beHBG is the City of Harrisburg’s Comprehensive Plan process to create a vision for the future of the city and determine how it should evolve, develop, and grow over the next twenty years. The program began in May 2015 and will continue through the beginning of 2016.
Utilizing CSPM Group’s crowdsourced placemaking system, the entire comprehensive planning process was designed from the start to be a transparent and inclusive community initiative, implemented by a consultant team lead by Office for Planning and Architecture (OPA) and directed by the City of Harrisburg’s Planning Bureau.
The Consultant’s Team includes:
K&W Engineers and Consultants
Good Land Collaborative
ARUP Americas
CSPM Group
AB3 Development Advisory
From the beHBG, the comprehensive plan’s website:
“Over a ten-month period, the Comprehensive Plan process will engage local stakeholders – including residents, businesses, institutions, nonprofits, and property owners – through a nationally-renowned, interactive program called crowdsourced placemaking.
Crowdsourced placemaking is a grassroots, social networking program that solicits ideas from the community, through a combination of in-person meetings, local events, online forums and ‘Likes,’ and establishes a conceptual groundwork for projects such as Harrisburg’s Comprehensive Plan.
Crowdsourced placemaking will encourage members of the community to get involved in the process by coming to OPA’s downtown informational office, participating in Public Engagement Forums and Community Workshops, and submitting and ‘Liking’ ideas on this website that they would like to see incorporated into the plan. Visit the Idea Section to see ideas proposed and to register to participate and submit your own ideas.
Through these crowdsourced placemaking efforts, OPA will “co-create” the Harrisburg Comprehensive Plan with the public, ensuring that it contains elements (e.g., types of uses, businesses, amenities, etc.) that are proposed, supported by, and prioritized by a wide-range of stakeholders and simultaneously rigorously tested against market realities. Local residents and stakeholders will have the ability to participate both online and in person to provide insight and ideas as to what they would like to see established throughout Harrisburg.
This planning process will identify and choreograph specific public, private, institutional, and nonprofit development projects as well as broad and diverse commercial, retail, residential, cultural, and recreational assets to capitalize on the many opportunities in the City of Harrisburg.
To kick off this inspirational process, the public was surveyed to help determine the name of the Plan. The name that was selected – beHBG– is also a call to all stakeholders and community members, inside and outside of the city, to strive to realize Harrisburg’s potential and be what it can be.”
