing trade.

We did 17.

Do I have that slide there?

17.

Um little bit ahead of time, but that's okay.

Um, this is a progress report.

You really can't see because it's faded, but we celebrated our victories with staff, gave out all sorts of awards.

The interesting thing about the cool pools, um, staff went the extra mile.

They painted the pool decks, and then on themselves by themselves, because of the culture of care as a commissioner.

I know we weren't asked to do this.

We went inside the men's room and the women's room, we stripped all the paint, we painted it, we fixed the restrooms, we fixed the lockers.

I didn't ask them to do that.

They did that on their own, overwhelmed.

They said that this is such my maintenance staff.

This was such an amazing project.

And they worked, don't navigate this, for overtime at no extra cost.

This for them, they just was a labor of love.

I was blown away.

Uh they're still there, all these cool pools.

Um, we did 16, 17, we did them in stages, uh, and got more donations, and when people saw it, it's like, I want to be part of that.

So I'm a little bit ahead of schedule we can start.

Um, so this again, we celebrate our victories.

You can't see it, but we did this whole up.

Actually, I have copies of it here.

Yeah.

During lunch, if you want to pass these around.

Yeah, that's all three.

So um now people go digital, it doesn't have to be paper.

So this is our progress report uh that we put out.

We did one every two years.

Uh, this was that community parks initiative.

Um, this is a progress report from Raleigh, and so we just made sure we celebrated uh our victories, celebrate staff, celebrate our volunteers, celebrate community members, because they made this magic happen, and we want to make sure the public knew it wasn't just a promissory note, we're delivering on this goodwill, and so the sum of techniques that we used that it happened.

So I'm a little bit ahead of schedule by nine minutes, so I'll stop now for questions.

Uh as I stated after lunch, I'm now gonna shift the attention to all of you.

Uh, but I'll be around at lunch to talk and mingle, it's all up to you.

So let me see if there are any questions uh or discussion.

But the the bottom line is you have to think of implementation up front.

Your city manager and staff want to deliver counsel and all the other boards on these important projects.

You all care, like me, you ran for office to make a difference.

Uh it's not the what you want to do, it's the how.

And so I encourage you uh to focus on being realistic, prioritize.

You can't do it all.

You've got to think of implementation up front in terms of your plans.

I didn't count them up, but my guess is you have thousands of actions and recommendations.

I firmly believe it's probably time to retire some.

I mean, I didn't look into one, it was from 1998, but you know, after 30 years, that's a long, long, long, long, long-term plan.

I certainly believe you need to take a hard look at your zoning code.

I think it was done in the 1950s.

I know you updated sections.

That's going to be on the exercise later.

Uh so I'm hoping that these two presentations will give you some insight about how you can deliver on those promises to create this great place for the residences, the businesses, and the visitors of Hampton that increases your likelihood of success.

So there'll be tough decisions.

There'll be prioritizations.

No.

You have needs across the city you have to address.

Oh, I think I did I go over it.

The question was asked about engagement.

So when I do focus groups or engagement, I break it up into three categories.

I do geographic by area, make sure everything's covered.

I do it by demographics, make sure age, race, I make sure that's covered.

And then I do topic.

So I do those three sections, economic development, housing, in terms of demographic, make sure every area of the city is covered.

So when I go to you council, I'll say that I have heard from all the cross sections of the community, and some of those recommendations may conflict, but at least you have a better picture than those that show up for a public meeting and say, this is what we want.

So I'll stop now to see if there are any questions.

Yes.

Geographic, demographic, and topical topic.

Housing, economic development, education.

So I do those three cuts, and that usually gets you a very good representation, but it does take work because it's not them coming to you very often.

You have to go to them.

But at least you have a good balance.

And when someone said earlier we hear the no, this approach tends to equalize that.

Because now you're hearing from more people, because usually I would have to guess if you speak to some of the long-term residents, they have a lot to say about Hampton.

You talk to some of the newcomers, I love this place.

