Tuesday, May 18, 2004
Community, building, and communication
I was at the second meeting of the community around the Berkeley extention campus in Hayes Valley last night. It was put on and facilitated by Mercy Housing, the folks who are partners in the proposed project.
They did a great job, and a tough one it is. One of the difficulties of trying to build community approval around projects like that is no matter how many times you have a meeting or a presentation or gather input, someone feels left out, or isn't willing to follow through on the process they start.
Many of the fine leaders of Hayes Valley are vetrans of the 'public meeting run around' and aren't willing to cut anyone any slack... at the same time, the folks at Mercy are very well known in the housing world, and well trusted.. and they're working hard to do all they can.
And you know what? at the end of the day, there's still going to be people who don't like the results.
I was at the second meeting of the community around the Berkeley extention campus in Hayes Valley last night. It was put on and facilitated by Mercy Housing, the folks who are partners in the proposed project.
They did a great job, and a tough one it is. One of the difficulties of trying to build community approval around projects like that is no matter how many times you have a meeting or a presentation or gather input, someone feels left out, or isn't willing to follow through on the process they start.
Many of the fine leaders of Hayes Valley are vetrans of the 'public meeting run around' and aren't willing to cut anyone any slack... at the same time, the folks at Mercy are very well known in the housing world, and well trusted.. and they're working hard to do all they can.
And you know what? at the end of the day, there's still going to be people who don't like the results.
