At the time of Coronavirus quarantine constraints, one of the major challenges for the local public authorities is to engage citizens in the decision-making process in urban planning. “As a rule, people of all ages take part in public events on this topic, and young people use the internet more. For Drohobych city council it was a challenge to reach older people online. In addition, we were not able to place advertisements near the homes where the target population lives due to quarantine measures. Therefore, for me, it was a challenge to reach online all critical audiences from whom we want to hear and to make the process of public consultations as easy and transparent as possible”, says Oleh Dukas, the Drohobych mayor’s advisor on humanitarian issues.

To ensure continuous civic engagement in urban planning under quarantine constraints, the CoE project is assisting Drohobych in planning and conducting online consultations for the reconstruction of a street in the city Center in deploying proper dialogue methods and reaching all stakeholders and social groups using ‘no-touch’ consultation plans in the time of Coronavirus constraints.

The most diverse channels of communication, stakeholder mapping, high-quality pre-consultation phase, consideration of the views of all critical audiences are some of the key components of quality public consultations during quarantine restrictions. With the support of the CoE project, the presentation of the first, pre-consultation phase was held to analyze public opinion. The second phase is now underway - this is the ‘no-touch’ public consultations themselves. In mid-May, as a post-consultation phase, the online presentation of the results will be conducted and the final report of public consultations will be presented to demonstrate that the quarantine constraints do not harm the process of public consultations.