It's so affordable, I love the water, I love the access, I've got Virginia B.

It's like, what?

You both live here.

And someone bought a home and invested in your community, they have a voice too.

There's no extra value because you lived here longer.

We appreciate you.

We love you, you have a voice.

They have a voice too.

And we need to hear it, and that's what builds a great community.

All right, we have wait, I think it's time, 1245.

Did I run the clock?

I have five minutes.

I'm so sorry.

Questions.

I was supposed to stop 10 minutes ago.

Yes.

Yes, sir.

Thank you for that presentation.

Hampton, the city of Hampton is a very collaborative community.

That's one of the reasons why I moved here back in 1993 and I've been here ever since.

So all the the parks initiative that you you worked on.

What are some of the community partners and governmental partners that you have to work with to get all of these projects done and how did you do it?

Right.

Well, for this one, because equity was so important to the mayor, I was given from council and the mayor a huge fund of money.

But in terms of the partners, we had something called New Yorkers for Parks, Trust for Public Land, we had the public health professionals were on board.

We had our Department of Environmental Protection, I don't know what the equivalent is here, Department of City Planning.

We had all these partners that helped us make this happen because me rebuilding the sidewalk looked cool, but you all know some of these apartments are like that is my property, my sture, stop.

It's the public's property in the public's jurisdiction, stop.

I'm sorry.

I didn't say it like that, but that's how I felt.

The mayor was on board with my approach, so the commissioners stepped in line, but very often, folks are territorial, and I want to make sure parcel borders was a seamless approach of how do we take this asset that is underused to make it grow.

So Department of Transportation, City Planning, Environmental Protection, Department of Health, and then all of our other park partners and the community.

They came out because this was something, you know, these I didn't do the whole line about this, but these were parks that were neglected for two decades.

Zero investment.

I have a whole presentation on this initiative.

Two decades.

They're watching park if the park at the park get renovated, and this was frozen in time.

We took these 67 parks and put them in the front of the line.

And some people weren't happy about that.

I'm like saying, Council member, that park got invested five years ago, theirs with 32 years, and they go, I got you.

And it was so successful.

Uh, when I left office, the mayor funded another 100.

Uh, so we had 215 parks neglected for 20 years.

We're able to get to about 175, and I'm not there anymore, so it's up to them.

But um, that was the partners that we use.

And city council.

They finally got it, and it was like, whew.

It reduced crime, it built community.

82% of them had friends groups to help support and volunteer for the space.

So it was a win-win-win, especially reducing crime because we decided to build the best quality parks.

Because if you respect the community with quality material, they respect you back in return.

New York had a history of building vandal-proof parks that got vandalized.

Because when you said people this can't be broken, I'm like, I'm gonna show you it could be broken, and they broke it.

Other questions before we break for lunch?

Quick question.

Yes.

Um, just looking at how we function here in the city of Hampton.

We have a very good relationship between our city council and our school board in terms of working through things.

In your processes that you work with in these other cities, how how were how was the school division factored into the planning and implementation?

One of the projects we had a schoolyard to playground program.

It varies from place to place, but schools are a place for young learning, but also for me, emerging community health.

So, what we try to do is I I want to be respectful.

I say this in some jurisdictions, the public pays for a school and the athletic fields, but the school says you can't touch it.

It's public, but not public.

So I say so it's private public space.

So we work hard to make sure these assets that are played with paid with public money are available to the public.

In New York City, I can't tell you how hard that is because it's something called this custodian union.

We at parks had to pay the custodians extra to keep their school yards that the public paid for open longer in areas that were park deficient.

So other places are doing these joint use agreements that they allow their fields, their tracks, because some places don't have a track, but it's like there's a track right there.

Oh, that's the schools.

It's public, isn't it?

So what I have found is this great partnership where schools collaborate, also our volunteer programs.

We work very closely with plant a tree, kids love planting stuff.

Uh, and so we do these programs where we want to replenish a forest, we get young kids to come in there, amazing.

