Progress Report

CICEET Progress Report for the period 9/02/07 Through 3/01/08

Project Title: Collaborative Learning and Land Use Tools to support Community Based Ecosystem Management
Principal Investigator(s): Christine Feurt, Ph.D.
Project Start Date: October 1, 2007

Project Objectives for This Reporting Period
Objectives

Tasks to meet objectives
Tier I Development of Sanford Conservation and Preservation Land Use Plan
Objective 3. Collaborative Learning will facilitate municipal efforts to identify ways to incorporate resource protection strategies into economic development decisions. Including relevant stakeholders, providing multiple opportunities and venues for collaboration and implementing a transparent process for developing the Conservation and Preservation Land Use Plan for Sanford, will accomplish this.

Project Progress Tier II Develop and Pilot Ecosystem Based Management Tools Training September 2007- March 2008
Objective 2. Involve a steering committee of land use decision makers, government staff, consultants, academics and NGOs in the adaptation and design of training using the Ecosystem Based Management Tools Database.

Progress on Tasks
Tier I
Collaborative Learning (Daniels and Walker, 2001) consists of five phases:

  • Assessment of the system within which Collaborative Learning will occur
  • Training of stakeholders in the techniques and principles of the Collaborative Learning process
  • Design of the Collaborative Learning events
  • Implementation/Facilitation of the events
  • Evaluation of the process

The five phases are integrated. For example assessment, training of stakeholders and evaluation are tightly linked, iterative and adaptive. This aspect of Collaborative Learning mirrors the core principle of adaptive ecosystem management. During this reporting period activities in the assessment phase facilitated an understanding of the land use system in Sanford, identification of key stakeholders working on conservation issues in the town, identification of important conservation values and understanding of some of the conflicts associated with land use and conservation. The following tasks contributed to the assessment phase:

1. Meetings with Sanford Town Planner and Sanford Town Council to review goals of the grant and secure elected official approval for the project. Town Council voted unanimously to accept the project and made specific suggestions for project implementation. The Town Council presentation and discussion was broadcast on public access TV to town residents. Newspaper coverage of the project resulted from the presentation to Town Council.

2. The planning team for the project was established. This team includes members from Sanford’s planning, information technology and public works departments, a senior planner with Southern Maine Regional Planning Commission (SMRPC), and Wells National Estuarine Research Reserve (WNERR) staff including the Coastal Training Program (CTP) Coordinator, Stewardship Coordinator, GIS Specialist, and CTP Associate. Additional support for the project during 2008 includes an Americorps intern funded by Laudholm Trust. This position represents leveraged support for the CICEET portion of the grant.

3. Stakeholder interviews with key conservation leaders in Sanford included members of the two local land trusts and the trails committee.

4. Stakeholder interviews with conservation partners included the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife’s Beginning with Habitat Program and the Trust for Public Land’s Maine office working on Green Infrastructure.

5. Review of existing planning documents, organizational missions and previously completed conservation planning for Sanford is complete.

6. Identify and accumulate existing land use layers for use in the GIS layers and Community Viz process.

7. The project has leveraged participation by the Maine State Planning Office (SPO) and a leading land use technology planning firm in Maine. Because the project will be using Community Viz and GIS technology there are opportunities for profession staff working at SPO, SMRPC, the town of Sanford and Wells NERR to upgrade their skills and ability to use these technologies. This on-the-job technology training will be incorporated into the planning process for the Sanford Conservation Plan. Funding from the Maine SPO will support the involvement and training provided by Spatial Alternatives and will increase land use planning technology among the four organizations involved in the project. Technology training for the planning team, embedded in the project, is an unanticipated benefit and will be reported on in future progress reports. This aspect of the Sanford Land Conservation Plan project contributes to objectives of Tier 2 of the project.

8. A protocol for recording progress on project goals is established. Agenda and minutes of each planning team meeting are produced, emailed to team member for approval and finalized as a record of action items, responsibilities and concerns. This protocol will be adapted for the stakeholder meetings.

9. Stakeholders for the Conservation Plan development process have been identified and invited to the first workshop of the process. The stakeholder list includes 20 community representatives identified by the Sanford Planner and key conservation leader interviews. The stakeholder list also includes conservation partners who can contribute to Sanford’s planning process.

