T oday, important land use planning and community design decisions must be made with the participation of community residents. Yet such decisions are frequently made in the context of emotional confrontation between the sponsors of development proposals and their opponents, with public officials caught haplessly in the middle. Worse, such confrontations are often fueled by misinformation and misunderstanding on both sides.
Public participation is hampered by inadequate access to information about proposed projects.
And uncertainty about public reaction to development proposals creates a major element of risk for their sponsors, who must invest time and money without knowing if their proposals will be approved. This demonstration website aims to showcase the Internet as a participatory medium and a powerful tool for enabling community-based design. We'll use the multimedia capabilities of the Web to make complex visual and spatial concepts accessible to a broad public. And we'll use the Web's interactive features to create a place for focussed discussion and information exchange about a specific development site. The pilot project we have chosen is the redevelopment of Treasure Island, a decommissioned naval base in San Francisco Bay, halfway between Oakland and San Francisco.