Thanks to the SUNY-ESF Center for Community Design Research, the residents of Ontario now have a vision plan for the revitalization of their downtown.

"Well one of the major steps is for the community to essentially have an organization in place, a steering committee or an advisory committee to work with us who can bring in community members into the process because it's really important the communities become engaged in this and participate because it's their project," said Maren King, ESF Center for Community Design Research.

In Ontario, three workshops were held to uncover common values upon which to develop a shared vision for the future of their community. Landscape architect students created posters to summarize the results of each workshop.

"They'd write down their concerns they would go up and mark them on the aerial that we provided them Then what we did is we brought back this information and try to code it and understand what they were trying to get out so things like they could see like care and maintenance, visual cohesion within the downtown parking uses and conversion of building uses, things that we were able to pull out from the information they provided us," said Nick Onody, Landscape Architecture graduate student.

One vision that developed in this process, open up areas for pedestrians and encourage more interaction.

"And here we also had an outdoor café or seating area that would also provide or promote social interaction," said Landscape Architecture graduate student Au Ta.

Now if your community would like to learn more about this process, please visit the SUNY-ESF Center for Community Design Research web site at www.esf.edu.