Translating Plans to Action is Hard. More Formality Won’t Help.
Why do small towns struggle to get things done? Why is that water line still not fixed? What’s holding up the downtown streetscape project? Why didn’t that planned thing ever happen?
Questions like these often get lumped under the label of “rural capacity” or lack of capacity. Plenty of outside organizations have been talking a lot about how they can try to help build rural capacity. That attention in itself is a bit of a novelty for rural areas.
A new-to-me term is popping up in this discussion, and that is “translation.” Rural communities are struggling in translating between the good intentions of plans or policies, and what actually gets done.
Cally Lange described it like this: “Communities have vision, knowing what they want to preserve, adapt, or build toward. Progress stalls between the idea and the procedures required to carry it forward. Plans are adopted, momentum builds, and then projects slow down within a maze of murky steps, overlapping requirements, and processes never designed with small jurisdictions in mind.” (emphasis added)
“The challenge is navigating the process,” Cally said.
I think most of us can relate to the examples that Cally explained, without naming names: (I’m quoting her words again, with emphasis added)
- downtown adaptive reuse projects that align with the local comprehensive plans but stall because zoning, building code, and fire department reviews are handled separately, with no clear sequencing or point person;
- agritourism entrepreneurs encouraged and supported by economic development staff but cannot find clarity from local AHJs [“Authorities Having Jurisdiction”] on whether or not permits are required;
- projects that struggle to move forward because of complicated capital stacks with conflicting timelines and sequencing.
“Friction often stems from unclear handoffs between policy, regulation, and implementation,” Cally said.
This is what Cally calls the translation gap “between policy intent and on-the-ground practice, between regulatory frameworks and real project conditions, and between what communities are encouraged to do and what systems are actually set up to support.”
Rik Adamski offered his thoughts on filling the gap with better systems, “the structures that translate intent into action. Not just ‘steps,’ but the right steps, organized in ways that can reliably produce tangible progress toward real goals.” (emphasis added)
Rik and I have had some great conversations about small towns, but when I read that, my gut reaction was that this sounds like a recipe for more bureaucracy. And small towns are already drowning in processes they didn’t ask for and have no voice in.
The definitive answer would be policy overhauls, following Cally’s point about designing the system for small cities and towns. Policy really isn’t my area, so I’m not wading into it.
My area is how we work together locally. No amount of “structure” can replace human connection in these cases. No matter how well you write or design the plan-to-action structure or reliable ‘right’ steps, real life will get in the way.
Unclear handoffs between people can best be solved by better connecting the people involved.
Did you know that Norfolk County, Ontario, holds weekly cross-department meetings of all the people involved in planning and development? Every project is introduced to all the departments at the very beginning stages. As they present each project, they talk through any potential surprises or hurdles. The county acts as a single-tier municipality, holding most municipal services at the county level. They need to coordinate, especially as the total county population was around 60,000 at the time I heard about this coordination.
If the problem we are trying to solve is showing up as poor handoffs between people, creating a living network with a spirit of cooperation among those people is a great way to start addressing it.
What about the inevitable issues with a single official who seems to take joy in stopping projects? (And why is it so often the code-enforcement person?) In these cases, I think bringing everyone together in a single room does two good things. One, it makes it obvious when the same person is the blockade over and over. Two, it allows the entire group to apply themselves to working through those blockades. It might just be a matter of making someone feel heard and important to help them shift their behavior in a positive way.
Back when I was in workforce development, people from several different workforce agencies would sit down weekly for what they called “joint staffing.” They all worked together at finding the right resources for each client, rather than expecting the client to work it out for themselves, bouncing from office to office.
These folks were working for some of the least change-friendly and least customer-friendly agencies you can imagine. And this was over 20 years ago! But those weekly joint staffing sessions were a true bright spot. Even some of the reluctant folks were able to find ways to help get a job seeker needed resources or place a worker in training that would help them rejoin the workforce. It was one of my favorite things about a really difficult system.
That’s not a complete structure of the right next steps or permanent policy solution, but it is a practical step anyone could take today.