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Upcoming Webinars: June 2013

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Want to learn about new, innovative strategies for creating great places? Several upcoming webinars provide ideas and inspiration for local leaders.

Climate Change Adaptation Webinar Series
Monday, June 3, 2013 – Wednesday, June 12, 2013
Click here to find out more
Hosted by the Environmental Protection Agency and North Carolina State University, the series will bring together tribal, state and local stakeholders, EPA representatives, and experts from a variety of sectors to consider the impact of EPA’s new Climate Change Adaptation Plan on the implementation of federal environmental programs, and to present case studies, tools and solutions to some of the most pressing climate change adaptation challenges.

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Spotlight on Sustainability: Denver's Sun Valley plans for brighter tomorrow

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Sun Valley
Sun Valley neighborhood listening sessions. Photo via the Decatur-Federal Station Area Plan.

Denver, CO’s Sun Valley has a new chance to overcome many hurdles towards economic vibrancy thanks to a new light rail line and a Community Challenge grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

Sun Valley near downtown Denver is a remarkably diverse neighborhood home to a large immigrant and refugee population. The area is also one of Denver’s poorest, with an average annual income of $8,000 per household. More than 9 out of 10 of the area’s residents live in public housing. In addition to these demographic challenges Sun Valley is alo isolated geographically, cut off from Denver’s urban core by the South Platte River to the east, Sports Authority Field at Mile High to the north, and major roads to the west and south.

A new initiative will help Sun Valley overcome these chalenges and become a better place to live for current residents and future ones. At the heart of this work is the Decatur-Federal Station Area Plan, a transit-oriented development strategy for the larger Sun Valley region. Created by the Denver Department of Community Planning and Development and the Denver Housing Authority, the plan centers around a newly-completed RTD FasTracks light rail line. The line extends west from the heart of downtown Denver to Golden, CO, and connects Sun Valley to Denver’s economic opportunities and employment centers.

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Join us to celebrate DC's food entrepreneurs and the neighborhoods they call home

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union-market
Union Market in Washington, DC. Photo by Tom Bridge via Flickr.

Washington, DC is gaining attention for its new food scene, and the city’s great neighborhoods are helping making that possible.

Join us on Thursday, June 20, 2013 for Food in the City: Creating food centers and communities, a panel discussion and reception about the intersection of smart growth development and DC’s burgeoning food community. Weigh in about how small businesses are changing real estate, and how the city can support food industry entrepreneurs through better development.

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Senator Frank Lautenberg’s legacy of support for America’s towns and cities

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Senator Frank Lautenberg
Senator Frank Lautenberg (center) with supporters and colleagues in Paterson, NJ in 2008. Photo by Tony Fischer via Flickr.

Senator Frank Lautenberg led on an incredible range of issues during his five terms in the Senate. Creating stronger towns and cities—in New Jersey and across the country—was just one of them.

Transportation was a touchstone issue for Lautenberg during his time in office. As chair of the Surface Transportation, Merchant Marine Infrastructure, Safety, & Security Subcommittee, Lautenberg championed passenger and high-speed rail service, especially for intercity travel and urban transit. One such project was New Jersey’s Hudson Bergen Light Rail line, which has brought commercial and residential development to the Hudson River waterfront and helped to improve the area’s neighborhoods. He worked to expand Amtrak and NJ Transit service, and helped secure funding to create NJ Transit’s Secaucus station, which now bears his name.

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Partnership in the News: Portland, Maine and EPA Launch Bikeshare Effort

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Portland, Maine has begun to develop a regional bikeshare program thanks to initial technical assistance provided through the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Building Blocks for Sustainable Communities program.

Portland’s Planning and Urban Development Department applied for EPA’s 2013 grants under the leadership of Jeff Levine. Portland residents, Mr. Levine noticed, already had a strong interest in alternative transportation.

“There’s a big commitment in Portland toward the environment and sustainability,” said Levine. “The challenge is providing an infrastructure that can help people to meet that goal.”

Residents were interested in a bikeshare program, but Portland needed a catalytic event to kick-start the project.

