SAN DIEGO – The Community Benefits Consensus Project is a Civic San Diego initiative to gather and share information about public perspectives regarding ‘community benefits’ and also to foster ongoing engagement with diverse community stakeholders. The term ‘community benefit’ describes the variety of quality of life improvements, amenities and/or mitigations that may be provided to residents and other stakeholders impacted by development projects occurring in their neighborhoods. In the past three months, Civic has convened six public meetings and utilized an online engagement platform known as ‘MindMixer’ to optimize data collection and to identify shared values. Over the coming weeks, Civic will seek input from community stakeholders and subject experts to analyze the data for consensus, neighborhood priority and feasibility. Civic will use what it learns to help frame a strong Community Benefits Policy.
In the course of the initiative’s meetings and first MindMixer survey, San Diegans have contributed more than 300 ideas about how new development projects can serve to improve the quality of life in affected neighborhoods. Civic has organized these ideas into fifteen thematic areas ranging from “Accountability” to “Transit, Traffic and Transportation.” Some of the ideas that emerged involve creating a sense of place, enhancing public access to technology, and creating jobs with livable wages and benefits. More ideas can be found in the interim report, now posted on Civic San Diego’s website. Link to Interim Report – Community Benefits Ideas.
CivicSD.Mindmixer Survey II is now open. It asks San Diegans to rank the fifteen themes according to their opinion of importance to and prospective impact on the neighborhood(s) they care about. In addition, this second MindMixer survey revisits key questions related to identifying community stakeholders that were largely overlooked in Survey I. Survey II closes at 11:59pm on Friday, March 13.
The Community Benefits Consensus Project offers three ways to get in the mix: (1) register/log in atcivicsd.mindmixer.com to take the survey; (2) forward the link to bring new voices to the conversation; and/or (3) add a CivicSD.MindMixer widget to one’s own website. For more information about the Community Benefits Consensus Project, or to coordinate support for stakeholders with limited computer skills/access, or with translation needs, please email [email protected].
