Uncategorized Archives - Page 79 of 132

Spotlight on Sustainability: Tampa, Florida

By Smart Growth America · August 31, 2011

Q&A with Randy Goers, Urban Planning Coordinator for the City of Tampa, Florida, Land Development Coordination Division (HUD Community Challenge Grant Recipient) and Smart Growth America.

Smart Growth America: What is the goal of this project?
Randy Goers: The objective of our project is to establish a vision for development in and around downtown, as well as to develop a plan for growth around a major transportation corridor. Like many communities that have grown significantly in recent years, we’ve been reacting to growth and approving it as it comes in. We’re pretty much built out, so new development will be along our corridors. Numerous agencies have to be a part of the approval process, which slows it down and adds costs. In some instances, the added time and costs can be substantial. Then there is also conflict when new development bumps against preexisting residential or historic neighborhoods.

In the wake of Irene, examining how smart growth can help protect communities from floods and other hazards

By Elizabeth Schilling · August 30, 2011

Can smart growth help communities avoid the catastrophic impacts of flooding? The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) brought together designers, land use planners, engineers and policy wonks at NOAA’s Silver Spring headquarters last week to examine this question, and to find commonalities and tensions between hazard mitigation techniques and smart growth principles.

“Hazard mitigation” is the technical term for a wide range of urban design, landscape, architectural, land use and engineering practices aimed at reducing exposure to threats like flooding, hurricanes, tornadoes and wildfire. This field of practice is closely related to climate change adaptation, or the process of planning ahead for eventualities such as extreme temperatures and sea-level rise.

The experts at last week’s meeting raised several questions about urban planning’s role in hazard mitigation. Should cities require the street level of new buildings to contain nothing more permanent than parking spaces? Can communities be persuaded to envision a post-disaster future by engaging in pre-disaster planning? Is it worth the effort to integrate local comprehensive plans, which are optional, and hazard mitigation plans, which are required?

Uncategorized Disaster preparedness Disasters EPA Hazard mitigation Louisiana NOAA

“Transit Corridors for Sustainable Communities: Planning Transit to Connect the Dots” webinar materials and answers to your questions now available

By Administrator · August 30, 2011

Thank you to everyone who attended Smart Growth America’s Sustainable Communities Network webinar “Transit Corridors for Sustainable Communities: Planning Transit to Connect the Dots” earlier this week. This webinar was hosted by Smart Growth America, PolicyLink, Reconnecting America, and the National Housing Conference.

Listen in: Click here to view the archived webinar

Speaking on the webinar were Dena Belzer, President of Strategic Economics and partner in the Center for Transit-Oriented Development; Crista M. Gardner, Senior Planner at Portland Metro; and David Johnson AICP, Director of Planning, Roaring Fork Transportation Authority. The webinar was moderated by Elizabeth Wampler, Program Associate at Reconnecting America and the Center for Transit-Oriented Development.

Uncategorized land use Sustainable Communities Network Transit Transit-oriented development webinar Webinars

Austin, TX considers plan to improve downtown with better parks, housing and transportation choices

By Alex Dodds · August 25, 2011

Austin, Texas, has ambitious goals to make the city’s downtown more affordable to live in and a better place for businesses.

Planners in the city have spent the past four years compiling a master plan for development, to address existing challenges and to plan for growth over the next 25 years. The resulting Downtown Austin Plan, due to go before the city council this week, recommends a number of smart growth strategies for the city, including: improving downtown parks, adding lower-priced housing, preserving historic buildings, making zoning changes that would encourage a greater mix of uses and creating an economic development group to help guide growth in the city’s center.

Uncategorized Austin Master plan Texas Urban planning Visioning

Ohio Launches New Brownfield Action Plan Pilot Program

By Mara D'Angelo · August 25, 2011

This week, Ohio’s Department of Development (ODOD) announced the Brownfield Action Plan Pilot Program, an innovative new initiative aimed at helping communities impacted by multiple brownfields sites create area-wide plans to address them.

