to: Roger L. Stancil, Town Manager
from: J.B. Culpepper, Planning Director
subject: Follow-up Information Regarding Design Charette Inquiry
date: September 15, 2008
The purpose of this memorandum is to provide you with some information about the group referred to as the Durham Area Designers, based on the comments at the Council Committee on Strategic Planning meeting on August 6, 2008 (Quick Report Attached).
The Durham Area Designers are a collection of design professionals who collaborate on organizing and facilitating public participation on land planning and design issues that affect a community. They also summarize the results and findings of these community, land use workshops into follow-up presentations and reports. The group estimates that preparation for a typical design charette and associated follow-up work typically takes about 5 to 6 months. This amount of time will vary depending on the amount of background work/research that is already available. In the case of the Rogers Road Small Area Plan, for example, Town, County and utility staff had been working to gather background information and base data for a number of months prior to the work for the land use focused charette.
I understand that the group is generally not able to do more than one area at a time. However, the Durham Area Designers have suggested that there could be some overlap of the studies. They have indicated that the first workshop could start as early as mid to late November. Our contract with the group for the Rogers Road design charette and follow-up report was for $15,000.