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Host a Community Conversation:

If your group would like to facilitate a community conversation about the Comprehensive Plan, we have prepared a meeting in a box. This contains everything you need to host a conversation and submit ideas directly to us. Please fill out this form to request support and resources. 

Public Engagement

Public engagement for Our Baltimore Comprehensive Plan was carried out from the Spring of 2022 through the Summer of 2024. Below is information about the various public engagement periods in reverse chronological order.

Summer 2024

 

60-Day Comment Period, May 30 - July 30, 2024

During this time people had the opportunity to:

-- Comment Online

-- Attend a presentation (see links to slides, recording, and Q&A below)

-- Participate in an Open House

Open Houses

A series of open houses were held to provide Baltimore residents in various parts of the City with the opportunity to learn about and engage with the draft comprehensive plan, so that they felt more comfortable providing feedback online and could better understand the plan itself. 

 

Through the open houses, the Department of Planning aimed to: 

  1. Educate residents on the key elements of the comprehensive plan update 

  2. Engage the public in conversations about the comprehensive plan and the future of the City 

  3. Motivate residents to engage with our online platform and provide comments on the draft plan 

Presentation of DRAFT Plan

On May 30, the Planning Commission and Sustainability Commission hosted a joint briefing on the DRAFT Comprehensive Plan.  The presentation provided a detailed overview of the plan.

Fall 2023

 

Brainstormed recommendations for the Priority Topics

In the Fall of 2023 and January of 2024 the public had the opportunity to provide input on the drafted policy recommendations by priority topic, which were originally brainstormed during the Fall 2022 engagement.

Existing and Future Land Use Map

In addition to looking at priority topics, the comprehensive plan provides a vision for future land uses.  Unlike newly developing areas, most of Baltimore City will have the same land use ten years from now as it has today:  most residential areas will remain residential and most industrial areas will remain industrial.  But some areas may want to see change, and some areas you may not want to see change. 

People had the opportunity to share their ideas in this interactive land use map in answer to questions, such as:   

     ***  What are the existing land uses in your neighborhood?

     ***  What is your vision for the next ten years?

Fall 2022

We held a dozen-plus public workshops across the City in October and November of 2022 and brainstormed recommendations for the Priority Topics. Workshops were led by members of our Community Engagement Leadership team and Community Planners, collaboratively.

Additionally, we held two large community conferences, one in person and one virtual, in December 2022 and January 2023, respectively.

Spring 2022

Our Spring 2022 engagement combined a series of Planning-hosted Open House events and outreach led by partner community based organizations (see more information about our CELT team here). 

If you missed the Open House series, please check out the video below from our virtual open house intro, or via this link.

 

How Input Was Used:

Input from the Spring engagement shaped our priority topics list. The initial list of topics was generated based on feedback from our Open House series. We also worked with our CELT team to gather input and ideas - this allowed us to refine and expand our priority topics.

Pre-Planning (2021)

 

In 2021, the Department of Planning held conversations about public engagement with Baltimore City residents who had interacted with our agency via the Planning Academy, Food Equity Policy Advisors, and Sustainability Plan Ambassadors. Through these early conversations, we developed strategies for public engagement. 

 

Thank you to all who participated in these early conversations and helped shape our approach!

See links below for documentation of our engagement strategy and goals.

  • Engagement goals 

  • Appendix: 

    • Proposed metrics​

    • Process - how we developed our engagement approach

    • Case studies - engagement models that we drew from

 

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