Challenge: Slezská Ostrava needed to find a digital solution for public participation and for increasing inclusivity and transparency of the entire community engagement process. They also needed the data to be linked to specific locations in the city. Analyzing the gathered data needed to be easy and straightforward.
Solution: After they started using Maptionnaire, Slezská Ostrava has received less complaints from residents about the plans. They are also able to show the effects of feedback on the plans and justify decision making to the residents better.
Slezská Ostrava is the municipal district of the City of Ostrava, the third biggest city in the Czech Republic. Their responsibilities are broad, including the development of the city and its public services, community living, and cultural services. The underlying principle for all their projects is to promote good governance. For Slezská Ostrava, good governance is first and foremost a collaboration between professionals from the city bureau, political leaders, and the citizens.
A Change Towards More Inclusive Participation
After the municipal election in 2018, the city changed in its approach to digital public participation. Despite the successes with more traditional communication methods and channels, such as the municipality webpage, monthly magazine, regular public meetings with politicians, and communication via social media and mobile radio, Slezská Ostrava was still missing a digital community engagement service for involving the residents in the development of the city.
Slezská Ostrava needed to collect a large pool of data linked to specific locations that could be analyzed easily. In general, they wanted to avoid delaying and prolonging projects while still gathering the opinion of as many residents as possible. The decisions made, based on the collected data, significantly influence the local environment and the lives of the residents. That’s why they want to be as inclusive as possible, hence the need for wanting to find a digital solution for participation.
Integrating Feedback from Residents into Plans
Maptionnaire’s digital service for community engagement has been a welcomed addition to Slezská Ostrava’s toolbox. In the initial phase of a project, they publish the online questionnaire created with Maptionnaire. They notify the citizens via the municipality website, social media, print magazine, and local radio. The online questionnaire is also used in public meetings. A short video is always added to the survey where the idea of the project is explained and advice is given on how to answer the online Maptionnaire survey.
The results are used, for instance, by the city architects in the designs. They are also obligated to present the design plans before they are implemented. In this middle phase, the architects explain why some feedback is integrated into the plans and why some is excluded. Additional feedback from this phase can also be taken into consideration in the final plan.
Making Justified Decisions
Besides the efficiency of processing data, Slezská Ostrava appreciates the transparency when using Maptionnaire in community engagement. It’s impossible to fulfill every single need and idea from the residents, but by using Maptionnaire, they have been able to reduce the number of complaints and provide clear justification to why a certain decision has been made.
Public participation is not some naive idea. It can actually improve the decision making of local governments, and respectively the lives of residents. It’s the duty of the municipalities to listen to the citizens and involve them in the process of developing cities.
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