HAYES TOWNSHIP, MI – There was a hydroponic demonstration bus, a mobile water park and a plan to crash a weekly neighborhood blues party, but the winning proposal was strategy already tried and tested.

About 50 people gathered on a farm at the northern shore of Lake Charlevoix this week in a younger, smaller, less expensive answer to the Mackinac Policy Conference, only they wanted to be sure to return to Detroit with imminent action as a product of their discussions.

As a result, Recovery Park — an urban farming initiative looking to provide training and employment to recovering addicts, ex-convicts and other people facing barriers to success — will hire youth and senior ambassadors in the coming weeks to help with outreach in the east-side neighborhood the group serves.

In addition to its farming and employment efforts, the organization is part of a major, federally supported stormwater retention initiative that will have bulldozers doing some peculiar green infrastructure work that may confuse some neighbors.

“The last thing you want to see is them digging up your street and don’t know why,” said Gary Wozniak, head of Recovery Park. “(Neighbors) really need to be part of how that happens.”

The group presented its outreach problem to the Assemble@Mackinac(ish) conference and asked for a solution.

(Related: Detroiters seek solutions to old-new, black-white divide in frank talks at alternative policy conference)

The crowd split into six teams and competed to develop the best idea with the help of young advertising professionals with experience facilitating brainstorming sessions.

“These people had a few hours to not only have ideas, but to package them and present them. They were stunning,” said Stephanie Pool, 28, who designed the ideas challenge with the hope that competitive spirit coupled with a commitment from Recovery Park to implement the winning plan would breed top-notch brainstorming.

“People really embraced the challenge.”

Dean Hay, 46, a landscaping architect from Dearborn who works for the Greening of Detroit, steered his team toward a strategy that his organization has used for three years to reach residents.

Forming a youth fellowship program and hiring senior neighborhood figures would best help the group spread the word on what it’s trying to do, Hay proposed.

“The message is very clear, and it travels, that this is an organization that deserves to be in the community,” he said.

The idea wasn’t as colorful as some of the others, but it was the most immediately doable, said Wozniak.

“Theirs seemed the most implementable,” he said. “They’ve got the track record of piloting and testing the process. And it’s going to create jobs in the community immediately.”

He expects to hire the first senior ambassador and youth fellow in June.

Some of the other ideas presented may also eventually be put to use, he said.

“I personally like the slip-and-slide,” Wozniak said about a plan to tour the neighborhood with a mobile water park and a diorama demonstrating the group’s upcoming work. “The kids will bring in their families.”

The competition was held in between discussions reacting to live-streamed policy talks taking place on Mackinac Island.

The group of young activists camped for four days on a farm owned by Detroit real estate developer Matt Lester.

“I want to be a change agent like them,” Lester said. “I think that this generation has changed the paradigm on how to do that.”

Follow MLive Detroit reporter Khalil AlHajal on Twitter @DetroitKhalil or on Facebook at Detroit Khalil. He can be reached at kalhajal@mlive.com or 313-643-0527.

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (WHNT) – Downtown Huntsville Inc has an idea to transform the neglected promenade adjacent to the former Heritage Club building off Washington Street downtown in to a micro-park and courtyard for the public to enjoy.

Downtown Huntsville Inc.’s Chad Emerson says every city needs those triples and home runs and grand slams for a successful downtown – those big projects. But you also need lots of good singles and doubles, Emerson says.

“Simpler projects that still add to the experience in downtown. Great downtowns have pocket parks – little simple parks, not over programmed, not huge – just a place e to come and relax.”

The owners of the small parcel of land in the center of the city near the back alleyway of Humphrey’s Bar and Grill offered to donate the use of the plot if the city turned it in to something once the whole community could use.

Partners at Goodwyn Mills Cawood Services have drawn up some proposals for the park. The idea is to make the space level, add some attractive landscaping, seating and even some art to make the concept come to life. The ideas are there – Downtown Huntsville Inc. just needs to find a donor.

