As part of Plan Cincinnati - the comprehensive city plan currently underway - the city planning department is working with BBC Research & Consulting and Starboard Strategy to develop a housing market study and needs your input.
The City has already hosted several working group meetings related to housing and neighborhood development for
Plan Cincinnati, but is now seeking specific input related to the housing and neighborhood needs, wants, and desires of Cincinnati residents through three public sessions.
The goal of the public outreach sessions, according to planner Alex Peppers, is to learn what Cincinnati residents like best and least about living in the City's neighborhoods, what would make the residential experience better and more competitive with surrounding areas relative to housing, and to understand what housing types and costs residents desire.
"We plan on having a large group discussion as well as a small group discussion to hear from residents and stakeholders. We have also developed sets of questions to begin discussion and will have comment books for people to write down any ideas or thoughts as they come up. A housing bingo game has been developed as an ice breaker (match a photograph of a housing type to a Cincinnati neighborhood in which it can be found). Also, a visual preference survey has been developed as an individual activity," Peppers said.
The information gleaned from the sessions will be collected and included in a Housing Market Study produced by consultants BBC Research and Starboard Strategy. Peppers says the study will be a major driver in the writing of the Housing and Neighborhood Development portion of Plan Cincinnati.
"Since this is a Comprehensive Plan, it will not be neighborhood specific, but the goal is to talk about our City's neighborhoods as a whole... [and] there will be some talk about different housing types in different neighborhoods, but overall this is meant to be comprehensive for all of Cincinnati."
No matter what your level of expertise or interest, Peppers is encouraging all interested parties to attend one of three sessions being offered to the public.
"Homeowners, renters, interested residents, home builders, rental associations, housing authority representatives, developers, bankers, non-profits related to housing and neighborhood development, city representatives, young professionals, you name it. We would like to see an array of representation at each individual session so that all opinions and thoughts are given," he said.
All three outreach sessions include the same content and format. To attend an upcoming session, please RSVP with your first meeting time/date preference and your second meeting time/date no later than noon on January 5th, 2011 to:
[email protected]The scheduled sessions are:
Tuesday, January 11th, 2011 – 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM or
Tuesday, January 11th, 2011 – 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM or
Thursday, January 13th, 2011 – 8:00 AM – 10:00 AM.
Writer: Sean Rhiney
Photography by Scott Beseler.
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