Philosophy

Heyer, Gruel & Associates' employs a team approach to all its work both at the staff level and with our clients. We are firm believers in public participation whereby we combine client input and stakeholder participation with thorough planning analysis to provide accurate and useful plans that address the needs of the community. For plans to become more useful documents, they must be issue oriented and focus on targeting solutions that are implementable.

It has been our experience that truly successful planning efforts require a high degree of stakeholder and public involvement. We find that no matter how carefully crafted plans are, failure to fully engage stakeholders reduces a Plan's effectiveness. Early in all of our processes we meet with the community officials to identify a list of potential stakeholders. HGA then prepares and makes recommendations for the distribution of promotional material and press releases to insure that maximum involvement is possible. Simple legal notices about meetings typically fail to elicit the kind of response necessary to build consensus for the final document. Since all of our communities are unique, there is no one size fits all approach.

To truly engage the public, HGA employs a graphics rich approach whereby photos, maps, sketches, and renderings are used to translate planning jargon into understandable concepts.  It is then that the public, local officials and stakeholders are able to develop a true vision that is sustainable.

Our consensus driven vision process works to develop plans that can be implemented.  A plan that sits on the shelf gathering dust does not benefit a community in any way.  Our plans routinely include implementation agendas that take the goals of the plan and turn them into measurable actions to be taken by the various stakeholders and public officials.  HGA provides communities with information about funding opportunities from state and federal programs to help implement their plans.