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24 Planning December 2011

Signs ofCl NeujRegionolism?

Targeted projects in Bridge-port, Connecticut, include parkupgrades (above, an "after" view)and transportation fixes. In thesecond category is a possiblecommuter rail station for thecity's east side (site map, left)whose feasibility study is beingfunded by a HUD Sustainablebmmunities regional grant.

egional planning has ridden up and down a rollercoaster of popularity in the U.S.From those who led the way—Jane Jacobs, Lewis Mumford, Ian McHarg—to thepresent, planners have created a fonnula for livable communides in a regional con-text, with affordable housing, accessible public trans[X)rtadon, green spaces, andgood jobs as part of the mix. Now regionalism is getdng another chance throughthe HUD Sustainable Communides Regional Planning C ¡rant Program, which hasissued hundreds of grants to U.S. communides since 2009. The aim: to create andimplement regional plans.

American Planning Association 25

Building Climate Resilience in NewYork City"We have 520 miles of waterfront in New \i)rk City, and it isvery diverse—from lower Manhattan's skyline to natural greenareas and parks," says I loward Slatldn, director of siLStainabiHtyfor New York City's Department of City Planning. This entirecoastline and much of the infrastructure in these low-lying ar-eas will be aftected by sea-level rise, and so will the nearly halt-million people who live in areas that may be at risk for coastalfl(K)(ling in the tiimrc, according to Slatkin.

1 he I)(]P manages a climate resilience effort through aSust;iinable C>oininunides Regional Planning grant coordi-nated by} \\JD. "The i)roject largely fcxtLses on transit, mid weare aware that where our transit is on or near die water in NewYork Cjty is a huge issue due to climate change," says Slatkin.

1 he 20di century saw the average temjierature in die NewYork inetn)|X)litan region increase by two degrees Fahren-heit, according to researchers at the Insdtute tor SustainableCides at the City University of New York. By the end of the21st century. New York C>ity's inc;ui annual temjieratures areexpected to go up by four to 7.5 degrees Fahrenheit, accordingto a report by die New York Cjty Panel on Climate Change./Vniuial prccipitadon is also projected to increase by five to 10percent, and sea levels to rise by 12 to 23 inches, which meansflooding and storm surge midgadon efforts are in order fortlensely fx)pulated urban areas.

rhe HUD Climate Resilience project will develop a rangeot bust pracdce adaptadon strategies that have |X)tendaI forimplcmentadon diroughout die region to reduce risks to[Äople and property, within New York City as well as in coastalareas of Connecdcut and Long Island that are vulnerable tosea-level rise and stonn surge. "We will lx; creadng a menuot coastal strategies as tools for climate resilience for all typesof development along the waterfiont, from high den.sity toparks," .says Slatkin.

The inidal task list tor the Department of City Planning,which is working in coo|x;rad()n w ith the Mayor's Office ofLonglc'nn Planning and Sustainability, indutles three majoritems: an analysis of urban design implicadons of enhancedflood protecdon for buildings, a stud}' of best pracdces forbuilding coastal resilience, and an evaluadon of cridcal intra-stnicture design standards, conducted with the input of a rangeot stakeholders through community oud'each cfibrts, accord-ing to (;hris Jones, vice |)resitlcnt ot research tor die RegionalPlanning .'Vs.stx.iadon. RPA admini.sters the grant tor the dty.

¡he grant supports ongoing work in increasing climate re-silience, incluiling efforts of die NPC^C, which has developeda set of climate change projecdons that have been adoptedby New York City and New York State. Staff will also workclosely with the New York (üity (Climate Change AdaptadonTksk Force, a committee of public and private enddes thatOU11 and operate key infrastRicture systems working on riskassessment and idendtVnng adapdve strategies for the city's es-sendal infrastructure. The grantees have two years to completethe study and share their menu of strategies with the region,according to Slatkin.

Regional planning has a rich history indie U.S., widi federal programs such as theTennessee Valley Authority and throughcivic organizadons such as Envision Utah,Chicago's Commercial Club, New York'sRegional Plan Assodadon, and San Fran-cisco's Greenbelt Alliance.