Area-wide planning is a smart growth strategy that looks at vacant and contaminated sites as a connected whole, rather than in isolation. The strategy links brownfields redevelopment goals to housing, transportation, and infrastructure goals to support comprehensive revitalization, and it can be particularly helpful for sites like abandoned gas stations that tend to be clustered in neighborhoods or along corridors. Many of these sites are too small or too distressed to be redeveloped individually, but by addressing several brownfields at once area-wide planning can make such properties more attractive to developers.

Uncategorized Area-wide planning Brownfields ODOD Ohio Ohio Department of Development

Building for Prosperity: Louisiana's Smart Growth Summit

By Elizabeth Schilling · August 24, 2011

Baton Rouge, LA – Developers, advocates, designers and civic leaders from across the region and around the country gathered last week for Louisiana’s sixth Smart Growth Summit. Hosted by the Center for Planning Excellence (CPEX), this year’s summit focused on the economic opportunities created by smart growth.

CPEX, which works primarily in Baton Rouge, is known across the state as the leading advocate for strategic redevelopment, land use and transportation planning. In 2006 the group led a state-funded visioning effort called Louisiana Speaks which engaged 27,000 people in a conversation about the state’s future. Cities, towns and parishes across the region joined the smart growth dialogue, and the results are already apparent in local plans and politics.

LOCUS Uncategorized Baton Rouge Center for Planning Excellence Chris Leinberger CPEX Green buildings LOCUS Louisiana SGA Staff ULI Urban Land Institute

Upcoming Webinar: Transit Corridors for Sustainable Communities – Planning Transit to Connect the Dots

By Jessica Holmberg · August 19, 2011

Join us Tuesday, August 23rd at 3:30 PM ET for the next Sustainable Communities Network webinar: “Transit Corridors for Sustainable Communities: Planning Transit to Connect the Dots.” This event is hosted by Smart Growth America, PolicyLink, Reconnecting America and the National Housing Conference.

The session will begin with a discussion of the different types of transit corridors and how what they connect can have significant implications for land uses, ridership, and the potential for development after the transit is built, including a description of examples of these different corridor types and how transit and land use have interacted in a few regions. Following that, participants will learn how planners in a small town in Colorado are making the transition from thinking about making a successful transit system to ensuring that the system is integrated into community life and makes inter-agency connections. The session will conclude with an overview of the innovative tools being used in a joint planning process between city staff in Tigard, OR, a suburb of Portland, and the regional planning agency to direct growth alongside a high capacity transit planning project in the city.

Speakers include Dena Belzer, President of Strategic Economics and partner in the Center for Transit-Oriented Development; Crista M. Gardner, Senior Planner at Portland Metro; and David Johnson AICP, Director of Planning, Roaring Fork Transportation Authority. This webinar will be moderated by Elizabeth Wampler, Program Associate at Reconnecting America and the Center for Transit-Oriented Development.

What:	“Transit Corridors for Sustainable Communities – Planning Transit to Connect the Dots”
When:	Tuesday, August 23, 2011 at 3:30 PM ET
Where:	Webinar information will be sent to registrants.
RSVP:	Click here to Register. Please RSVP by 5 PM ET on August 22nd.

Uncategorized Partnership for Sustainable Communities Planning Transit Transportation webinar

Transportation projects will stimulate new jobs

By Smart Growth America · August 18, 2011

The unemployment rate is staying stubbornly above nine percent and the President is preparing to offer new ideas for job creations. Hopefully he will pay attention to what groups like the American Society of Engineers and Transportation for America are promoting: infrastructure and transportation will create good, sustainable jobs across the country.

Uncategorized Economic Stimulus Economy Infrastructure Transportation

Protected: SGA Coalition Update – 8/15/11

By Administrator · August 12, 2011

There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

Uncategorized Members

Join Smart Growth America at the Solutions for Sustainable Communities conference in September

By Smart Growth America · August 12, 2011

State and local leaders are looking for more efficient ways of utilizing existing resources to achieve their housing, transportation and environmental goals. The National Housing Conference’s Solutions for Sustainable Communities, Septmber 26-28, 2011 in Washington, DC, will arm practitioners and policymakers with the best available information on how to work collaboratively and creatively to develop more sustainable and inclusive communities while reducing overall government costs.

Uncategorized Events