So we have great relationships with volunteerism, it's environmental education.

Uh but directly we do a lot of in various places, they do programs where they open up their facilities for the public, particularly those that are park deficient.

Sir?

Yes.

Just a comment.

Hampton founded in 1610.

With the oldest continuous English-speaking settlement in America, inherently we have the original downtown of the United States.

Wow.

Why don't we market it, accentuate it, and attract people to the original downtown of America?

That is a great question, and that's something you, John and your colleagues are gonna answer.

Uh, before we go to lunch, so you know, um, I don't know all the in and outs of what's happening in Hampton.

Um this was more of a retreat than me doing an analysis of your current operations.

I was told from the city manager by virtue of this retreat, this is the largest one, and Mary told me, yep, it's the council, plan commission, housing, school.

I was like, wow, that is remarkable.

I enjoy the fact that you're collaborative, but I a lot of this isn't saying this is what I found, so this is what you can do.

And so those are some of the tips I wanted to offer you that as you have these conversations and prioritize what you want to do.

My only assessment is you have a lot.

So this afternoon, I think you should start to make priorities about what is important to continue and what you need to retire.

But have that conversation with the community about saying, look, it's been here.

This plan is, you know, I'll give you a clue.

One of the exercises, we have all your master plans.

I'm gonna ask y'all what y'all want to do.

Keep them, replace them, retire them.

You need to focus.

You all need to focus.

And when you focus, you're able to, you know, because now the field of vision is smaller, and you can now focus on what needs to get done.

You have a you know, willing staff that wants to execute.

And so part of my goal is to show you how important it is to have a plan, follow the plan, but then the key is implementation because all of you want to make sure you deliver for your so with that.

We have one last comment or not not a question just for informational purposes.

The materials you're seeing today are available on the internet now at the City Council web page.

The link has also been shared with your respective clerks, also for staff in the room.

So if you want to go through this again, it's been such a wealth of information, you can do so.

So your clerks will get it to you, and it's available online now as well.

Since my good friend Ann found one typo, we may have to send a revise one or just look the other way.

There was okay.

All right, with that, enjoy lunch, and we'll be back at 12.

What 1:30?

130.

We have about 45 minutes for lunch, 1.30.

Okay.

We're passing the handouts and the pens at each table.

Again, we want to have diverse perspectives at each table.

You should have a minimum of four people per table.

And we're gonna get started in about five minutes.

You can still eat if you want to.

And in a moment, once I know the sheets are on the table, we're gonna go through the exercise.

I know, don't worry.

Look, I thought it's good.

I highly recommend a dessert.

A lot of good choices.

I usually need dessert, but I made an exception today.

I was like, I really think that's all about this.

Eliza, do you need help me passing this out?

Anyone outside?

They were like kind of true.

Hold on, you take that.

There you go.

They're like zigzagged.

Okay.

Do you have a time on that option?

Uh I have an assistant.

Okay.

Yep, can you test that?

Oh, here we go.

Thank you.

Hi.

Thanks, sir.

You should have three sheets of paper.

One, two, three.

I'm so sorry.

I just want to make sure we have enough for everyone.

So sorry.

Okay.

We may need to get more.

Is that all?

No, you still haven't.

You need more.

Testing.

Okay, while we're waiting.

So this is the exercise that we'd like you to do.

Number one, we want you to rank one through five.

The top five implementation challenges Hampton faces today.

The first part of the assignment is you're to fill it out individually.

And then when you're done, I want you as a table to reach consensus on those top five.

You will have twenty minutes to do this exercise.

Step one, rank one through five individually, and then start to pick the top five as a group.

If you need an extra sheet, let us know to rank the top five, we'll give it to you.

We ask that you write your affiliation, not your name, on the top of your sheet.

City Council and not the development authority, school board, staff, just write your affiliation, not your name.

We're going to gather this and tabulate it up, both as individuals and as a group table.

Part of this exercise is to reach consensus for your table for the top five.

