Office for Urbanism Wins OPPI Award

The Our Future Mississauga Community Engagement project won the 2009 Excellence in Planning Award in the Communication/Public Education category.

For over 33 years, the City of Mississauga has grown rapidly to become Canada's sixth largest city. The municipality was preparing to write a new Strategic Plan that would guide the city's maturation and intensification in the 21st Century. As a first step, the City retained Office for Urbanism (OU) to manage the public consultation and engagement process geared toward engaging Mississaugans in a conversation about the future they envision for their city. This was the most extensive public consultation undertaken in the City's history, with over 100,000 participants at every phase of the process.

The purpose and goal of Our Future Mississauga was to inspire out-of-the-box thinking using creative and innovative communication tools and public events to engage a diverse group of people to be engaged in the conversation. Over nine months, the people of Mississauga were engaged in a public engagement strategy that involved capacity building presentations, implementation and capacity building workshops, charrettes, information sessions, stakeholder interviews, 'fresh eyes' walking tours, speaker presentations, online surveys, and open houses.

The process began with a Speaker Series, the objective of which was to excite Mississaugans, involve them in the process, and inspire them to 'think big' about their City. A three part television series, in partnership with the local cable station, produced programs based on related topics leading up to the this event. Prominent urbanists and inspirational speakers such as Dr. Roberta Bondar, Justin Trudeau, Stephen Lewis, Larry Beasley and Jan Gehl shared their ideas with over 4000 participants. An interactive website whereby Mississaugans could take online surveys and polls, and leave comments on events was another tool used to consult and inspire ideas, and resulted in thousands of responses on a daily basis.

The City produced a video to document the event, which can be viewed here.

Find out more about the 2009 OPPI Excellence in Planning Awards

Posted on October 07, 2009