Strategic Plan

PLANNING TOOLS BEST PRACTICES LAW HISTORY RESOURCE FINDER

Participatory Budgeting and Planning PARTICIPATORY BUDGETING STARTED IN PORTO ALEGRE, BRAZIL, IN

1989. Today, participatory budgeting constitutes 20 percent of that city’s total municipal budget process and involves 50,000 individuals, including the city’s poorest residents. What is the value of this approach to planning? Is it more important for

planning decisions to be right or fair? Expertise and inclusiveness are often set up as conflicting ideals: Relying more on technical analysis to prioritize community needs and budget for improvements is supposed to give residents less influence in those decisions.

New methods of decision making at the local level, however, are undermining this perceived conflict. Participatory budgeting has the potential to help planners and plan­ ning commissions both make more informed decisions around infrastructure and also engage disenfranchised residents in the process.

At its core, PB is a process in which community residents determine how to allocate part of a public budget. It is not a chaotic free-for-all or a one-time consultation. An annual “cycle” of PB typically includes a structured sequence of meetings for needs assess­ ment, project development, and voting. At all stages, ordinary residents—depending on the rules, residents do not need to be U.S. citizens or of voting age—participate. Partici­ pants deliberate over the state of their neighborhoods, proposing creative solutions for the problems they have identified and working in issue committees (e.g., safety, transpor­ tation, placemaking) to research the cost and feasibility of their proposals. Projects may be vetted by municipal staff before they go to the vote to ensure that they are eligible for public funds, but after the ballots have been cast, municipalities are required to imple­ ment those projects that receive the most votes.

PB proliferates There are more than 1,200 participatory budgets around the world, most of which are at the local level and govern funding for neighborhood-based capital improvements. The

PLANNING TOOLS

Participatory Budgeting in New York City REAL MONEY. REAL PROJECTS. REAL POWER.

VOTE RESULTS PARTICIPATE) ESPANOL ARCHIVE CONTACT

H O W W O U LD YOU SPEND $1 M ILLIO N?

New York City Is experiencing a new kind of democracy. Through Participatory Budgeting, residents of twenty-tour Council Districts across the City dodded how to spend $32 million of taxpayer money. From September 2014 to April 2015, community members exchanged Ideas, worked together to tom Ideas into protect proposals, and voted to decide what proposals get funded.

This year, twenty-four Council Members are engaging residents through participatory budgeting. To learn more, visit the New York City Council's website.

SPEAKER MELISSA MARK-VIVERITO A N D N EW YORK CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS AN N O U N CE RESULTS OF THE 2 0 1 4 -2 0 1 5 PARTICIPATORY BUDGETING CYCLE

Over 5 1,000 New Yorkers voted to allocate $32 million dollars fo r locally-developed capital projects across the city

New York—Today, Speaker Melissa Ma/k-Vlvento and the New York City Council announced the voting results and winning proposals of the 2014-2015 Participatory Budgeting cycle During toe voting period of April 11 to through April 19th, over 51,000 New Yorkers voted to allocate $32 million dollars tor locally- developed capital projects across 24 Council Districts In New York City.

'The level ot engagement and entousiasm in this year's Participatory Budgeting process was unprecedented and deeply democraSc.’ said Speaker MeHssa Mark-Vtverlto 'Across toe dty. thousands of residents of all ages and backgrounds came iogetoer to make their neighborhoods a better place to call home. Participatory Budgeting breaks down barriers that New Yorkers may face at the pons—including youto, income status, English-language proEciency and citizenship status—resulting in a civic dialogue toat is truly inclusive and representative of toe diversity of tots community and this dty. I thank everyone who took part In this year's process and helped make Partdpetory Budgeting a success'

LEAD PARTNERS

New Yorkers cast 51,362 ballots In toe 2014-2015 Partldpatory Budgeting cyde. Approximately one in Eve ballots were cast in a language other than English.

Acoonflng to preliminary Endings from toe Community Development Project at the Urban Justice Center, of Partldpatory Budgeting voters surveyed:

© Nearly 60% identified as people of color

© Approximately one In ten were under 18

In 2011, New York City adopted PB to allocate over $6 million for neighborhood-based capital improvements.

50 Planning O cto b e r 2015

U.S. is the laggard: The first instance of PB occurred in 2009 when Chicago aider- man Joe Moore invited residents of his ward to decide how to spend $1 million in discretionary capital funds. This process was replicated and expanded in New York City in 2011 when four council members adopted PB to allocate over $6 million. PB processes have been undertaken on a municipality-wide basis in cities such as Vallejo, California, and for school budgets in San Jose and Chicago.

