WHY WOULD I WANT TO BE ON YOUR COMMITTEE?

The phone call to Joanna came unexpectedly on a Thursday afternoon, just before her children were due home from school.?Ruth first introduced herself as a local architect, and then quickly offered that she was calling Joanna at the recommendation of Joanna’s pastor.?That referral was enough to permit Joanna to give Ruth a few more minutes before the stock hang-up answer of, “I’m not buying whatever you’re selling.”?When Ruth said she was the architect of the new office building that the newspaper was reporting was about to be constructed across the street, Joanne’s deference to Pastor Ron’s referral began to fade.

Ruth then said, “we could really use your help.”?Joanna was raised in that very house to never reject a request for assistance.?“Go on,” she replied.

What followed was an explanation, spoken a little too quickly, of what Ruth called a “regenerative approach” to this new office building.?Ruth’s presentation included some words that Joanna had not heard used in discussing building design, almost like some religious jargon.?But Ruth’s earnestness shone through, and Joanna continued to quietly listen, until the “ask.”

“We are looking for residents of the neighborhood and members of the community to be part of our ‘Project Core Team’ in planning this new building.?Would you be open to learning more about how your participation could better serve your street?”?Joanna considered herself to be “open,” and along with Ruth’s offer to bring over pastries if Joanna supplied the coffee, the women agreed to meet for an hour at Joanna’s home two days later.?Joanna thought that would be enough time to confer with Pastor Ron and bake her own pastries in case the store bought ones brought were not edible by her standards.

The Coffee Chat

Their meeting stretched to two hours, and the pastries Ruth provided were actually pretty fantastic.?What also surprised Joanna was that the conversation was entirely about the history of the neighborhood and eventually focused on the plot of land to be occupied by the office building.?Ruth called this a “story of place” discussion, another of those regenerative practice buzzwords.?Joanna related how, when she was going to primary school, the plot was a lush garden, a wonderful amenity to the neighborhood.?When new owners of the house on the lot had no interest to maintaining the garden, it reverted to a field that was used by the neighborhood children for various sports activities, with the unspoken consent of the owners.?Later, the house was converted into professional offices, like so many other of the old Victorian-style houses on that side of the street.?The field was paved over for a parking lot.?At this point of the story, Joanna’s eyes and voice lowered, admitting that at night the parking lot was used for some unspecified illicit commerce.?“And, well, you’ve seen the graffiti,” Joanna concluded.

Ruth remained attentive throughout the story, taking many notes even though, with Joanna’s permission, she was recording their discussion.?Ruth was also disturbed at this final admission.?There was sorrow in her voice when she then suggested, “Well, what we plan needs to remedy that situation.?And I am also worried about the disruption to your street during the nine months or so we are under construction.?We need to address that, too.”

Ruth explained that she proposed to take on these concerns by first forming a project core team, the same term she had employed on their introductory phone call.?She now described this as a committee of what Ruth called “stakeholders” from among the building’s owner, contractor, anchor tenants, neighbors and community leaders.?Ruth would guide this committee in identifying requirements for this building that not only met the financial needs of the building owner and operational needs of the tenants, but restored some of the viability and vibrancy that Joanna had helped Ruth visualize in childhood memories.

“I think this neighborhood has the capacity for its commercial occupants and residents to reach a potential that has been missing for some time.?Will you help us reveal what the potential might be?”

Joanna was again reminded of the wording she’d expect more from Pastor Ron than the architect representing one of the biggest developers in the city.?However, all that Ruth had said resonated with Joanna; ?she believed in the potential too.?This could become a better place for her children to grow as well, especially if that nighttime business across the street could be shut down.

The Workshop

The first meeting of the project core team was in the basement social hall of Joanna’s church.?“The suits” from downtown were well represented, but Joanna noted that many of her neighbors and area small businesses were present too.?Each person there had a stake in the success of this project.?Joanna expected that Ruth would make a presentation, complete with fancy graphics and 3D models, after which they each would provide feedback.?Instead, Ruth began this workshop by asking Joanna and her neighbors, “what do you love about this neighborhood?”?She then had a similar question for those representing the owner and tenants, “What do you think you are going to love about working from this location, that made you pick this spot?”?Joanna was unsurprised by her neighbor’s responses, but was captivated when the tenants discussed the existing number of small cafes and restaurants for lunch, the access to running and bike paths, the scale of the neighborhood buildings, the many trees along its streets.?All the things that Joanna loved, too.?From these responses, Ruth noted to the group that there was already strong alignment.

When Ruth then asked everyone about the potential that the neighborhood could seek to achieve with this new investment, everyone on the core team started talking at once.?Each side built on the ideas of the other side, until there were no longer two sides of the conversation.?Ruth and others from her firm were furiously writing down ideas with markers on large pads of paper, and then tacking the filled sheets to the wall.?After an hour, Ruth called a break and invited all the participants to walk around the room and try to visualize each of the ideas.?

“Do we prioritize these all next?” one of the tenant representatives asked Ruth.

“Why?” Ruth asked.?“I’d rather see how many of these we can reasonably incorporate into our design, such that no one is being asked to compromise on what is important to them.”

Joanna like that response.?After a lifetime of joining committees that she often soon regretted being part of, Joanna began to think that this core team might be different.