POLICY 100
Place-based Neighborhood Engagement: Strengthen the City’s robust neighborhood-based community engagement system to ensure that it effectively and equitably builds people’s capacity to organize to improve their neighborhoods.
THIS POLICY SUPPORTS GOALS:
THIS POLICY RELATES TO TOPICS:
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Neighborhood level community organizing and neighborhood organizations play a critical role in keeping residents informed, connected to their community and empowered to guide and influence decisions that affect their lives. Through past and current efforts, neighborhood associations have helped increase safety, celebrate diversity, build community, preserve housing stock, promote economic vitality, foster a sustainable environment and improve health throughout the City.
ACTION STEPS
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to strengthen the City’s robust neighborhood-based community engagement system to ensure that it effectively and equitably builds people’s capacity to organize to improve their neighborhoods.
- Maintain a place-based neighborhood system of community engagement.
- Continue to fund neighborhood organization community engagement programs while providing oversight and structure for the use of public funds.
- Require neighborhood organization level notification of City proposed projects and City public hearings, and encourage full participation in those public processes through neighborhood level review and input.
- Continue to consult neighborhood organizations so that they may help inform residents of potential projects and other city decisions that might impact their communities.
- Assist and support neighborhood organizations in expanding outreach to diverse participants and encourage more inclusive engagement to maximize the involvement of renters, people with disabilities, people of color, indigenous people and others who have been historically underrepresented in civic life.
- Implement policies and procedures that outline expectations on city departments for neighborhood and community notification and consultation.
- Reform the existing city-level governance structure for neighborhood programs to make it more efficient, effective and relevant to city departments and neighborhood organizations.
- Promote partnerships between Neighborhood Organizations and Community Organizations to increase diversity in leadership and decision-making at the neighborhood and citywide levels.