Engaging Marginalized Communities in Land Use Planning

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A group of community members meets to discuss Land Use

The City is working to meaningfully engage and center the voices of communities of color, immigrants, and refugees in land use planning.

This process is committed to breaking down barriers that have historically excluded — and continue to exclude — people from participating in community decision-making processes.

In 2021 and 2022, the Hillsboro Planning Division partnered with community-based organizations to host a series of focus group and advisory panel meetings with communities of color. These meetings focused on building relationships and identifying strategies to remove barriers to land use planning processes.

A detailed overview of this phase of engagement and a summary of the thoughtful contributions of participants are available below:

Goals, Strategies, and Action Items

To address the findings identified through the engagement process, the following goals, strategies, and action items will be implemented in future engagement efforts by the City of Hillsboro Planning Division.

Implementation of the action items will continue over the next two years, with ongoing collaboration with the community.

Cultivate Safe and Accessible Meeting Spaces

Strategy: Respect and honor the original and current caretakers of this land, acknowledge the structural marginalization of communities of color, and promote inclusion.

Action: At the beginning of all Planning public meetings, read a land acknowledgement, acknowledgment of barriers, and create space to share personal pronouns.

Strategy: Respect and recognize culturally specific holidays and events to ensure that key engagement milestones are not in conflict with other important dates.

Action: Create a Planning Division shared calendar that includes culturally specific holidays and events with input from Community Based Organizations and faith-based organizations.

Strategy: Increase public access to the Planning Division’s meetings and events.

Action: Hold Planning public meetings at informal locations across Hillsboro on a variety of days and times with an option to join virtually with closed captioning.

Action: Provide early notification well in advance of engagement opportunities and share meeting recordings for review by those who did not attend.

Expand Language Supportive Services

Strategy: Simplify complex land use information into easier-to-understand concepts.

Action: Work towards all printed and online content meeting plain language review standards.

Strategy: Improve language access services to expand availability of information for individuals with limited English proficiency.

Action: Work with Historically Marginalized Communities to prioritize specific Planning written materials for translation into a variety of languages and ensure accuracy of translations.

Strategy: Improve language assistance services for individuals with limited English proficiency.

Action: Include options to request language interpretation and a hearing headset in all public notices.

Improve Information Sharing

Strategy: Increase access to policy initiatives and project information.

Action: Utilize internal and external outlets such as publications, signage with QR codes in community gathering spaces, radio ads, multicultural media, and informational videos in a variety of languages.
Action: Develop and maintain relationships with Community Based Organizations and community leaders and work with them to share information more widely and effectively to their communities. Ensure compensation is available and provided to Community Based Organizations.
Action: Research more inclusive land development notification postings.

Strategy: Create transparent feedback loops to clearly demonstrate the engagement process and how community input influences final outcomes.

Action: Utilize the newly launched Engage Hillsboro online tool to engage with the public, receive input, and report findings and project outcomes.

Strategy: Offer a variety of information formats and provide ample time for communities to review and process information.

Action: Work with City’s Community Engagement Manager to better understand how Historically Marginalized Communities prefer to engage.

Planning Division Institutional Changes

Strategy: Center the voices of Historically Marginalized Communities in land use planning.

Action: Convene a Planning Division advisory panel comprised of Historically Marginalized Community members and build long-term relationships by involving individuals who participated in focus group and advisory panel meetings. Compensate Community Based Organizations to assist with recruitment and offer compensation and simultaneous interpretation to participants.

Strategy: Increase engagement coordination across City Departments to center the voices of Historically Marginalized Communities.

Action: Share Planning Division Engagement Project lessons learned with other City Divisions and Departments.

Strategy: Ensure the Planning Division budget includes ongoing funding for meaningful engagement with Historically Marginalized Communities.

Action: Request an annual line-item budget of $50,000.

Strategy: Keep Historically Marginalized Communities informed of updates on land use planning growth and development.

Action: Host two to three simultaneous in-person/virtual listening sessions for Historically Marginalized Communities with interpretation each year

Action: Coordinate across departments to facilitate City staff tours of neighborhoods and small businesses with Historically Marginalized Community leaders.

Strategy: Support Historically Marginalized Communities’ leaders of all ages and build long-term relationships by providing tools and resources about land use planning decision-making processes.

Action: Promote the Civic Leadership Academy Program among Historically Marginalized Communities.

Strategy: Respond to financial barriers to engagement by providing stipends and compensation.

Action: Follow the forthcoming citywide Stipend and Compensation policy

Strategy: Apply an equity lens when developing policies, programs, and projects.

Action: Work with City’s Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Manager to identify and utilize an equity toolkit.

Strategy: Diversify the Planning Division’s workforce to better represent Hillsboro’s diverse community.

Action: Reach out to Historically Marginalized Communities to promote Planning Division’s job postings and internships, to attract a diverse pool of candidates

Progress

The following actions have been implemented or are being implemented on an ongoing basis:

Created a Planning Division shared calendar of culturally specific holidays and events.
Developed and utilized more inclusive land development notification postings.
Worked with the City’s Community Engagement Manager to better understand the engagement preferences of Historically Marginalized Communities.
Convened a Planning Division advisory panel comprised of Historically Marginalized Community members to provide valuable community knowledge and perspectives on ongoing implementation.
Share lessons learned from Planning Division engagement process with other City Divisions and Departments.
Secured an annual line-item budget of $50,000 for meaningful engagement with Historically Marginalized Communities.
Provided stipends and compensation to participants to reduce financial barriers to engagement.
Began mentioning or reading City Council recognition month proclamations at Planning Division public meetings.
Improved information sharing through informational videos in a variety of languages.

In addition to these action items, the Planning Division has also taken the following steps:

Worked with the City’s Information Servies Department to identify requirements and specifications for new headsets for simultaneous language interpretation.
Held Housing Needs Analysis focus group meetings with Historically Marginalized Communities.
Met with a representative of the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde to build relationships and better understand community needs.

Highlights

Focus group participants recommended the City create and share more educational videos. The City acted on this suggestion and created a multilingual video for the Housing Needs Analysis project.

Thanks to narration by Hillsboro community members, this video is now available in English, Spanish, Chinese, Tagalog, Arabic, and Vietnamese on our Housing Needs Analysis webpage.