This is what it looks like.

We have we gave you some options to pick from stuff I've heard in my forty years.

These are some of the top things I've heard.

So we got you started with A through M.

All you have to do from one through five is write A, B, C, whatever it is.

If your challenge is not on that list A through M, write it in yourself.

So if you want to do four letters and one that wasn't on a list, you can do that.

And so please write your affiliation on the top of the sheet that has the one, two, three, four, and five.

Do it individually, and I'll let you know we need to start doing it as a group to reach consensus.

If anybody needs a pen, and it should say exercise number one.

There were two sheets with exercise number one.

One has the list of challenges, and the second one is the top implementation.

Oh, it shouldn't have the tech no.

Should be top five.

I have top ten, top five.

So first fill it out as an individual, and then I'll let you know we need to start talking to reach consensus.

I think we've Jennifer, we're looking.

Apparently, this retreat is very popular.

Eliza, do we have any extra?

Oh, that's it.

We're sold out.

Okay.

I'm gonna look to see if there's any left.

You have another five minutes to work in the I'll say two minutes.

This is consensus.

Is that the sign that you're done?

Or you have a question?

Oh, we're gonna five.

Four more minutes.

Four more minutes.

Okay, no one's throwing food, so this is a good sign.

You all do get along.

Okay.

Oh.

It's not my staff.

That's my stuff.

Three more minutes.

Three more minutes.

How do they identify the top five?

Are they writing down the top five?

Two-minute warning, two minute warning.

And I said yes, it does include the diversity will get in a white man.

Thank you.

Okay.

One minute to go, and I will ask about a couple of tables to report out.

Okay, folks, that is time.

So everyone, pins down.

Time to wrap up.

Okay, for this exercise, ladies and gentlemen, I need your attention.

I'm glad you're still talking.

This can continue after I leave.

Okay.

Do we have three tables as volunteers?

That want to share their top five group consensus of the top five challenges.

So city manager, Mary.

I have a loud voice.

They can hear me.

Okay.

Tell me if you can't hear me, but I can project.

I didn't really want to stand up, but Councilwoman Campbell voluntary me, so our group consensus.

Uh the number one by far was B.

I'm sorry, no, F.

I was looking at my personal one.

F.

There is lack of staff funding and resources to implement projects.

The next one was K having too many plans to track and implement, which we also thought kind of tied to E, which was trying to implement too much.

Some of these we thought were similar.

Um, and then we had A, which was reactive concerns compete with proactive planning.

And then we had B recommendations not vetted through a reality-based test.

And then we had L master plans are outdated.

A P and L were all equal rank.

I mean, we we've got to is fine.

Yeah, I just yes, the top five is fine.

Okay.

Thank you so much, Mary.

Anyone else, please?

I need two more.

Volunteers.

Okay.

What's oh, we got two over here.

All right.

The one that got to four, they struggled with four, but they reached five, so we'll go to the mayor.

Sir, you're tell us your top five.

Mayor.

No, this the mayor's over here raises head.

Unless you were running for office, no, the mayor was over here.

We want the mayor looks like a good man.

You don't know what's like running for office.

Okay.

I don't want to spot you.

So no, we started with A.

Uh reactive concerns compete with proactive planning.

I was tied with D.

Community investments are not supported by vocal members of the city.

I'm sorry, y'all.

Um three is M.

Uh do you discuss implementation at the beginning or the end of the process?

That was tied with L, which master plans are outdated.

And then last but not least, we have B recommendations, not vetted based.

Okay.

Okay.

We're starting to see some trends in our mayor.

Oh.

Mayor.

Okay.

Oh thank you, Mr.

May.

Um, we had uh C first timelines are not realistic.

Then we had A reactive concerns, compete with proactive planning.

We had L, master plans are outdated.

F there's lack of staff funding resources to implement projects, and then K.

Um, oops, I said that wrong.

Yeah, no, too many plans to track and implement.

Okay.

Thank you.

You all saw us see a pattern here.

