Charrettes

A charrette is an intensive planning process that brings together community members and design professionals to create collaborative solutions for cities, towns, and neighborhoods. On the day of the charrette, design professionals solicit input from all attendees to produce sketches of dream neighborhoods and landscapes: more trees here, a new park there, better sidewalks and areas that promote mixed use. 

The Community Design Center is committed to the charrette process as the antidote to the conventional, top-down planning practices that usually generate controversy and delay. We can help you build public trust and support for transformative community change!

At the end of the process, you will have a Vision Plan for your community that you can take to government and foundation funders when you apply for construction grants to transform your environment.
Communities in and around Rochester have raised millions of dollars for construction projects by submitting Vision Plans created with the Design Center.
How it works

The CDCR and its team of volunteer design professionals will help you organize, plan, and facilitate your community design charrette.

• We use nationally recognized charrette techniques that will generate high quality results for your community.
• We invite you to use our Design Center Studio Space for planning and organizing meetings.
• After the charrette, we produce drawings and reports to help communities bring their visions for their neighborhood, town, or city to reality.

We are ready to help you plan your charrette.

The first step is to form a steering committee of interested stakeholders. We will work with your committee to define the geographic focus areas and schedule. The planning process for a charrette can take six to eight months, but we will be with you every step of the way to plan an event that will unite your community in a shared vision.