Ash Grove plans for growth

“The goal is to preserve what we have and maintain that charm as we grow,” said Brenda Ellsworth, mayor of Ash Grove and a local Realtor. “We want to grow smart and not be willy-nilly about it, while planning to preserve what we have.”

In order to accomplish that, Ellsworth used her connections as a Realtor and as Ash Grove’s mayor to enlist the help of the National Association of Realtors in Washington, D.C., and its Smart Growth programs.

NAR will pay for a planning consultant to visit Ash Grove Nov. 16-18 to conduct a workshop concerning Ash Grove’s future growth. Consultant Tony Nelessen of A. Nelessen and Associates of New Jersey alo will assist with the planning.

Joe Molinaro, manager of NAR Smart Growth Programs, has traveled to the Springfield area three times in the past four years to talk to Realtors about smart growth. Ellsworth was president of the Greater Springfield Board of Realtors when she learned about the program.

“One of the national meetings I attended had sessions on smart growth. I listened to presentations and learned that NAR offers help with worthy projects,” Ellsworth said. “The year I was president I asked Joe Molinaro to come and speak. Anyone who wanted to attend was invited. We had about 80 people at that meeting and as a result, there were a few that did ask for some assistance in minor ways.” Later, Ellsworth talked to Molinaro about a larger project in Ash Grove.

Realizing that growth was coming to Ash Grove, Ellsworth wanted the city to manage it well.

“Joe came to Ash Grove three months ago for an open invitation discussion, and 40 people, including (County Commissioner) Dave Coonrod, attended. From this meeting, the townspeople elected to use the charrette method of planning – an intensive four- to five-day planning event that encourages input from all of the citizens to give them some ownership of the plan that will be developed by the planners and presented at the end of the charrette.”

The presentation was created by the National Charrette Institute for the National Association of Realtors to educate people about the features and advantages of a properly orchestrated planning and development approvals process.

The purpose of charettes is to involve the public and all other stakeholders in community planning. The charrette process has been successfully used on hundreds of projects. Charrette is a French word meaning “cart” and is used to describe the final intense work effort expended by art and architecture students to meet a project deadline. According to the National Charrette Institute, this use of the term is said to originate from the École des Beaux Arts in Paris during the 19th century. During that time, proctors circulated a cart, or charrette, to collect final drawings while students frantically put finishing touches on their work.

A charrette, held in town-meeting style, involves the entire community. The meeting is facilitated in a way that everyone can be heard and no one dominates.

“Ash Grove is the perfect place for this pilot program, because where planning is concerned, we are like a baby. For the most part, we’re just starting our growth. There’s nothing major to go back and redo,” Ellsworth said. “We are not unlike hundreds of other small towns across the United States that are endangered by urban growth. Attending the Smart Growth sessions made me more aware that a community should be proactive rather than reactive, and there are ways to protect what you have. Sadly, most small-town leaders do not have the needed knowledge to make that happen and do not have the funds to ‘hire’ the person who does. I was so excited about the help NAR could provide. What could be more perfect: ‘hire’ the experts at no cost.”

Ash Grove is the first town to receive this much assistance from the NAR on a project.

Nelessen, the consultant chosen by NAR to help with the plan, is one of the most recognized planners in the United States, Ellsworth said. “He is the creator of the Visual Preference Procedure that many planners use in their work.”

Nelessen will tour the town and meet with Ash Grove’s city engineer and county planners. The first session will meet Nov. 17, with stakeholders being given the opportunity to participate in the visioning process. “They will show the different looks of neighborhoods, streets and highways to choose from. We’ll compile the results from a preference survey before the planners work with the people on different aspects of planning,” Ellsworth said.

“We will ask them to work with us in small groups of three to 10 people to decide what the town and area could look like in one year to 20 years out,” Nelessen said. “We will have a base map of the region where we can look at the growth projections, where those are and how many people, as well as increases in schools and open space. At the workshop we’ll ask, ‘Where do you think this growth should go?’ We will go one to two miles out.” Teams will discuss where growth is most appropriate.

The second aspect of the discussion will focus on downtown and highways. “We’ll learn what people think and what type of growth is appropriate,” Nelessen said. “We’ll then ask them to prepare these ideas with tracing paper, which they will grow on, for the town and highways. Each group reports their ideas and feelings at the end of the workshop. We’ll look at all of those overlays like a doctor looking at an X-ray, based on what we have here and what people really want. We’ll determine their vision in a large group discussion on what the city will look, feel and grow like. That’s the end of our involvement. Then the information is turned back to the city.”

Ellsworth said this is a way to handle growth by inviting citizens to come up with the plan. She cites an 8-year-old survey of 167 residents who said that small-town atmosphere and low crime was what attracted them to Ash Grove. “Eighty percent said that we want that small town image maintained,” she said.

“I love this little town,” said Ellsworth, a 30-year resident of Ash Grove. “I want to preserve its image with the help of the community. It’s not as much about change as it is preserving what we’ve got.”