Okay.

Mayor?

Okay, thank you.

We had um master plans outdated, number one.

Uh two is lack of staff funding and resources.

Three, uh reactive concerns competing with um proactive planning.

Uh four is uh I didn't write it all down.

Do dillage is not done up front to ensure there's sufficient infrastructure in place to support new projects and big idea ideas.

And then uh lastly, uh trying to implement uh too much.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh do we have any others?

Oh, we have one more.

Oh, one here.

Okay.

Y'all had a good sometimes.

I do this sometimes, it's rough.

It's rough.

I'm glad y'all are so collaborative and getting along.

Hello, how are you?

I am doing well, thank you.

Good afternoon, everyone.

I want to start by saying we had parks and rec at our table.

We had economic development, public works, community development.

Um, so I think we were having a healthy discussion on how we could land to this consensus from many different perspectives across the organization.

So, where we land it, um hearing a lot of and agreeing with a lot of things already shared.

Reactive concerns are competing with our ability to plan proactively.

We talked about recommendations are not vetted through a reality-based test.

We talked about um having too many plans to track and implement.

Uh, we went a little bit back and forth on that one, but landed on it being top five.

Master plans are outdated, and I'm sure we can all agree on F.

There is a lack of staff funding and resources to implement the many projects we are working on.

Okay.

Thank you so much.

And then last but not least.

Okay.

You are our spokesperson.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Um, so I was sitting at the table with all of the educators.

And myself.

Um, but I am a former school board member, so I fit into this group pretty well.

Um so our number one was F, um, which is of course the lack of staff, which has been a common theme today.

L was our number two, which um was uh the fact that uh our master plans are outdated.

Number three for us was M, um, which is um the implementation uh potentially was not discussed at the beginning.

And um number four was D.

Um Investments are not supported by um vocal members of the city.

We also talked about another s aspect of that.

We amended it a little bit to say that the vocal minority um doesn't necessarily represent the majority opinion.

Um said and then the last piece for us number five was not on the list, but um agreed upon at this table that there are um too many restrictions and um hoops to jump through to get things done, codes are outdated and um and that is a barrier and a challenge.

Wow.

Well, thank you.

Give you all a round of applause.

I did not want to hear from everyone.

It's now 201.

We're going to our lax exercise last exercise.

Another 30 minutes.

Uh and then when you're done, we'll have another report out, and then I'm gonna wrap up and then gonna go home.

Didn't that five five hours go by very quickly?

It did, didn't it, right?

Okay.

So uh here is now number one, uh Eliza is gonna start collecting uh all of the sheets.

Please make sure you asterisk the group exercise consensus one, because we're gonna tabulate the group consensus and individual, very important.

The one that is the group consensus.

We're collecting all of them and going to tabulate it and share it with city manager and council.

So just make sure.

All right.

Uh and Eliza's coming around to collect it.

So for this next exercise.

Oh, I'm so happy we did this.

So this one is I want you to review the list of adopted master plans.

Choose the top three master plans to update and the top three to retire.

There is a bonus question about the zoning code.

Update, update uh sections, or do nothing.

So you'll have about five minutes for this first one, and then once again, you're gonna work as a group to build consensus on the three to update, the three to retire, and what to do with your zoning code.

So we want to see three boxes checked in the first column, three boxes checked in the second column.

For your edification, we put the year, the plan was adopted in chronological order.

And you can see the one that is quite old.

I can't see it from here.

So time is beginning now.

Sure.

Thank you.

No, no, I'll just do a little closer.

Are you emotional support?

Oh, okay.

I didn't realize that it was a round table kind of thing.

I thought it would be so.

But I'm glad you guys are doing this.

So they hired you as like a head of someone to fix the city.

I usually do I'm an advisor.

So I've been doing this.

So I comment.

I call it something about the city.

Um that's kind of what I do.

And uh it's very short term.

I'm retired now, so I can't do that.

I can't jump in.

Can we hire you again?

