Michigan State University Holly Madill, director of the National Charrette Institute at Michigan State University, spoke to the Planning Commission Tuesday night.

HOUGHTON — After hearing a presentation on the precharrette process Tuesday night, the Houghton Planning Commission scheduled a special meeting to discuss recommending the council authorize funding for the workshop.

Charrettes are a method of getting input from the public to help find a solution to a problem — in this case, potentially the city’s parking deck on Lakeshore Drive and broader issues in downtown, such as parking and development.

Holly Madill, director of the National Charrette Institute at Michigan State University, spoke to the Planning Commission about what the precharrette, and potentially a charrette, would entail.

The charrette process brings together three groups — stakeholders, decision-makers and experts — into the same space to develop a solution.

Madill described a series of “three feedback loops” with each group that allows ideas to be refined.

“We like or teach our processes to be collaborative, to be inclusive, to be multidisciplinary, recognizing that we’re often working within systems,” Madill said. “And so tugging at one thing means that another piece might need to be tightened or loosened. And so we need to have all the disciplines around the table to make sure that we’re putting together a holistic approach.”

A charrette would start with a hands-on workshop where the public provides vision and a project direction. The charrette team then solicits input for alternative plans before soliciting more input at another public meeting. That step — the first feedback loop — helps synthesize the alternative concepts into a preferred plan, Madill said.

The plan then gets refined further through feedback from experts and decision-makers.

“Oftentimes, what happens in a shorter process is your insiders may find themselves saying at a later date, ‘But there’s a fatal flaw in the plan,’ and you have to start all over,” Madill said. “And that can really erode trust and waste time in costly rework … At the end of the charrette, our goal is to be able to look at stakeholders and say, at least back of the envelope, this plan is feasible.”

Charrettes could last as long as a week, though that does not require all participants to be there at the same time, Madill said.

Madill’s proposal, priced at $7,000, would cover a charrette-ready workshop, where the city would settle on its aims for a charrette. That process includes a “principles to product” matrix, which identifies applicable categories for the project (environmental, public health, or economic), each of which has different goals, measures of success, required expertise, and final product from the charrette. (For instance, a project focused on economics might be measured in return on investment, and result in a project proforma. A transportation-focused plan might be measured in traffic speeds or distance of pedestrian crossings, and result in a transportation plan.)

Another of the five steps is a stakeholder analysis, which lists interest groups (such as elected officials, developers, neighborhood activists and business owners). It would include which issues they care about, what a win would look like for them, how to reach out to them, and what level of participation they would have in a charrette.

Each activity would be conducted remotely, and be about three hours long, Madill said. It could incorporate as many as 30 people, she said.

“What our goal is with the charrette-ready workshop is to develop each of those activities alongside a group of stakeholders so that you come away with a charrette that you can plan and that you can implement immediately, or that you can put into a (request for proposals) and bid out to contractors,” Madill said. “In this process, we’d also be looking for broad representation across the community and a wide variety of viewpoints to foster cooperation.”

The cost of a full charrette would depend on the process and the necessary expertise, Madill said.

A Sault Ste. Marie paid $50,000 for both a charrette and developing a form-based code for its downtown, said Planning Commission member Kristne Bradof.

The city has discussed going through a charrette process every five years or so for its master plan. With that in mind, it might make more sense to use the first charrette to train city staff so future ones can be done in-house, said Planning Commission member Michelle Jarvie-Eggart.

Planning Commission member Dan Liebau agreed.

“I think that for a minimal investment, going through these exercises and learning how to develop a charrette is really valuable,” he said.

The Planning Commission set a special meeting for 1 p.m. March 29. As a result, the master plan subcommittee meeting set for that day will be rescheduled.