Does your community need a master plan? Do you need to facilitate a public workshop? How are you going to effectively engage and educate the public?
Often in the planning process, we struggle with opposition and misunderstanding. Our planners have the experience to navigate these treacherous waters. We are experts in designing solutions that can address a wide range of complex issues. Let our planners facilitate and guide your community to success.
Master Plans
Our planners work with communities nationally to develop customized Community Master Plans. Our portfolio includes over a dozen plans in the New England region, as well as projects in Arkansas, South Carolina, and Maryland. We can help a neighborhood articulate its vision for the future through careful process design. We then apply our expertise with coalition building, physical design, and zoning reform for effective plan implementation.
open space & recreation plans
We strongly believe that a community’s open space and recreational resources provide important environmental, social, and economic benefits to its residents and businesses. We have helped many Massachusetts communities successfully update their local Open Space and Recreation Plans in accordance with the Division of Conservation Services guidance.
hazard mitigation plans
Our planners work with towns, cities, and state agencies to create and update Hazard Mitigation Plans in compliance with FEMA requirements. Our services typically include municipal interviews, GIS map updates, risk assessment and vulnerability analyses/mapping (FEMA Flood Zones, sea level rise, and hurricane surge scenarios), and coastal inundation scenarios. We develop Mitigation Action Strategies, public workshops, project webpages, surveys and collaborate with state emergency management agencies and FEMA officials.
Community Engagement
Our planners are trained in the arts of listening, facilitation, and public process design. Tools and techniques include conventional and social media campaigns, focus group discussion, pop-up events and displays, public forums, project galleries, working group facilitation, and one-on-one interviews.
Regulatory Reform
We have decades of experience helping communities translate policy into enforceable standards. Our planners have successful projects with zoning ordinances, subdivision regulations, general ordinances, health regulations, and state legislation.
Watershed Assessment/Planning
Our planners, engineers, and scientists work together to identify long-term solutions to water quality, land use, and ecosystem challenges.
GIS Services
Spatial data development and analysis add depth to municipal and environmental planning efforts. Our technicians can visualize trends, build inventories, and interface with modeling software within cutting edge GIS platforms.
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“Our experiences with the HW team have been superb, including Folly Road. They are first-rate collaborators. Their technical work was the best we’ve seen in their areas of specialty, and they were nimble and responsive to our questions and directions.”
Victor Brandon Dover, Dover Kohl & Partners, Coral Gables, FL