So what I do is I kind of do what I'm trying to do.

So all the things once I get it, I can hear the option.

Not a hundred.

Right, just like I'm an electoral approving board.

So that's my neighborhood.

Because you know, it's very archaic for our city order.

Well, I have that on the list.

But I I know so um, yeah.

But this is not just for mass firms.

You can do it from all your work.

This is just an approach.

Uh and it works, it works.

So like I said, I've been doing it for four years, and every time I hire me, people like, how did we do this?

How do you make a change?

And I don't know how I learned it.

It's just so determined to get stuff done.

Right.

And I'm taking talk to mayors and powerful people in a way like I never thought of that.

My job is to get the stuff done.

Why are you getting a hundred things together?

What's the most important one?

Get it all.

Figure it out, get it done.

Stop doing that.

Who does that?

They don't.

No, that doesn't work.

But if you want results, don't tell me figure it out getting done.

Right.

No, I love that.

So I'm glad they did that.

So you were somebody's.

I spoke to Fort Monroe.

And the city manager I gave her a treat to the Fort Mr.

Board.

She heard me speak, and that's what she said.

Help me bring it up.

Thank you for doing it.

My pleasure.

Yes.

Yes, they are.

Okay.

Yes.

That's gonna be at two third.

I try to follow the program.

I like to be predictable.

Okay.

Okay, we'll do it.

Got it.

How do you all do it?

Yeah, let's say at least the interstate has been.

Okay.

Did you pick up on that one?

There's a method to my math.

Yeah, okay.

I'm not grinding that it's twenty-seven years old.

No, I learned.

I learned one thing.

If I say look, keep talking to us.

You circled it.

Ford and round data, what I already know.

See, that's a that's a tough one.

Absolutely.

And I just finished this past year in the power workers.

Um your stuff pops up.

I have probably a million questions for you, but I won't worry about it.

Just remember one thing.

There were two Rob Moses pre-war, post-war.

Pre-war was amazing, post war was a evil name.

Yes, it was.

That's all I gotta say.

I was there for seven.

Sat in the seat.

This is actually it's crazy.

And I had to undo a lot of his work.

Well that's what I was gonna add.

I did.

The horrors.

But um how do you do large scale projects?

I don't want to clean up.

Yeah, I think so that lens, but yeah.

It's interesting too.

Exciting to see transform.

I'll tell you what some of these projects.

Yes, I did, and I did, and it was a a joy.

It was just a joy.

But I want to embrace the pre-war Robert Moses.

We're doing great.

I'd encourage you now if you haven't to start transitioning to group consensus.

So please select the three plans to update.

And the three plans to retire.

And the bonus question on the zoning code.

Oh, I had some of the things.

But I don't think about it.

So let me throw a simple thing.

I mean there's reworking creek.

Because you're going to focus on recommendations.

I never know what one is on it.

But it's true about the topic.

And if they look like me.

It's like stop it.

That doesn't work.

So then it's ring was so like a well sorry.

Well, and what to do.

Can I say this?

No, I have a second.

I'll be right back.

Sorry, before I forget.

We can regulate like how this is where we say that.

Yeah, we have a really big home building lobby.

We're talking zoning.

Sorry.

Yes.

I had a pad.

Do you have a notepad in your book back?

We do, but before I forget, these are like it's accessible.

Oh, here it is.

I did have it.

What's that?

Yeah.

We have seven minutes as a group to talk.

Just for the record, my daughter was born in nineteen ninety-eight.

She is now twenty-seven years old.

So I'd love to visit Armistead Point Park.

Just to see how it looks twenty-seven years after the master plan.

I probably can take this.

I don't think I need this.

Oh, maybe we can go back up there.

I don't think I just for the discussion.

Oh, okay.

Okay.

Is that done?

The master plan implement.

Yeah, as we do.

Yeah, no, I had to go back and take a look at it.

We were in there in the building.

The only thing I remember is we might put a VMX track.

Yes, I do.