“We’re looking for a partner whether it be an individual or whether it be a corporation or foundation to help us reach the $25,000 goal to turn this into one of the nicest pocket parks you’ll find anywhere.”

If you’re interested in helping to make the park happen, you can contact Chad Emerson at chad@downtownhuntsville.org.

The graceful “Winged Figure Ascending,” by the late, internationally recognized sculptor Stephen De Staebler, greets visitors as they approach the Green Music Center at Sonoma State University.

Inside the courtyard at the entrance to Weill Hall is a grander sculptural display: 12 16-foot-tall pieces wrought by Mother Nature over the course of 118 years.

A building as striking as the finely-tuned music box designed by renowned architect William Rawn deserves an approach that conveys venerability. That was achieved with these ancient Sevillano olive trees — six on each side of the courtyard — with their gnarled trunks of multiple branches braided together over more than a century.

The olives trees, harvested from a doomed orchard in Corning, trucked in and then carefully placed in trenches beneath the limestone pavers of the courtyard, are among the most significant features within the outdoor spaces surrounding the hall.

With its barn-style door in a concert hall that opens to terraced grass seating, the center is truly designed to offer music without walls on a fine summer day. So the grounds needed to offer the same serenely simple beauty found inside the hall itself.

Observant homeowners and gardeners can glean ideas from public spaces like the Green Music Center, taking note of anything from natural architecture like trees and plantings to pathways, lighting and courtyards such as the entry to Weill Hall.

The grounds are the work of both Bill Mastick of Quadriga Landscape Architecture and Planning of Santa Rosa and the husband and wife team, Larry Reed and Cinda Gilliland, of SWA, an international landscape architecture firm with local offices in Sausalito and San Francisco.

Quadriga came up with the overall site plan for the 52-acre Green Music Center, including the parking lot, the front of the center and the 12- to 14-foot acoustic berms that provide a sound buffer from nearby road noise.

A total of $8.55 million of the $145 million music center project went into the grounds, from the courtyard and colonnade to the west and south lawns, site grading, structural fill, berms, signage, pathways, trees, landscape plants, lighting and outdoor sound equipment.

The long delay had an unexpected upside. The first part of the project to go in back in 2000 was the parking lot, dotted with London Plane trees. By the time the center opened two years ago, they had grown into the mature shade trees Mastick had envisioned.

In fact, time has softened and cooled the whole front of the center. A long line of Chinese elm trees and blue oat grass also are maturing and helping to conceal the plain walls of the classroom wing of the center.

One of the last areas to be developed was the courtyard, made possible by the $12 million infusion from the Weills that finished off the hall and landscaping.

Old olive trees were not part of the original design for the courtyard. But Reed, whose company was brought in to finish the grounds work, said Sandy and Joan Weill pressed for these ancient trees that project an image of both old California and new Wine Country.

They and Reed hand-picked the trees from an orchard near Chico owned by Troy Heathcote of Heritage Olive Trees.

“The olive industry is really going downhill. They’re tearing out these old trees and starting to plant walnuts,” said Heathcote, who buys up old orchards before the trees are bulldozed and tries to sell as many as possible. But he figures he is only able to find homes for about 7 percent of them. Price is a big factor, with each tree costing up to $3,000 or more. Removal, shipping and planting easily double that cost.

The Semillanos are actually good for landscaping because their fruit is larger — more for stuffed olives and martinis — and thus not as prolific and messy.

The other dominant trees in the Green Music Center landscape are redwoods. The giant evergreens, purchased in 15- to 84-gallon boxes, will provide screening around the periphery of the lawns. The trees also needed to be tall, said Reed, to be in proportion to the stately Weill and Schroeder halls.

The understory plantings are natural and typical of the North Coast — anemones, pennisetum or bunnytails, rock roses.

Reed said the economic downturn also took its toll on the landscape business.

“With the economy going south, growers had to start chipping plant material because they couldn’t sell it,” he said. “These are the last of the trees of a good size that we were able to get.”

You can reach Staff Writer Meg McConahey at meg.mcconahey@pressdemocrat.com or 521-5204.