Vi-Hi "Charettes"
I was kind of hoping it was somewhere between a briquette and a cigarette, but they insisted on being practical and sticking to the dictionary definition. Apparently (according to someone at the ViHi assoc.), a charette is an interactive meeting with members of the community and the ViHi community is having a few this weekend. Know what else? You’re invited. Seriously. You.
The question: What do you want the North Highland Commercial Strip to look like in 5, 10… 20 years??
More: Beginning this weekend, two charettes will be held to gather community input for creation of a Neighborhood Commercial zoning ordinance that will be submitted to the City. A charette is an interactive meeting with members of the community. Participants will break up into small teams that encourage input from all residents on details such as building heights, uses, and parking. The information will be documented and used to write the proposed zoning ordinance that would eventually get submitted to City Council for a vote.
Charette #1: Saturday, August 4, 2007 9am-2pm
Charette #2: Saturday, September 8, 2007 9am-2pmChurch of our Saviour Meeting Room @ 1068 N. Highland Ave. (next to Chico’s)
Please see http://vahi.org/planning/nc.html for details on this initiative including meeting times and locations.
Don’t go? Don’t wine to me in 5, 10 or 20 years. Smoochies!
only in vahi would they come up with a way to name a neighborhood association meeting a ‘charette.’
geez.
Actually, they got the definition wrong. A charette (or charrette) is specifically an architectural profession term for an intense design workshop. It is actually the French word for ‘cart’ and derives from the days when Parisian architecture students rushed to get their projects on a passing cart to meet their deadlines.
Ya know Jay, I think they could use someone like you in the audience to keep them honest and to reduce the “bullshittery”.
Heh… well, even though the defined the term wrong, it is correct for the activities they describe – they are looking to get a lot of input in a short amount of time on development/building design standards. The result is going to be something like Blueprint Midtown that the Midtown Alliance developed about ten years ago (with input from stakeholders in various forms). Most of those standards are codified in SPI zoning areas used for Midtown. Of course, you can definitely see the results today.