The Ohio State University’s (OSU) City and Regional Planning studio class, in collaboration with the Richland Community Development Group’s (RCDG) Long Range Planning Committee, will hold a presentation titled “Growth and Development Goals for Richland County” on April 22.
Bridget McDaniel, Executive Director at RCDG explained that the project began with RCDG’s Long Range Planning Committee as a way to focus community development goals, but was passed on to the college due to the time constraints of the committee.
“It’s actually a four step process,” said McDaniel of the project. The first step was organizing the committee. The second step involved engaging an intern to perform statistical analysis of the county as well as parallel counties. Step three was to engage the class. Step four in the process will be to engage professional services from Ohio State’s Fisher College of Business in the fall.
The class, which consists of seniors in City and Regional Planning at the Knowlton School of Architecture at Ohio State, researched the county physically, geographically, and statistically, as well as parallel counties in the state, noted McDaniel.
The Fisher College of Business will be asked to take the ideas the City and Regional Planning class has provided and return with prioritized action items which will then be passed along to existing community development action teams, and new teams will be created as needed.
“The meeting on the 22nd is our first attempt to reach beyond the leadership group of RCDG and reach broad swath, because we realize that in the long run, as we present this information, we may get better ideas or other ideas from the community in general,” said McDaniel. “Then as we move through next fall into action items we’re going to need lots of folks to help us.”
“We want citizens actively engaged in the community,” added McDaniel. “We feel that is our strength. That’s the strength of our organization, and that’s the strength of our community.”
The event will be held from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Kee Hall, Room 128 on the North Central State College/OSU Mansfield Campus. (Updated 4/17/14: The event is full).
Interested members of the community are encouraged to attend the event, however, seating is limited. Register by contacting Roberta Perry at Roberta@ChooseRichland.com.
