Service // 03

    Public Engagement - earn the room before the hearing.

    Community engagement, agency liaison, and hearing preparation that turns public review from a risk into a tailwind.

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    Service Snapshot
    200+
    Hearings Supported
    92%
    First-Cycle Approvals
    18yr
    DDOT/Agency Experience
    Overview

    Public review is a system, we run it.

    Led by VP Charlotte Ducksworth, our public-engagement practice treats community and agency review as a structured workstream, not a wildcard. We map every stakeholder, model the likely objections, and sequence the briefings, mailers, and hearings against your approval calendar so the room is already familiar with the project before testimony begins. The work is documented inside PermitPilot, so legal, comms, and the project team see the same record of who's been engaged, what was promised, and what still has to land before the vote.

    Stakeholder mapping
    Identify every voice that will speak, residents, ANC commissioners, agencies, advocacy groups, and adjacent owners, and plan accordingly. Each stakeholder is tagged by influence, sentiment, and the issue most likely to drive their testimony, so outreach hits the right people with the right message in the right order.
    Hearing readiness
    Pre-hearing rehearsals, exhibits, and FAQ books so your team walks in prepared, not reactive. We script likely commissioner questions, build the witness order, and dry-run the testimony with the same body language and timing the panel will see on the night of the hearing.
    Durable agency relationships
    We have worked inside the agencies you are presenting to and know what they need to say yes. That means honest pre-application conversations, an early read on staff concerns, and a path to written conditions both sides can live with, not surprises in the staff report two weeks before the hearing.
    Capabilities

    What we do

    Public-side services that move projects from controversial to confirmed, with every interaction documented inside PermitPilot so your team and ours work from the same record.

    01

    Community outreach planning

    Targeted engagement strategies, door-knocking, town halls, ANC briefings, and digital campaigns sequenced backward from the hearing date. We define the audiences, the messages, and the cadence, then staff the calendar so outreach actually happens on the days the plan calls for it.

    02

    Agency briefings

    Pre-hearing alignment with reviewing agencies so the testimony doesn't surprise anyone. We hold the early meetings with planning, transportation, and environmental staff, surface their concerns in writing, and bring resolutions back to your design team while there's still time to incorporate them.

    03

    Hearing preparation

    Witness prep, exhibit production, FAQ development, and full rehearsal of the panel. We assemble the testimony order, brief friendly witnesses, prep your principals on the questions they'll actually be asked, and produce exhibits the commissioners can read from the back row.

    04

    Crisis response

    Rapid response when a project draws unexpected opposition, narrative correction, coalition outreach, and counter-testimony organized inside 72 hours. We separate the loudest voices from the most influential ones and rebuild the room before the vote.

    05

    Translation & accessibility

    Multi-language materials and ADA-compliant outreach for inclusive engagement. Spanish, Amharic, Mandarin, and Vietnamese are routine; we also handle in-person interpretation, accessible meeting venues, and captioned virtual sessions so the public record reflects the full community, not just the people who could attend in English at 7 p.m.

    06

    Coalition & endorsement building

    Identify the civic associations, BIDs, and advocacy groups whose support changes a hearing's tone, then engage them with the briefings, site walks, and written materials they need to issue a letter of support, not a neutral file note.

    Process

    How engagement runs

    Four phases that build public credibility before the hearing date, every conversation logged in PermitPilot so legal, comms, and the project team work from the same stakeholder record.

    1. 01
      Phase 01

      Listen

      Stakeholder mapping, sentiment analysis, and identification of likely objections through one-on-one interviews and a review of past hearing transcripts. We surface the issues that will actually decide the vote, not the ones that look loudest on social media, and document each contact's position and influence in PermitPilot.

    2. 02
      Phase 02

      Plan

      Engagement calendar built backward from hearing dates with named outreach owners, message frameworks per audience, and pre-staged materials. Every briefing, mailer, and town hall is sequenced so the right people hear the right message in the right order before the formal record opens.

    3. 03
      Phase 03

      Engage

      Execute outreach, document every interaction in PermitPilot, and brief the project team weekly with sentiment movement, open commitments, and the next two weeks of activity. Course corrections happen in flight, not in the post-mortem after a surprise no vote.

    4. 04
      Phase 04

      Hearing

      Prepared testimony, friendly witnesses lined up in the right order, and exhibits ready in the formats the panel actually uses. We attend with you, manage the room before the gavel, and capture the conditions of approval verbatim so the post-hearing record matches what was actually said.

    FAQ

    Questions we hear most.

    Search the list below, or talk to our team.

    Key points
    • DC is our deepest bench, eighteen years of relationships across DDOT, DOEE, HPRB, and the ANCs, but we run public engagement nationally, anywhere there's a hearing, an ANC equivalent, or a community to engage.
    • For new markets we typically pair a senior strategist from our team with a local civic-affairs partner so the project benefits from both our process and on-the-ground relationships from day one.

    Win the public phase.

    Tell us about your project's public exposure. We'll map your stakeholder risk on the first call.

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