10. The first Conservation Plan Development Workshop is scheduled for March 1, 2008. A process agenda for this meeting was reviewed by the planning team. As of the date of this report, stakeholder invitations have been mailed from the Town of Sanford. Follow-up of the initial invitation letter will be made by Wells NERR staff.

11. The senior planner on the team is accumulating the date layers and GIS resources needed to develop the models for the Community Viz process scheduled for May.

Tier II
The training design process follows the Project Design and Evaluation Protocols developed by NOAA's Coastal Services Center (NOAA, CSC, 2002). This process of training design is known as the ADDIE process and will be implemented as follows:

  • Assessment of selected coastal decision makers in the Gulf of Maine for EBM Tools
  • Design of Training Curriculum
  • Development of EBM Tools Training
  • Implementation of EBM Tools Training
  • Evaluation of Training

During this reporting period the Principal Investigator and representatives from the EBM Tools Network collaborated on the Assessment phase of training design. A stakeholder group of fifteen met at the Wells NERR in November 2007 to address the following agenda items:
Objectives of November 2007 Training Design Meeting:

  • Establish Current Issues for Advancing Coastal Ecosystem Management and Coastal Land Use Planning is the Wells Region
  • Determine Content for Two Day Training Event to Advance Coastal Land Use Planning Capacity
  • Determine Available Tools, Technologies, and Case Study Information
  • Draft a Plan for Training Event Development
  • Discuss Training Audience

Participants and Organizations Represented:
1. Bethany Atkins ME Beginning with Habitat
2. Sue Bickford Wells NERR GIS
3. Sara Carr EBM Tools Network
4. LaMarr Clannon ME Nonpoint pollution Education for Municipal Officials
5. Judy Colby-George Spatial Alternatives Inc.
6. Susan Crow Place Matters
7. Cayce Dalton Town of York Shoreland Resource Officer
8. Dan Dorfman EBM Tools Network
9. Chris Feurt Wells NERR CTP & University of New England
10. Zac Hart* NOAA Coastal Services Center (CSC)
11. Robert McGuinn* NOAA CSC
12. Jamie Oman-Saltmarsh SMRPC
13. Peter Rogers University of New England GIS Professor
14. Brian Smith* NOAA CSC
15. Zack Steele Wells NERR CTP
*on conference call

The representation on the planning team included members of the target audiences envisioned for the training: federal, state and municipal staff, technology consultants, academia, Maine GIS Center staff, and regional planning staff. Members of this initial planning team have stayed engaged in the assessment and design process by email and conference calls through February, 2008. Additional stakeholders are included on the project email list to receive updates. A protocol for recording progress on project goals is established. Agenda and minutes of each planning team meeting are produced, emailed to team members for approval and finalized as a record of action items, responsibilities and concerns.

Two training frameworks have been selected for the formal EBM Tools Training.

1. A four hour workshop for managers, policy makers and non-technical professionals who would identify the need for GIS and technology tools in their work domain. These people would be potential drivers of the adoption of land use technology tools even if they were not the people using the tools themselves. This training is scheduled for October 2008.

2. A two ­ three day skill training for users of land use technology including consultants, GIS specialists, academics who use technology in their research and educate the next generation of tool users. These are the professionals who have a basic understanding of GIS tool use and plan to use the new tools to enhance their professional practice in land use decision making and research. This training is scheduled for November 2008.

The planning team has identified four technology tools for inclusion in the training. The proposed tools are: Community Viz, Nature Serve’s Vista, Habitat Priority Planner (HPP) and Key Pad Polling. The choice of these technology tools was based upon the following factors:

  • Applicability to land use issues currently important in Maine
  • Availability of Maine examples of application of the technology
  • Assessment of the capacity and state of the knowledge of land use planning practitioners in Maine

A webinar highlighting features of Nature Serve Vista was hosted for the planning team in February 2008. Patrick Crist of Nature Serve explained the ways Vista could be used in land use planning. The planning team has interest in this tool which is not currently being applied to a Maine land use issue.

Difficulties
Tier I
The planning team for the project is committed to the goals of the project and the organizing principle of collaboration. One factor contributing to collaborative behavior is that the project is designed to provide benefit to each of the organizations involved in the partnership. Basing the initial proposal upon knowledge of the priorities of the partners and providing the resources necessary to support the partner organizations contributes to this success.

