CEDS for Monmouth County, NJ

Opportunities & Challenges:

Reverse the jobs jobs in the once thriving IT and telecommunication sector and the closure of Fort Monmouth were eclipsed by Hurricane Sandy which damaged large swathes of the Jersey Shore. High property values and inadequate cross-county transport options excluded young families and service workers from the economic mix and limited the county’s ability to flourish.

What we did:

With our partner Camoin Associates we completed a Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy (CEDS) that balances housing that is affordable in clusters around transport hubs with new business and job creation initiatives. Maverick & Boutique conducted a series of workshops with community leaders to generate ideas for cross-boundary initiatives to get people working better together in a region that has historically been siloed with groups unable to integrate their interests for sustainable action. M&B provided its Zing facilitation tool to allow participants to simultaneously view and generate ideas together.

The integration of community input and stakeholder buy-in was particularly important to ensure that the final plan will be implementable and achievable with the support of the public officials and residents.

Deliverable:

See the final report here!