Implementadon is another matter. Theproblem is that regional government hasnot had the authority to implement re-gional plans etfecdvely, says Kadiryn A.Foster, associate professor of urban andregional planning at SUNY-Buffalo. Allregional planning efforts must answerthree key governance quesdons, she wrotein Region/it Planning in Amiiica, a eollecdonof essays published earlier diis year. T'hoseare: By what authority are the efforts un-dertaken? Who exercises that authority?And what territory is involved?

Planning for regional issues becomesmore pronounced and more cridcal wheneconomies are struggling, says Susan Chris-topherson, professor of trrban and regionalplanning at Cornell University. "Researchshows that acdons taken after a shock to aregional economy ocair are largely ineffec-nial. Planners have to anddpate change andstrategically plan tor it," she says.

In addidon, regions are fluid. "Regionalplanning counts on people working acrossboundaries," says Ethan Seltzer, professorof urban studies and planning at PordandState University and coeditor with Arman-do Carbonell, AICP, of Regiomil Planning inAmerica: Pmctice and Prospea, publishedthis year. "The quesdon is how can we getto an alignment in space and priorides?"Seltzer, who studied with Ian McHargat the University of Pennsylvania in the1970s, is opdmisdc that the new Sustain-able Communides inidadve might help tocorrect this alignment issue.

Sustiiinable Communides is an inida-dve of the Interagency Partnership forSustainable Communides. HUD imple-ments the program but coordinates effortswith the U.S. Department of Transpwrta-don and the U.S. Environmental Protec-don Agency. According to the partnersliip'swebsite: "The Partnership is committed toadvancing six overarching Livability Prin-ciples as a framework to help Amcric-anfamilies gain better access to affordablehousing, more transf>ortadon opdons andlower transportadon costs, while protect-ing the environment and reducing our en-ergy dependence."

The program addresses two of threekey tasks that Seltzer idendfies as cridcalin regional planning: defining the regionand organizing it by common interests.The diird task of any regional planningproject is stewarding regional boundaries,says Seltzer, adding that this is a long-termchallenge tor the HUD program.

To date die HUD Office of Housingand Sustainable C^ommunides has awardednearly $100 million in new gi-ants to sup-port more livable and sustainable communi-des throughout the U.S. Forty-five regionalareas have received tiinding designed tofoster economic development by connect-ing housing with access to jobs, schools, andtransportadon.

One grantee of the federal inidadve is theNew \brk and Connecdcut region—calledthe NY-CT Sustainable CommunidesConsordum—^which received $3.5 millionin planning grants this year. TTie consor-dum consi.sts of nine cides, two coundes, sixmetropolitan planning organizadons, andtwo regional planning organizadons in thebistate area. 1 he grants are l)eing managedthrough the Regional Plan ;\ss(x:iadon, aNew York-ba.sed nonprofit created in 1929and one ot the tirst regional planning agen-cies in the U.S. Now RPA can link threedifferent federal agencies with loc-al plan-ners to more effecdvely implement regionalplanning goals.

The consortium

"It feels different at HUD now," says SaÜnGeevarghese, senior advisor in HUD's Of-fice of Sustainable Housing and C>ommu-nides. "The office was newly created andhas no historical antecedent, and so we arelearning new ways to work together. Weare getdng out of our individual silos ofDCXr, HUD, and EPA." Cîeevarghese waswhat he called the HUD "point person"for the NY-CT consordum last summerand helped launch the program with RPAand odiers.

"We meet every two weeks with DOTand EPA in New York City to assess theneeds and issues of localides and see whatdie federal government can bring to thetable to better promote economic devel-opment," says Jose Velez, CPD Repre-sentadve, HUD's Office of CommunityPlanning and Development. "T his collab-oradon is huge and has never been donebefore," he says.

The New \brk Metrojx)litan Transpwr-

26 Planning Í 'ecember 2011

I

Projects)NEW YORK 6. CONNECnCUTSUSTAINABLE COMMUNmES

Regional Projects:• Plan Enhancement

& Integration• Climate Resilience• Regional Housing

Assessment• Housing Opportunities Fund/íÑwMulf

The consortium has identified 16 interrelated projects, four of which are regionwide. Several are TOD projects, including four large ones in Con-necticut and a feasibility study of infill development around three Long Island Rail Road stations in Nassau County.

tadon Authority serves 14.6 million people ina 5,000-square-mile area of New York City,Long Island, southeastern New York, andConnecticut, with an average weekday rider-ship of 8.5 million. VVith some of the tnostdensely populated areas in the U.S. as a whole,the New York and Cormecdcut region has aneconomic output of about $800 billion.

