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Delta Charrette
In October 2006, the University of California at Berkeley's Delta Initiative hosted a two-day planning charrette to identify, on a preliminary basis, spatial patterns of land use, infrastructure, and levee modification that would create a "resilient Delta" in 50 years' time. A charrette is an intensive, brief workshop in which stakeholders develop spatially explicit, alternative visions of a place. Graduate students in UC Berkeley's course, "Citizen Participation in the Planning and Design Process," taught by Professors Marcia McNally and Randy Hester in the Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning, took the lead in the design and implementation of the charrette.
As noted, this particular charrette focused on Delta land use, infrastructure, and levees, not on budgeting the Delta's water. And in keeping with the focus on land use, the charrette concerned itself only with conditions in the Delta itself, not those of the Delta's watershed or the areas serviced by exported Delta water. Despite these constraints, the charrette's products and conclusions can help improve the quality of thinking and planning for the Delta's future. The final report, available at the UC Berkeley web link below, summarizes the activities and results of the Delta charrette.
Final Report (22.8 MB)
The State's Delta Vision program helped fund the UC Berkeley Delta Charrette as a pilot study to evaluate charrettes as a possible visioning tool for the Delta Vision. In observing the charrette process, Delta Vision staff were impressed not only with how the charrette encouraged individuals from diverse perspectives and experiences to look at the Delta in new ways, but also with the format and content of the charrette maps and final report. Consequently, the Delta Vision staff plans to conduct additional Delta charrettes with members of the Delta Vision Stakeholder Coordination Group in spring 2007.
For more information about the UC Berkeley Delta Charrette, please contact:
Bill Eisenstein, Director
Delta Initiative
University of California Berkeley
delta@berkeley.edu
or
John Andrew, Chief
Special Planning Projects
California Department of Water Resources
jandrew@water.ca.gov
(916) 651-9657
For more information on UC Berkeley's Delta Initiative, please visit: