Spring 2024 marked the launch of a collaborative planning studio between academic partners and the Coney Island Neighborhood Revitalization Corporation (CINRC), establishing the foundation for the Coney Island People’s Plan. Through a combination of community outreach, stakeholder engagement, and contextual research, students worked alongside local residents and leaders to surface shared visions, values, and priorities for the neighborhood’s future.

This initial phase produced a robust set of insights and tools—including a Community Wish List and Implementation Toolkit—designed to support ongoing, community-led planning, advocacy, and development.

Fall 2025 marked the next phase of the Coney Island People’s Plan, building directly on the foundation established in Spring 2024. This studio focused on advancing prior research into actionable strategies, refining community priorities, and aligning them with long-term planning and development opportunities.

Through continued analysis and synthesis of earlier engagement efforts, students produced a comprehensive report with phased recommendations, offering a clear roadmap to support sustained, community-led implementation and future growth.

The Taconic Fellowship phase marked a critical moment of synthesis and amplification for the Coney Island People’s Plan. Building on the foundations of both the Spring 2024 and Fall 2025 studios, fellows translated the body of research, engagement, and planning outputs into a cohesive community campaign narrative.

This phase focused on clarifying the People’s Planning process, centering resident voices, shared priorities, and collective visioning, while shaping accessible materials and storytelling materials to support advocacy, outreach, and long-term organizing. The result is a unified framework that connects past work to future action, positioning the People’s Plan as both a guiding document and an evolving, community-led movement.