The kinds of projects that are selected through PB are generally more diverse, distinctive, and tailored to local needs than those chosen by planners or elected officials. Residents have voted for street and sidewalk repairs, bike lanes, transit stations, playground and park improve­ ments, streetlights, and murals, among other civic projects.

PB turns the traditional plan-then- implement process on its head as it starts with a pot of money and then seeks good ideas for how to use it. The guarantee of funding encourages not only participation but also proposals for a variety of projects that are feasible and funding-eligible. PB can also be a more robust form of civic engagement than design charrettes, online surveys, or civic crowdfunding campaigns. It does not involve record­ ing preferences (likes “right swipes” on a phone) or asking for small donations for popular projects, but instead brings residents together to discover, refine, and discuss their preferences in what are often tense and cash-starved environments.

PB also serves as a vehicle for popular education as residents learn more about conditions in their neighborhoods, the budgeting process, and the services that government can and cannot provide. Pushing beyond politics and rhetoric, this process appears to increase the public’s trust and confidence in city govern­ ment as residents come to empathize with officials who must make investment decisions in uncertain conditions and bal­ ance demands for funding from different geographies and constituencies.

S o m e g u id e lin e s

To produce these atypical benefits, PB can require more up-front investment and facilitation than other engagement meth­ ods. A first step is getting elected officials (mayors and council members) to sign on. They may need to be persuaded by a com­ munity organization or university institute, which initiates the idea and offers to pro­ vide technical assistance and facilitate the process. For example, in order to expand the PB process from one to four wards, the Great Cities Institute at the University of Illinois at Chicago took the lead.

Although PB takes away some of their authority, new council members may be more open to championing PB than incumbents as it is a good way to get to know their constituents. Once they are elected, representatives need to devote a sufficient amount of staff time and resources to the process in order to ensure high participation and better representation by individuals who have not previously participated in community affairs. Those elected officials with more discretionary funding and those in cities with more flexible budgets may be more likely to gravitate toward PB.

Even the most committed delibera­ tive democrats worry that ignorance and apathy will keep a bottom-up process like PB from being representative, fair, or forward-thinking. Because the quality of the process (and selected projects) is only as good as the people involved, targeted outreach efforts need to be directed toward engaging those who do not traditionally partici­ pate in electoral politics.

When focusing on indi­ viduals who are not normally eligible to vote (undocu­ mented immigrants, youth), using mobile assemblies or voting stations that bring PB to strategic locations such as those with high foot traffic (transit stations) and membership (churches, schools) can help. Email blasts and online surveys tend to reach “the usual suspects,” supporters and opponents of elected officials and not the vast majority of people in the middle who are less predisposed toward activism. In contrast to such forms of top-down mobilization, knocking on doors, leaflet- ing at school report card pickups, and

partnering with a high-capacity, commu­ nity-based organization can reach more marginalized populations.

Participation in budget decisions should not be limited to infrastructure spending. The singular focus on bricks and m ortar may have an off-putting effect on residents and community organiza­ tions, which are interested in mobilizing for matters other than physical planning. Some of the more creative proposals have come from program budgets that permit the use of public funds for services and programs. In Chicago, a community organization named Blocks Together lob­ bied its alderman to commit $2 million in tax increment financing funds toward a PB process in 2014-15. While the win­ ning projects did include a skate park and roof-top public garden, other funds will go toward job training programs (in hair braiding and culinary arts) and a micro­ loan program for small businesses.

PB is not intended to supplant other, less deliberative forms of evaluation, budgeting, or community engagement. Different decision-making models can co­ exist and complement each other. For ex­

ample, engineering-based models for scheduling street repairs can benefit from data collected by PB participants that tags the locations of a neighbor­ hoods worst potholes. PB participants can use participatory mapping and charrettes to conduct needs assessments. While conventional capital

improvement dollars can be used for scheduled maintenance, PB funds can be used to rectify unanticipated problems or propose unique solutions to mitigate such problems in the future. Although the PB projects are relatively small and focused on specific sites, they have the potential to support and improve the quality of more comprehensive planning strategies.

— Rachel Weber

Weber is an associate professor in th e U rban P lan n ing a n d P olicy D e p a rtm e n t a n d a fa c u lty fe llo w a t the G reat Cities In s titu te a t th e U niversity o f Illin o is a t

Chicago.

projects have potential upport and 'trove the ..j ^j more irehensive

American Planning Association 51

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