The Robert Group (TRG), as a subconsultant to Geosyntec, is currently leading public outreach/public engagement efforts for City of Los Angeles’s Sepulveda Basin Vision Plan. This project ambitiously aims to reinvent the 2,000-acre flood-management basin which is the largest open space in the San Fernando Valley. With the 2028 Olympics slated to be held in Los Angeles, this project represents a rare opportunity to develop an urban public space centered around river revitalization, community stability, and habitat creation - all in time for an international event expected to bring millions of visitors to Southern California.  

One of the primary objectives of the Vision Plan is increasing the basin’s accessibility to users of all ages and a multitude of interests from active sports to more passive observances of the basin’s natural habitation.  The Plan also seeks to better integrate the basin’s many assets with its surrounding neighborhoods, including capturing and utilizing the natural functions of the LA River and tributaries, improving the interface between recreation and ecological areas, facilitating access to and within the basin, and enhancing recreational, educational, and cultural programming.  

TRG developed a comprehensive, creative, and innovative outreach approach for engaging stakeholders and interested parties throughout the visioning process. Focusing on multi-generational and multi-cultural stakeholder involvement and consensus-building, TRG is working to solicit input about specific cultural and recreational interests, especially where there have historically been a range of differing objectives.  

Outreach has included coordinating public meetings and stakeholder design workshops, survey development and collection with specific focus on communities that are underrepresented and lacking in useable open space, utilizing a variety of notification techniques to inform the community about project design and multiple avenues to participate, developing multi-lingual collateral materials, and identifying opportunities for alternative engagement. TRG is also responsible for developing an easily navigable project database and website that both incorporates major stakeholders in the project area and categorizes those stakeholders.