Prepare A Site Design and A Development Plan
Community backgreens are fairly simple affairs, once you've been to visit a couple of existing sites, you will see that they all have the same common elements (tool shed, lawns, raised beds and forest gardens), just in different layouts and different locations.
At some sites, the location where to establish a 'community green' will be really obvious, at others you'll need to put some thought into it. The ideal location of a '
community green' is in an area in the middle of the site which is accessible (or can be made accessible) by the majority of tenements.
You'll want to involve all members of your group in the design process and communicate the design to folk around the site perhaps with a stair poster. We've provided some basic advice below to get you started, also download the handout leaflets for more information.
Site DesignIn order to agree what facilities and features can be added to a community backgreen site, and where they should go, your community backgreen Mentor can support you to organise a series of design workshops for the residents. All the residents around the site would be invited to the workshops held in a local hall.
The design workshops would start with a presentation of the community backgreens model, including the types of facilities which could be installed into the site. Visits to existing community backgreen sites can be organised to give residents an impression of how their own site could be developed.
Some Community Backgreen Mentors have been trained to facilitate the design workshops. The workshops use several participatory design techniques (based on the Planning For Real method), to find out the aspirations and concerns of the residents in a non-confrontational way, (see handouts for more information).
Site Development & Management PlanThe participatory design workshops described above would be designed to build the capacity of the residents to plan and carry out their own project. They would result in a list of possible actions which would be prioritised and sorted into three main categories:-
- actions which the residents can carry out as a group
- actions which the residents can carry out with a little outside help (e.g. from ECBA or the Council)
- and those actions which will need to be implemented by an third party.
All of the information resulting from the workshops would be collated into a Site Development & Management Plan. The report would provide a starting point for planning discussions by the Community Backgreen Association. You can see an example of a DMP for an existing community backgreen site below.