Maintaining the focus and responsibility of the diverse members of the planning team requires consistent open dialogue and opportunities to deliberate about progress on tasks, training design, stakeholder engagement and project outcomes. Predictions for conflict as the planning process continues have surfaced during planning team meetings and interviews. Examples of land use and conservation conflict that may continue to surface as the project continues include:

  • Differences in underlying premises associated with open space planning and conservation planning. This has surfaced among the planning team in a very preliminary way and will be monitored as the actual planning process proceeds.
  • Concern that the conservation plan workshop stakeholders be encouraged to refrains from the tendency of groups to want to draw circles around specific places on a map. Planning team members suggested that such identification of specific parcels can result in negative responses from the people who own those parcels. Members of the group felt that what is important is to identify the characteristics of land that the community values. Selection of individual parcels can derail the process of plan development if introduced early in the process.
  • Concern that the final Conservation Plan functions as a practical tool that the Sanford Planner and Planning Board can use to support land use decision-making. There is a need for a plan that accomplishes conservation goals while considering the town’s economic objectives.

Tier II
Determining the best land use technology tools for this pilot training in Maine (from among the many potential tools) was the biggest challenge for this reporting period. The planning team provided excellent feedback for training ideas but was less able to assess the effectiveness of tools they were unfamiliar with. A webinar about VISTA provided the team with an opportunity to preview a new tool. Bringing a new land use tool to the state with no local examples of its application presented a challenge. Nature Serve estimates the cost of applying VISTA to a land use issue to be $20,000. The current grant did not include money for a local application of a tool. The team is still considering using VISTA in the training and using examples of its application from another region.

A second challenge is the current capacity for applying advanced tools in Maine. Capacity for tool usage at the local level is limited to non-existent. The planning team identified service providers including consultants, academia, GIS service centers (such as regional planning commissions or Wells NERR) and a limited pool of technology professionals distributed among federal and state agencies and NGOs such as the Nature Conservancy. If these trainings are effective at facilitating the use of land use planning tools in Maine, the training must be designed to take advantage of existing capacity, build future capacity and provide practical strategies for professionals to incorporate the tools into their work.

Data Generated to date
tier I
Data includes field notes from interviews and meetings, meeting agendas and minutes. These are used to evaluate progress, assess collaborative potential and areas of conflict and to modify tasks as appropriate.

Tier II
Data includes meeting agendas and detailed minutes of planning team minutes. A record of email input into the planning process is also part of the data for this project.

Project Objectives for Next Reporting Period

Objectives
Tier I
1. As a consequence of applying geospatial tools, predictive models, and visualization technology, in the context of planning processes using Collaborative Learning, municipal decision makers in Sanford will understand and discuss spatial and temporal aspects of land use decisions that relate to the sustainability of water resources, habitat and biodiversity identified as valuable by the community.

2. Using products generated by land use planning tools, the Comprehensive Plan and other resources, Planning Board members, land trust members, municipal staff and other citizens will develop a Conservation and Preservation Land Use Plan. The plan will identify opportunities for mutually beneficial regional collaboration on land use issues and consider appropriate strategies such as zoning; ordinance development and transfer of development rights to achieve plan goals.

3. Collaborative Learning will facilitate municipal efforts to identify ways to incorporate resource protection strategies into economic development decisions. Including relevant stakeholders, providing multiple opportunities and venues for collaboration and implementing a transparent process for developing the Conservation and Preservation Land Use Plan for Sanford, will accomplish this.

Tier II
1. Increase the land use technology knowledge, skills and abilities of local, state and federal government staff, academics, consultants and NGOs providing support and oversight to land use decision making.

2. Involve a steering committee of land use decision makers, government staff, consultants, academics and NGOs in the adaptation and design of training using the Ecosystem Based Management Tools Database.

3. Conduct and evaluate regional training in the use and applications of the resources of the Ecosystem Based Management Tools Database related to land use planning.

