The Heritage Park Master Plan is designed to incorporate as many of the community’s preferences as possible. Included are a wide range of the rides, family fun, performance and relaxing ideas that emerged from the most common ideas captured during community dialogue.
In total, 120 Andalusia residents participated in this first round of engagement. This document summarizes everyone’s feedback who has participated in the Virtual Community Survey. Due to Covid-19, the engagement activities were done virtually. An online survey was sent to the community and postcards with a QR Code linked to the online survey were also mailed that allowed stakeholders to participate at their convenience. The goal of the survey activity was to gather community input to paint a comprehensive overview of all Citywide resources, programs and activities. In turn, all community responses were aimed to help the City of Andalusia identify what assets are missing and to further the direction of the update to the 2003 Comprehensive Master Plan.
Residents were given 6 survey categories to analyze Andalusia in a holistic way. They were: Physical, Cultural, Social/Health/Wellbeing, Economic, Organizational, and Educational. After reviewing the 6 categories, community members were asked to confirm existing assets in each category on a map. Then, they were asked questions about what assets were missing, ways to improve Andalusia, and to prioritize existing assets.
In Andalusia, the Nexus Planning approach served as a collaborative framework for policies, programs,and projects that:
- Identified and researched all participating public, private and nonprofit planning assets.
- Recruited and trained Community Fellows to help coordinate engagement across organizations and within the community at large.
- Facilitated community meetings to identify community values and goals.
- Identified cooperative opportunities across all sectors to better leverage existing assets.
- Recommended joint investments and projects where planning goals overlap.
- Identified aspects of the community’s vision where planning gaps still exist, and recommend which organizations are best suited to plan for and address any additional needs identified by the community.
- Created a hyperlink-rich, web-based asset map that makes the network of community assets accessible to all.
As a big-picture planning effort, the Nexus Plan identified a broad vision filled with inter-organizational opportunities across multiple sectors. A shared framework was created for other planning efforts, such as a privately-led development strategy or a local nonprofit’s plan for strategic development. The Nexus Plan also identified and engaged the entire community in a coordinated effort that broke down silos,discovered latent opportunities, and created a more well-connected and adaptive City.
Read the ground-breaking article here: https://www.waka.com/2023/09/05/city-of-andalusia-breaks-ground-for-new-heritage-park/#
