Shakopee aims to include different demographics in comprehensive plan process

Shakopee Valley News

The city of Shakopee is looking to the future. The year 2040, specifically.

The 2040 Comprehensive Plan will look at the nuts and bolts of city planning, such as infrastructure or economic development and all facets of the Shakopee population should be included in the planning, City Long-term Planner Eric Weiss said. The 2040 Comprehensive Plan helps the City of Shakopee decide and manage how the city is going to grow in the next few decades and what the city might look like.

“Ten years ago when the last plan was completed, there was minimal engagement of the community and we just know that’s not what we want to do this time around,” Weiss said. “We want to hear from a large segment of the city.”

To help fund the community engagement efforts, the city applied for a grant from Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota and received $12,500, of which $6,500 will go towards printed materials for marketing and outreach, such as fliers to alert people of upcoming meetings. The other $6,000 will go towards contracts with community groups to help include them in the comprehensive planning process, Weiss said.

The city is looking at working with six community groups, including the Shakopee Diversity Alliance, the Shakopee Chamber and Visitors Bureau, the school district and downtown groups.

“Our approach is to kind of target some populations that maybe traditionally don’t show up to a meeting at City Hall,” Weiss said. “What the engagement is going to look like is going to look completely different depending on who we are working with.”

This could include workshops, meetings, establishing a city presence at community gatherings or using multimedia projects, according to the agreement with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota.

For students to participate, the city is looking at a project called photovoice. Residents would be able to use their cellphones to take pictures of places of places in the community they do or don’t like and add a voice narration explaining why.

By including other groups, the city’s reach can be extended, Weiss said.

“The thinking is that we can have a snowflake model, with us in the middle and the groups branch out from that and they can branch to other people,” Weiss said.

The funding was a part of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota’s “Active Place Demonstration Project” initiative through the Center of Prevention, which funds two types of projects — projects which show how small changes can increase physical activity for a community and community engagement projects.

The idea is to decrease future health problems by making changes to a community that are more likely to make people physically active, said Katy Schultz, senior communications specialist with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota.

“The aim is for them to build momentum for future long-term changes that would make a community more amenable to walking, biking or other forms of physical activity,” Schultz said.

Residents are more likely to come to public spaces where they could be physically active if they feel safe in their community, Schultz said.

“Given that Shakopee has seen tremendous growth and shifting demographics in recent years, this planning process presents that opportunity for the city to explore and experiment how to better engage its residents and other stakeholders,” Schultz said.

The city has also received money from Scott County and the Metropolitan Council for community engagement.

The comprehensive plan affects every aspect of life, Weiss said.

“As the name suggests, it’s pretty comprehensive in nature, so it really should be addressing everything the city touches, included how people live their lives or how they live, work and play,” Weiss said.