I love the collaboration.

I am also here on the cover.

Uh-huh.

Oops, testing.

All right, we have four more minutes before we report out.

Four more minutes.

Three more minutes, three more minutes.

Okay.

Future mayor just coming by to say it's funny that you said that because he's actually the future commissioner.

So he's on the ballot right now.

So what do you what do you do?

So I'm the director for violence prevention.

Wow.

Particularly.

Wow, that's thank you.

I'm the director of the convention and visitor bureau and the marketing and outreach.

Thank you for your hospitality for that wonderful gift bag in our row.

I love that.

I'm gonna use it.

I'm so glad.

I did.

Thank you for the note as well.

Thank you.

I'm the emergency manager.

Oh, okay.

A lot of respect.

And she is a cultural city, I guess.

I don't know if you'll see.

Yes.

Oh, yeah.

We were getting a New York storm search was our biggest challenge.

Oh, I think it was a hurricane and the storm search.

Yes.

New Jersey, New York, y'all get the storm searches when we storm fast us.

And I luckily Ida was not there.

I kept saying I wish there's no crisis under my watch, because when I came the pre the commission before me, assumed she joined.

And all she did was FEMA storm recovery for whole term.

And I was like, shoot.

And then I got COVID.

And the civil and social unrest together.

And now we're planning for a civil unrest.

Yes, I'm not sure.

Okay.

One minute.

Whoops.

One minute.

Testing testing.

Okay, one minute warning, one minute warning.

Please wrap up your group conversations.

Once again, put an asterisk on the sheet of group consensus.

So we can tabulate it properly.

I cannot wait.

Okay, folks.

Uh pans down.

Can I grab your attention?

Uh please.

Uh once again, I love tables to report out.

Uh what the results were.

Can I have a show of hands?

Who wants to go?

I'm gonna pick.

Okay, let's go to this table first.

So we have our first group report out.

Let me hand you the microphone.

So drum roll, please.

Let's do the first three two update.

So I've been told to give the disclaimer that you've got a table of lawyers in and now and so.

Umdates, our consensus was Buckrow, Kick Atlanta, and downtown.

That's the update?

Yes.

Okay, and to retire.

That was a easy consensus.

Oh, New Market Creek, and Fort Monroe.

Okay, do that by okay, I won't ask how you do that.

Well, two of them are because they are either covered by another plan or just not enough land space to worry about.

And Fort Monroe is because Fort Monroe is largely state-owned and they've got their own initiatives.

We don't need to vote to devote as much attention to that.

Got it.

The lawyers did a great job.

Okay, thank you.

Oh, bonus question.

The zoning code.

Rewrite it.

Okay, rewrite it.

All right, let me go to this table.

We have an eager person that's gonna report out.

All right.

To update the three to update.

Any lawyers at this table?

Just me.

Oh, just you.

We got lawyers, we got a council member, we got HRHA, we got CDD, so we got the answer here.

So update was Buckrow, Coliseum Central, and downtown.

And we sort of debated between Coliseum Central and Phoebus for updating, but we kind of thought Phoebus has the bones there, it just sort of needs to realize it, and that Coliseum Central is the one that could really use a planning focus.

Okay.

So the retire was Armistead Point Park because we actually had to look that up.

And none of us were sure what that was referring to.

Um Kikatan, because we thought that is sort of naturally transitioning to residential, and then uh New Market Creek Park was the other.

And the bonus question, and I'm gonna say, I take this from my experience because I just left a locality where we did a complete rewrite of the zoning code.

And so my response to that is amend strategically and then take the time to do an update properly after you update the plan.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

We have another Leonard.

Okay.

Good afternoon, everybody.

Uh we have small business owners, yay.

We have an elected school board member who also represents Hampton University, a Hampton University alum, and also our SPL for educated citizen and gay citizens.

We have our librarian, our queen of fun, placemaking.

And where we landed in terms of updating Buckrow, um said that Hampton is the oldest continuous English speaking settlement.