The city of Aspen wants to know your favorite places.

As the first part of the public process to eventually update the Aspen Area Community Plan, the city is rolling out a survey today asking locals to identify their top three favorite gathering places and top three favorite “individual” places. Results will be used in an interactive design charette in late April, and conclusions will eventually be incorporated into the rewrite of the AACP, a guiding document for local government.

Gathering places in the Aspen area are where people hang out, according to an advertisement running in local papers, places that “tend to attract you and others to congregate together and enjoy themselves.” It can be indoors or outdoors, on private or public property, but it must exist today. Individual places are those where someone goes “to exercise, to walk, to sit, to reflect,” according to the ad.

Survey results will be tabulated and released in April, after which people will be asked to sign up for the April 24 and 25 charettes, which will take place at the Aspen Art Museum.

At the charettes, participants will discuss — in three groups of eight people each — what makes those special places unique, while an artist will sketch out that ideal place.

“You really get down to what are the ingredients of the places we love,” said city special projects planner Ben Gagnon.

The artists are Larry Yaw, of Cottle Carr Yaw Architects, Don Ensign of Design Workshop, and Randy Hester of the University of Berkeley. Hester has run these kinds of charettes all over the country for more than 25 years.

The city is encouraging people to take the online version of the survey at www.aspenpitkin.com [1]. Or, the survey can be clipped out of the newspaper, filled out, and returned in person to the information desk on the first floor of Aspen City Hall, or by mail to AACP, Community Development Dept., 130 S. Galena, Aspen CO 81611.