CITY OF ROSEVILLE

The Dry Creek Greenway West Planning and Feasibility Study evaluated the possibility of a future 3-mile multi-use trail alignment that would run along Dry Creek and would connect to the proposed Dry Creek Greenway East which would link several neighborhoods within the city, provide community access to natural environments and provide an important recreational and transportation facility for people with all abilities.

The feasibility study included one-year of public participation in which the City of Roseville and AIM Consulting identified and engaged specific key stakeholders and conducted several public participation opportunities to inform the planning and engineering team at key milestones throughout the study. The City of Roseville and AIM Consulting, the public engagement firm, implemented a comprehensive public participation program, including both traditional and innovative strategies to engage adjacent property and business owners, neighborhood representatives, current trail users, bicycle and pedestrian advocacy organizations, environmental organizations, under-represented communities and the community-at-large. The overall community participation goal was to create a study that identifies a trail alignment that meets the City’s and community members’ goals, reflects community considerations and fits within the context of the varying communities. 

The project team’s overall public participation objective was to engage a diverse and community-wide audience and allow for equal participation and voice throughout the planning process.  In addition to engaging the community members with cycling and recreational, public health and environmental interests, the project team developed a comprehensive public participation plan that would engage property owners and residents along the corridor alignment, nearby schools, and employers.

The City of Roseville and AIM Consulting collaborated in defining and implementing the best strategies to receive public input throughout the project. The strategies identified included a combination of grassroots community awareness and engagement as well as digital awareness and engagement.

These methods included: direct mail-piece sent to more than 2100 residents and property owners within the project area, two community open houses, a short online questionnaire in conjunction with the first community open house, a robust virtual workshop in conjunction with the second community open house, and a series of pop-up events at several city-wide events.

Through each strategy, the project team monitored and recorded all responses and included all responses and feedback in each strategy’s summary report.

The virtual community workshop was held in conjunction with the second community open house and played a pivotal role, much like the online questionnaire, in obtaining community input from those who were unable to attend the open house on the proposed trail alignment options.

Thought-out the notification process of the entire project, the project team received 2,954 website visits, received 821 email subscriptions, a 41% email open rate, 12,426 Facebook Impressions, 1,671 Instagram impressions, 7,710 Twitter impressions, and 5,034 Nextdoor impressions. 

The public engagement methods received 68 attendees’ input at the community workshops, 156 responses on the short online questionnaire, and 200 responses through the virtual community workshop.

Because the project team implemented different types of outreach strategies throughout the year at several public locations, including online, the team was successful in reaching our target audience of residents near the study area and trail-users in the Roseville / Sacramento region.

Because of the robust public participation throughout this study, the project team was successfully able to determine a preferred trail alignment along the Dry Creek and present it to Roseville City Council and the Planning Commission for their approval.

Following this project, AIM and the City of Roseville received a CAPIO Award for the public outreach completed throughout the project.