Pivoting Planners: Virtual Engagement in a Pandemic, Part 1
Channel: APA National Capital Area Chapter
Date: 2021-11-17

In the height of a global pandemic how do planners conduct critical community engagement and encourage public participation in planning when forced to operate from the confines of our own personal spaces? The Prince George’s County Planning Department was tasked with working through this exact constraint, in addition to engaging communities of marginalized groups jaded and fearful of the planning process. In this session, planners for the West Hyattsville-Queens Chapel Sector plan from the Prince George’s Planning Department and AECOM will share: 1) the innovative engagement strategies and virtual platforms, including an interactive 3D virtual town hall space, that the team used to connect with communities; 2) the challenges of virtual engagement, specifically with hard-to-reach groups in a planning area with a large Spanish speaking populous; 3) lessons learned for virtually engaging bilingual audiences, and lastly 4) the best practices uncovered by the project team through this virtual engagement process.

Note: This recording is from the 2021 Annual Conference of the National Capital Area Chapter of the American Planning Association.