Work Plan to Meet Objectives
Tier I
The project will follow the five-step process of Collaborative Learning: assessment, design, training, implementation and evaluation (Daniels and Walker, 2001). Assessment will include one on one and small group interviews with the Town Manager, Town Planner, Town Council and Planning Board to develop the scope of the project. Additional interviews with land trusts, citizen groups and other will be scheduled based upon recommendations from the first round of interviews. Ongoing Spring 2008

Following the interviews the steering committee will meet to review the assessment information. During the Design phase, the workshops will be scheduled and planned. Materials needed for the CommunityViz application will be identified and collected. SMRPC will develop CommunityViz materials for the workshops. This phase will identify the stakeholders who should be involved and determine the best strategy for marketing the workshops or inviting selected participants. The Wells NERR and Sanford Town Planner will coordinate stakeholder participation. The Training phase of Collaborative Learning takes place at the first workshop when participants are introduced to the principles and practices of the approach. March 2008

The Implementation phase consists of the three workshops. CommunityViz software will be used to present and evaluate information about natural resources in the town and generate alternative scenarios for future conditions based upon collaboratively generated community visions for the town (EBM Tools Network, 2006). Tool complexity will be compatible with the GIS system in place in the town and will be adapted to the needs and competencies of the planning board members, land trusts and citizens involved in the process. The tools will serve the process not drive the process. March ­ September 2008

Workshop I will be accomplished with a regional focus extending visualizations, mapping and discussions to a watershed scale to encourage participants to link their decisions to conditions outside town boundaries. Using CommunityViz provides a mechanism for extending thinking beyond normal time boundaries. Participants will be able to evaluate future impacts of alternative scenarios with this approach. We also aim to use CommunityViz to highlight one of the thorniest aspects of municipal land use decision-making, which is the effect of cumulative impacts from many small actions. March 2008

Workshop II will combine community vision for natural resource conservation and preservation in the town with existing zoning, ordinances, Comprehensive and Economic Development plans for the town. Using CommunityViz/GIS to show these overlapping zones, participants will have the opportunity to evaluate existing plans against goals developed from the first workshop. By the conclusion of this workshop, the group will identify potential areas for conservation or preservation, acceptable uses in those areas, the need for zoning or ordinance changes, and additional "out of the box" approaches to accomplishing goals (e.g. mitigation plans, transfer of development rights, inter-jurisdictional arrangements with neighboring towns). Small group work may be necessary after this workshop to address specific issues related to the larger plan. May 2008

This project aims to apply GIS/CommunityViz to produce the following resources to support the planning process:

  • GIS identification and mapping of wetlands, riparian, headwater and 1st and 2nd stream corridor resources with overlays of land use currently permitted by zoning and ordinance.
  • Evaluation of current zoning and ordinances to protect riparian, headwater and stream corridors to achieve water quality and habitat goals.
  • Use GIS to synthesize and evaluate data sets such as - Maine Department of Conservation's Beginning with Habitat Data, Three River Land Trust Focus Areas for Conservation Maps and watershed management plans for the town to determine priority areas for natural resource conservation.

The Steering Committee will meet following each workshop to evaluate input from the process and begin to build the plan. After the second workshop the Steering Committee will develop the draft plan. The Sanford Town Planner working with SMRPC will have primary responsibility for the design and final layout of the plan. March-September 2008

Tier II
The planning team will collaborate to design the pilot workshop. Specific goals of the two trainings to be offered in Fall 2008 include:

  • Provide an overview of the types of tools that can be used for EBM in coastal and marine environments
  • Describe the capabilities and limitations of technology tools
  • Provide guidance for how to integrate tool use into an effective public process
  • Describe projects that have used tools effectively
  • Provide guidance on how to select an appropriate tool or tools for a project given time, financial, and technical capacity constraints
  • Provide an overview of specific tools relevant to local management issues and processes (i.e. land use planning tools such as CommunityViz, NatureServe Vista, Habitat Priority Planner and stakeholder engagement tools such as keypad polling.

Marketing of the trainings will begin in March 2008 and continue until the trainings are implemented. In May 2008 the planning team will return finalize the design of the trainings.

Work with NOAA’s Coastal Services Center to provide a Maine example of Habitat Priority Planner as applied to a land trust planning process.

The planning team will continue to assess and evaluate the training design through internal meetings among the team, interactions with the organizations represented on the team and with organizations not currently represented on the team. Organizations who can provide input and are not currently on the planning team include the Nature Conservancy, the Gulf of Maine Council and academic institutions.

Expenditures
Expenditures are in the range anticipated for the work accomplished to date. The project has attracted support and additional funding has been leveraged to support the project.