At MBS, we are committed to leading the revitalization process with residents, government agencies and officials and other stakeholders at our side and to making that process engaging, empowering, and expedient for all involved.

Ultimately, the community in which the revitalization effort is taking place must be invested in achieving a successful outcome and must believe that they will benefit from its success, through a better place to live, a better job, a safer neighborhood, more customers, or more opportunities for themselves, their children, and their neighbors. A community planning process that actively engages the community is critical to achieving that outcome. Working in cooperation with all the stakeholders in a community helps to quickly and efficiently identify the strengths of the community and its challenges and ensures that the community can help shape the revitalization plan.

We have developed a set of principles to help guide the resident and community engagement process and ensure that our commitments to the neighborhood and community are fulfilled to the highest standards. These principals are:

• Energizing the community through clear, open communication and outreach methods that ensure community members feel vested in the project and build trust in the process, project, and project team;
• Working in good faith to offer realistic expectations of the opportunities, risks and trade-offs of the revitalization plan;
• Working with the residents and stakeholders to adapt to local practice and requirements to incorporate community concerns;
• Ensuring meaningful and culturally competent opportunities for resident and stakeholder involvement in all aspects of the process; and
• Providing a specific and thorough presentation of the facts, assumptions, interests, principles and objections associated with the proposed revitalization planning and implementation approaches.