EPA’s workshops and forums, conducted earlier this month, jumpstarted the city’s efforts to implement a bikeshare program. Mr. Levine believes EPA’s time in Maine brought a necessary and “strong focus on the issue”. Residents and local officials  participated in the sessions strategizing how Portland can make a bikeshare program a reality. With the project underway, Portland and the project’s supporters now must develop a business plan for a bikeshare program.

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Listen in: Building Better Budgets panel discussion

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Building Better BudgetsYesterday Smart Growth America released new research on the savings and revenue of smart growth development. Building Better Budgets is the first report to aggregate local fiscal comparisons and determine a national average of how much communities can expect to save by using smart growth strategies.

To accompany the release we hosted a panel discussion of the new findings. If you weren’t able to join the event an archived version is now available at the link below.

Listen in: Click here to view the archived recording

Speaking on the panel were William Fulton, Vice President of Policy Development and Implementation, Smart Growth America; Rick Bernhardt, FAICP, CNU-A, Executive Director Metropolitan Nashville-Davidson County Planning Department; Mary Newsom, Associate Director of Urban and Regional Affairs at UNC Charlotte’s Urban Institute; and Chris Zimmerman, Member of Arlington County (VA) Board.

The panel discussion includes an overview of the findings and discussion of development strategies in Nashville, TN, Charlotte, NC, and Arlington, VA, as well as a question and answer session with panel attendees.

Read more about Building Better Budgets >>

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Building Better Budgets quantifies average savings and revenue of smart growth development

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Building Better BudgetsLocal governments across the country have compared development strategies to understand their impact on municipal finances. These studies generally compare two or more different development scenarios, and help local leaders make informed decisions about new development based on the costs or revenues associated with them.

Many municipalities have found that a smart growth approach would improve their financial bottom line. Whether by saving money on upfront infrastructure; reducing the cost of ongoing services like fire, police and ambulance; or by generating greater tax revenues in years to come, community after community has found that smart growth development would benefit their overall financial health. Many of these findings have been made publicly available.

No national survey has examined these savings as a whole until now. This report is the first to aggregate those comparisons and determine a national average of how much other communities can expect to save by using smart growth strategies.

Building Better Budgets: A National Examination of the Fiscal Benefits of Smart Growth Development surveys 17 studies that compare different development scenarios, including a brand-new study of Nashville-Davidson County, TN, commissioned specifically for this report.

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Indiana finds a creative way to finance brownfields redevelopment

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Indiana SEP
Straughter Body Shop prior to demolition and remediation (left) and after (right). The project was made possible by SEP funding. Photos via Meredith Gramelspacher.

The following is a guest post from Meredith Gramelspacher, Director and General Counsel of the
Indiana Brownfields Program

Indiana’s toolbox for creative brownfields financing includes one source that is seldom used outside of Indiana: Supplemental Environmental Projects.

Supplemental Environmental Projects (SEPs) are used by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM) Office of Enforcement in negotiating settlements of enforcement cases. These environmentally-beneficial project improve, protect, or reduce risks to public health or the environment. A regulated entity agrees to undertake the project in further settlement of an enforcement action, but which the regulated entity is not otherwise legally required to perform. In certain cases, IDEM agrees to allow a respondent to make a cash payment of an agreed-upon dollar amount directly to the Indiana Finance Authority in lieu of an assessed civil penalty for use on a brownfield project in the city, town or county in which the violation underlying the enforcement action occurred. The Indiana Brownfields Program then coordinates with the beneficiary community to select a brownfield property at which to utilize the SEP Funds consistent with Brownfield SEP guidelines.

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Now Available: What the BUILD Act could build webinar archive

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711 Canal Street in Stamford, CT. Image courtesy of Pullman & Comley Attorneys Thank you to everyone who attending SGA’s National Brownfields Coalition’s webinar What the BUILD Act Could Build on Wednesday, May 8th, 2013. On the webinar, we discussed the legislation introduced in March by Senators Lautenberg (D-NJ), Inhofe (R-OK), Crapo (R-ID), and Udall (D-NM), changes to … Continued

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