1 of 41

URISA TEXAS SPEAKER SERIES

November 29, 2022

Scan here if you

want to volunteer

with URISA Texas

For questions or comments, contact URISA Texas: info@urisatexas.org

Or visit our website for more information: urisatexas.org

Thank you to our Corporate Sponsors!

AllTerra

Atmos Energy

2 of 41

CHARM & CommunityViz

Public Engagement & State Digital Infrastructure for Planning & Mitigation November 29, 2022

3 of 41

4 of 41

DISASTER ASSISTANCE & RECOVERY

5 of 41

CHARM:�Community Health & Resource Management

Program for informing public engagement

6 of 41

CHARM Platform

CHARM Data

GIS & CommunityViz

weTable

7 of 41

TCWP CHARM & Planning Assistance

CHARM Workshop

Discussions about local issues and priorities with local officials

Project Identification

Continued project identification and prioritization using CHARM

Technical Assistance

Short-term mentoring and technical services to support action

8 of 41

The CHARM Approach

The platform was always envisioned as supporting the analytical needs and the human dimensions of cross-collaborative planning and decision-making. It relies on concepts and practices from the fields of mediation, dispute resolution, and facilitation.

9 of 41

Something that drives the CHARM educational approach and the idea behind the weTable is the idea that we might be overestimating the level of coordination and dialogue that’s happening within communities.

Be it dialogue among city officials in different departments, or between officials and HOAs or faith-based groups, or ISD’s or between different cities in the same region, planning relies fundamentally on collaboration and cohesive visioning for the City’s future and strategies for effectively combatting critical resilience challenges.

We believe that fostering collaboration in the learning process translates to collaboration in the planning process. CHARM workshops demonstrate our capacity not only to work together, but to consider and understand alternative perspectives that we might not have the background or training or even personal experience to hold on our own.

10 of 41

11 of 41

When we coordinate a CHARM workshop, we reach out to communities small and large. Good planning is key to a resilient future whether you live in a town of 500 people or a city of 50,000; and regardless of the size of our communities, we all have things to both learn and teach. As important, we all know cities operate within a network. None of us is isolated, so it’s important that cities and towns small and large learn how they can apply resilient planning principles at home, and for communities to understand how their own development trajectories affect their neighbors.

Some smaller communities that I’ve reached out to while coordinating CHARM workshops have actually expressed uncertainty over whether the CHARM platform is relevant to them. Maybe they have small staffs, maybe because of their size the topic of resiliency is just not a priority at the front of their minds. But it’s always important to be proactive. It’s also important to learn from others about their successes and failures.

Particularly cities within the same region can better understand the obstacles that they and others are facing and how they can work together to develop comprehensive, regional, inclusive solutions. Additionally, smaller cities learn the critical importance of thinking about resilience and certain strategies they can feasibly implement, in addition to learning about certain resources they might be able to access if they need support, financial or otherwise.

12 of 41

13 of 41

14 of 41

15 of 41

16 of 41

CHARM GIS Exercises

Technical Program

17 of 41

CHARM hosts customizable, hyper-local, �interactive, data-driven analyses.

Future Land Use Exercise

Higher

Standards

Critical Facilities

Exercise

Riverine & Surge Flood Loss Estimates

Social Vulnerability Index

Mitigation Opportunities

18 of 41

CHARM Exercise Development

Identify Planning & Exercise Goals

Script & arrange analyses in GIS

Run project, organize meetings, & facilitate exercise

What data do you need to get there?

19 of 41

Scenario Exercise Goals

What planning objects are participants being asked to work with? Homes? Population? Acres?

Are there other variables they can play with to modify their scenario? Capacity? Budget?

Consider letting the table inform and set their scenario’s targets. Risk? Time?

20 of 41

Flood Risk Analysis

21 of 41

Social Vulnerability Exercise

Included in the CHARM grid is a wealth of Census Bureau information. For a Social Vulnerability Index exercise (which we like to clarify is adapted from Susan Cutter’s Social Vulnerability Index concept), it is possible to map and assess the relative amount of risk facing your community members and allow you to test different assumptions and groups. Where are there large groups of elderly community members or children? Where might language barriers make it more difficult to communicate risk? Where might there be mobility challenges? Where are the lowest income people located? Who is within the 100-year flood hazard area?

CHARM runs its analysis based on the aggregate of the demographic indicators you determine to be most relevant or pressing within your community (these are what we call assumptions– which is the list to the top left of the map). CHARM then shows you in a pie chart (below assumptions) what percentage of that sum is high, medium, and low vulnerability (compared to the rest of the state) and you can see where those people are with relation to the flood zone.

