A series of public workshops will help define all future development on Fort Ord.

When Mia Birk took the stage at CSU Monterey Bay’s University Center Jan. 22, attendees shuffled back to their seats, and quiet enveloped the room.

“We’re going to talk about trails as a journey,” said Birk, the keynote speaker at Fort Ord Reuse Authority’s Trails Symposium. “There’s a gap between where this region sees itself today and where it sees itself in the future. And the journey is about closing that gap.”

The day-long symposium focused on regional trails, transit and economic vitality. Its intent was to spark ideas on the eve of an even bigger Fort Ord Reuse Authority (FORA) event: “Design Fort Ord,” a series of public workshops that kicks off Feb. 2 and spans 11 days.

“The workshops will elicit public input on the physical form of the future communities of Fort Ord,” says FORA Associate Planner Josh Metz. “[The symposium] was about preparing the community for this type of thinking.”

Nationally renowned town planning firm Dover, Kohl & Partners will run the 11-day event, using community feedback to craft regional urban design guidelines that will apply to all future projects on the former military base.

At the end of each session, planners will produce graphic renderings of the guidelines, which they’ll present to the public at the next workshop.

After feedback from that session, they will take the renderings back and refine them again, a process that will play out multiple times over the course of the events.

“There will be multiple feedback loops,” Metz says. “By the end, the aim is to funnel down to a set of guidelines that resonate with the community.”

Planning experts assisting in the process include Dena Belzer, a Berkeley-based economist specializing in smart growth. (She also spoke at the symposium.)

“It’s actually an exciting and very human process,” she says of the workshops. “The community feels like they have a much better chance to add their input.”