Successful planning depends on more than technical expertise. It requires meaningful collaboration with the communities affected by planning decisions. While planners use tools such as zoning, spatial analysis and population projections to shape land use, they must also engage residents, advocacy groups, stakeholders and decision-makers throughout the planning process.

In this course, you'll explore how community participation influences planning outcomes and learn best practices for designing inclusive public engagement strategies. Through real-world case studies, you'll develop stakeholder assessments, evaluate community engagement approaches and build the communication and facilitation skills needed to lead participatory planning processes.

Learning Outcomes

• Explain how community involvement supports effective planning practice and decision-making.
• Apply best practices for community engagement in municipal and regional land use planning.
• Analyze real-world community planning cases and evaluate the effectiveness of different engagement approaches.
• Develop a stakeholder assessment that identifies key interests, relationships and engagement needs.
• Design an inclusive community participation strategy that supports meaningful and informed public input.
• Facilitate participatory planning processes using clear communication, inclusive dialogue and consensus-building techniques.

Skills You Will Gain

• Community engagement
• Stakeholder analysis
• Public participation planning
• Meeting facilitation
• Public communication
• Consensus building
• Community outreach strategy

Course Format and Pacing
This four-week online course includes three (3) live, instructor-led Zoom sessions. Students will access the program through Canvas, UC Davis CPE’s learning management system. Active engagement and participation are essential to fully benefit from the course and achieve the best learning outcomes.