22 of 41

$41.2M in losses

814 homes flooded

Average loss: $50,707

Flood Loss Estimation

Included in the CHARM grid is a wealth of Census Bureau information. For a Social Vulnerability Index exercise (which we like to clarify is adapted from Susan Cutter’s Social Vulnerability Index concept), it is possible to map and assess the relative amount of risk facing your community members and allow you to test different assumptions and groups. Where are there large groups of elderly community members or children? Where might language barriers make it more difficult to communicate risk? Where might there be mobility challenges? Where are the lowest income people located? Who is within the 100-year flood hazard area?

CHARM runs its analysis based on the aggregate of the demographic indicators you determine to be most relevant or pressing within your community (these are what we call assumptions– which is the list to the top left of the map). CHARM then shows you in a pie chart (below assumptions) what percentage of that sum is high, medium, and low vulnerability (compared to the rest of the state) and you can see where those people are with relation to the flood zone.

23 of 41

“Vacate” Mitigation Exercise

24 of 41

“Dedicate” Mitigation Exercise

25 of 41

Conservation Ranking Exercise

26 of 41

Future Land Use Exercises

27 of 41

28 of 41

29 of 41

30 of 41

You can also learn about different challenges and benefits of planned development. For example flood loss estimates for future homes or the number of homes--existing and future-- that are or will be located within 100 and 500 year floodplains, in addition to total benefits of your developments and other factors that might inform future planning.

Something else I like to point out-- and this relates to the idea that CHARM is really customizable to your community’s needs--is that we tailor our models to show areas where you expect development to occur or where you might have development agreements underway. So we work with stakeholders to make sure that our models are representative of circumstances in your community. In this map of New Braunfels, we extended the interactive “CHARM” planning area to include an area in the northern part of the City’s ETJ where a Development Agreement is underway, so there’s quite a bit of paint in that area as you can see.

31 of 41

Building the state digital infrastructure for mitigation & planning

Project Overview

32 of 41

Continuing our mission at

Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service

to empower communities with data and tools to make more informed decisions

ONLINE

33 of 41

2005

2000

2003

1998

Software first envisioned by the Orton Foundation

Pilot developed after two years of real-world testing

2001

Second generation product released – Scenario 360

2004

New company formed by Doug Walker to develop and support CommunityViz

New marketing strategy – major price reduction

2019

2016

Placeways purchased by CEI to continue the software’s legacy

CVIZ Pro Beta released for testing within customer pool

2023

Full version of CVIZ Pro

First general release of the software to the public

CVIZ moves to Texas A&M to sustain and develop new features

2022

2011

ESRI Desktop Extension of the Year

34 of 41

“

CommunityViz began as an idea in the late 1990s when Noel Fritzinger and his friend Lyman Orton, proprietor of the Vermont Country Store and long-term member of his town's local planning board, first envisioned a software tool that would make the planning process more accessible to ordinary citizens.

35 of 41

CommunityViz is changing the way planners use GIS. With its transparent and flexible design, CommunityViz opens up the planning process to more people. At the same time, it takes a lot of guesswork, speculation, and pure subjectivity out of the planning equation.

—Jack Dangermond, President, Esri

“

36 of 41

37 of 41

Green Infrastructure Pilot Exercise

38 of 41

Software as a Service (SaaS)

Community specific, hosted by TX A&M

Open-framework approach

Real-time collaborative platform

Dead simple, full-frame interface

Intuitive navigation of data, exercises

ONLINE

39 of 41

We are recruiting in Jan 2023

PRODUCT TEAM

Product Manager

CVIZ Software Developer (C# or VB, .NET, Java)

CHARM Geospatial Data Engineer

CHARM Sr. Planner & Engagement Specialist

PLANNING TEAM

Sr. Planner & Project Manager

Sr. Geospatial Analyst

Located in Houston-Clear Lake, TX

Positions will be posted at CommunityCHARM.org

40 of 41

Steven Mikulencak, AICP

Planning Program Director

CHARM & CVIZ Lead

steven.mikulencak@ag.tamu.edu

Texas A&M AgriLife Extension

communityCHARM.org

ONLINE

41 of 41

URISA TEXAS SPEAKER SERIES

RESOURCES

Scan here if you

want to volunteer

with URISA Texas

URISA Texas Website: urisatexas.org

Recorded Speaker Series Videos: https://goo.gl/VfDLUi

For questions or comments, contact URISA Texas: info@urisatexas.org

Scan here to view

attendance for

todays presentation

THANK YOU FOR ATTENDING