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Question: Hi - I am part of a conservation committee formed for a Home Owners' Association in Alexandria, VA. We're interested in doing a walking survey of the natural assets on our property and your organization seems to be the most on-message with what we'd like to accomplish.

Your site is incredibly detailed, but I can’t find an example of a survey tool (literally, a checklist) that neighborhoods, small communities, HOAs, etc. can use to gather intelligence about the natural assets on their properties. This is the fairly granular level, like documenting footpaths, park benches, ponds, waste barrels, and the like.

Any and all advice would be much appreciated!

Answer:

This is a great question! It think you'll find Chapter 25, Section 2 of the toolbox to be helpful in thinking overall about the process of assessing your neighborhood/community.

For a specific tool/checklist, you might look into work in the area of public health that seeks to understand the impact of the "built environment" on health. I did a quick search for "neighborhood observation" and came across a couple of things you might find helpful:

http://www.hepdetroit.org/37-hep/data-collection-activities/262-neighbor...

- This one had lots of information, but the link to the actual checklist didn't work when I tried it. You might try contacting the organization for more information.

https://activelivingresearch.org/active-neighborhood-checklist

If these don't fit exactly what you're looking for, they might at least give you an idea of how to develop your own tool, tailored to your needs.

Good luck!

Question Date: Thu, 02/04/2021