RASHEDUL H DEEPON
PLANNING BAY STREET
Description:
On October 18th, 2016 we organized a public outreach event for the Bay Street area on Staten Island, titled “Plan Bay Street: Community Workshop.” The graduate students of the Fall 2016 planning studio for the Masters in Urban Planning program at Hunter College organized the workshop on behalf of their client for the semester, the Staten Island Downton Alliance. The core objective of the project was to re-examine the Bay Street corridor from the St. George Ferry Terminal to Rosebank. The scope of the project was quite comprehensive and was aimed to address issues regarding economic development, housing, infrastructure and resiliency, land use and zoning, public safety, transportation, and urban design.
A Community Workshop reached out to the local community consisting of residents and small business owners, take their opinions and ‘user’ experience on Bay Street as the foundations for determining the future of Bay Street, and its surrounding neighborhoods.
The purpose of this paper the aim is to have a critical look at how successful was the initiative by comparing the participatory process developed for the Workshop and with that illustrated by Sherry Arnstein in her seminal article “Ladder of Citizen participation.”