'Neighborhood Congress' to convene at Keys to the City event

COLUMBIA — The City of Columbia will host its third "Keys to the City" event beginning at 5 p.m. Tuesday at the Riechmann Pavilion in Stephens Lake Park.

The event will feature informal office hours with City Council members, Mayor Darwin Hindman and city officials. It will also include a "Neighborhood Congress," which Tim Teddy, the city's director of planning and development, said is intended as a dialogue between community representatives and city officials.

Teddy said the congress concept was first introduced at a previous "Keys to the City" event in May.

"We see this as a way to establish a stronger relationship with neighborhood associations," he said, adding that he hopes it will lead to increased dialogue about planning and development in Columbia.

"We want to let it evolve from a small group discussion into something possibly bigger," he said.

Tuesday night's event will focus on the topic “Growing Up, Not Out: A Dialogue on ‘Infill’ Development.”

The "Keys to the City" events are a product of the community visioning process. Specifically, the series is intended to address one of the statements from the final visioning document: "Columbia’s governance is a model of transparency, efficiency and citizen participation that enjoys the strong confidence of its residents."

Tuesday's event will be the third of its kind. Previous "Keys to the City" events were held in October 2008 and in May 2009.