The city's Interim Comprehensive Plan, "Providence Tomorrow," which outlines goals for the city's development over the coming half-decade, is currently available online so residents can read and comment on it before the City Council and the City Plan Commission address it.
The interim plan is the first draft of the comprehensive plan, which guides how the city will develop over the next five years. State law requires each city in Rhode Island to submit a comprehensive plan. The last comprehensive plan was adopted by the City Council in 1994 but not ratified by the state until 2002, said Thomas Deller, the city's director of planning and development.
This year, the city has gone to new lengths to make the plan interactive. The city has and will continue to use a number of forums and charrettes - week-long, intensive collaborative sessions for brainstorming ideas and formulating plans - to involve Providence residents in the planning process. The plan was placed online for public view on Feb. 28, and residents can post comments online on any section of the plan throughout March.
Mayor David Cicilline '83 said the interim plan is "excellent" and that he hopes people will respond to the plan's online availability.
"A lot of hard work went into the development of that plan," he said. "I hope people will read it carefully and contribute to it and share their ideas and reactions," he added.
Deller noted that, "to my knowledge," Providence is the first city in America to put a comprehensive plan online.
The Web site and level of interaction "is quite intriguing and interesting, and I hope people find it useful," Deller said. "I think we're going to try to use it with everything we do from now on."
The Department of Planning and Development reviews the comments weekly and plans to download all the comments and compile them to guide the revision process, Deller said.
The plan has garnered praise from neighborhood activists.
Daisy Schnepel, the acting secretary of the Fox Point Neighborhood Association, said she has looked over the Web site and read the comments and found it "pretty well put together."
"I think it's very interesting," Schnepel said. "I haven't signed in to make any comments just yet. I want to read it more carefully."
Anne Hersh, a member of the Residents of Williams Street Association, said the city's efforts to make the interim plan interactive are commendable, so long as city officials pay attention to the feedback.
"Any opportunity to engage in a dialogue is in anybody's best interest, assuming that they actually consider the comments," Hersh said.
Hersh also said she was worried not everyone would have access to the plan.
"It is great when you can engage in a dialogue with a Web site," she said. "But you make an assumption with socioeconomic class that everyone has easy access to a Web site," she said. "But not everyone does."
Copies have also been distributed in print to every library and community center and have been advertised, Deller said. Written comments and verbal comments at town meetings will also be accepted and posted online.
"This is just a new way to get comments - this is not the only way to get comments," he said.
A computer terminal is also available at the Department of Planning and Development for those without access to the Internet to view the plan.
The plan's length may prove another obstacle for readers, especially those with little patience, Deller and Schnepel said. But the table of contents will facilitate residents' review of the plan, Schnepel said.
Schnepel said she hopes that, despite its length, residents will take advantage of the report's accessibility.
"I just hope people get out and make whatever comments they feel need to be made because this is the one chance we have to say something," she said.
