The Multnomah Villager

Warning: This is liable to get a little “ranty”, so let me get the important information out of the way first. There will be a “charrette” on Saturday, March 10th from 9AM to 12 noon in the Gymnasium at the Multnomah Art Center for the purpose of developing non-binding site design and development recommendations to the prospective developers of the Jerome F Sears property. Several of the interested parties will be on hand to listen, but the bidders are not the ones participating in the “design workshop”. Anyone can participate who feels like they have something to say about how this site should be developed, and what the developers need to be aware of (from eco-concerns to colors to traffic patterns) when they being building out the site, sometime in 2011.

This is being done to make the nieghborhood’s recommendations and concerns known to prospective developers. There is no guarantee that the suggestions will be followed or even considered, but having them available as site plans are being proposed should take at least one step towards identifying and perhaps addressing major concerns from members of the community before development has started and it’s “too late” to change plans, as is often the case.

But what exactly IS a Charrette?

The simple definition: It’s a roundtable open discussion for the purpose of designing some thing or process. Originally specifcally referring to groups of design professionals or artists, now charrettes are usually planned to include the widest possible range of input. Charettes are generally used in lcoal government settings where wide public input is important. Charrette is a french word meaning chariot, or handcart. Hit the Wikipedia link below to read the story of how this term began to be used for a meeting…
Charrette is one of those new-agey everybody-is-included terms that’s being used willy-nilly these days by anyone putting a group together to discuss some some larger process - although it’s mostly used in development. Portland’s fascination with this term started about a year and half ago it seems, when all of a sudden everybody and their neighbor was planning or attending charrettes. Rose Festival, Hillsdale, Reike School…. When this charrette was announced at the MNA meeting, there were several questions about charrette means, which bring me to the crux of my little ranty point.

This term “charrette” is just another case of government doublespeak being used to emphasize inclusiveness and openness, at the expense of clarity. If you want people to come and participate in a discussion, make sure they understand exactly what it is you’re talking about., When you have to preface each newspaper article with a paragraph explaining what a charrette is, and why it’s called that, perhaps you should be calling your design meeting something a little more understandable.

But you can’t keep a local government type away from these sorts of terms, and charrette is doubly attractive since there’s a connection to New Orleans in it’s heritage and it’s European, and they’re so much more advanced than we are about these sorts of processes. What people don’t realize it that obtuse terminology like this is off-putting just as much as it’s engaging. I’m certainly behind the effort to fight the dumbing-down of language, but come on…
To Brian’s credit, it’s called a “design workshop” in the agenda.

Sorry about that - I’m WAY to cynical for this sort of thing. Not the meeting, just the terminology. Here’s some real information about Charrettes and how they’re being used in the urban planning process:

• Wikipedia’s definition of “Charrette”
• What is a Charrette? by the National Charette Institute
• A Neighborhood Charrette Handbook from the University of Louisville

So, if you have something to day about the Jerome F. Sears site, and you want to make sure that your particular concerns get acknowledged by the neighbors at the least, come on out on Saturday the 10th. It’s just a meeting. With whiteboards and stuff, and a moderator, and some interested potential developers sitting around the room taking notes.

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 18th, 2007 at 11:39 am and is filed under Government, MNA. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.