"We have an enontious transportadon.systetn, which is old and sprawling and needsresources to maintain," says Gerry Bogacz,the New York Metropolitan TransportadonCouncil's director of planning. He is co-coordinator of the con.sordum progratn withthe RPA and gives perspecdve frotn the larg-est metropolitan planning organizadon in thepartnership. "For our MPC), the SustainableC^omtnunides inidadve is probably the tnostpowerftil and exciting thing we have been in-volved in in transportadon," says Bogacz.

According to Bogacz, the tristate regionalplanning commission (which included NewJersey) dissolved in 1992 and stnallerMPOs

were created in its wake. Now with the Sus-tainable Cotnmunides inidadve, the MPOcoorditiates with tour sister MPOs. Bogaczworked closely with the RPA to bring thegroups together to fonn the consordum.

The RPA began convening pardcipantsfor the grants program last February, saysChris Jones, RPA^ vice president for re-search. "This is the first dtne since the 1970sthat there is federal interest in a federalagency partnership cotning together. I havenever seen such an ovei^vheltning resfKjnseto a fimding nodce in the New York andConnecdcut area."

The consordum aims to coordinate16 interrelated projects in New York City,Long Island, Connecdcut, and the HudsonValley, as well as three regionwide projectswith interlocking grant acdvides. Three ofthe projects are described below.

The overarching goals are to "work to-gether to develop livable communides andgrowth centers around the region's com-

tnuter rail network that will expand eco-nomic opportunity by creadng and contiect-ing residents to jobs, foster new affordable,energy-efficient housing, provide moretransportadon choices, strengthen exisdngcommunides and make die region moreglobally compeddve," according to the con-sortium's website, www.sustainablenyct.org.

Jones admits that organizing so manycommunides and groups has been chal-lenging, but with several steering comtnit-tee tneedngs completed and more to come,tnany communides already are "stardng tohave conversadons about working togetherand sharing resources for the first dtne," hesays.

Comtnuter rail is the transportadonbackbone of the region and the spadal orga-nizing concept of the consordtun's program.Connecdait comtntinides historically havevery strong des to New York Cit}' diroughcommuter rail lines, and the regional issuesfacing Connecdatt today are as cridcal as

American Planning Association 27

Putting üvability FirstI'.veiyone in (Columbia, Tennessee, knows there is a problem. T hough the city is just 35 milessoudi of Nashville and widiin the state's epicenter of new growth mid development, there havebeen precious few investments in recent decades.

f'olumbia has been |iassed over by many and lefr by a few more. In 2009, it lost 1,200manufacturing jobs when (¡eneral Motors went bankrupt. By 2011, it suffered 14.5 percentuneinpl()\iiient, the highest in the state. Populadon growth has stagnated to the third slowestrate statewide. And although the populadon is reladvely stable at 34,600, middle-aged residentswith families have fleil the cit\' since 2000. These are rarides for a Sun Belt cit)' of Columbia'ssize but not uncfMnmon in the nadon at large.

I he p<H)r condidons are evitlent in the commercial heart of the city, a five-lane highwaycorridor known as James (¡ampbell Boulevard, which is dotted with darkened storefronts andempty parking lots.The boulevard, which is such in name only, is the embodiment of the dty'sgi'catcst disadvantage: the lack of li\abilit)'. To create posidve change, bring new jobs, and at-tract new families, ( Columbia must develop die livable environment it doesn't yet have.

As common sense as this sounds, the soludon is a new idea here. The concept of livabihtyw;\s introduced only when the Paitncrship for Sustainable Cximniunides—a collaboradon ofI IL'I), DO P, and I'T'A—selected Colunil)ia in October 2010 as one of 62 cides to participatein the Community Challenge Planning Grant program. The program assumes that cides can(lc'\ clop in more sustainable ways by ini]iroving the livabilit)' of their most troubled areas. It\\ as introduced in conjuncdon with die Regional Planning Cirant, but provides funding forplanning efforts on the community scale.

( Columbia received $250,000 to prc|wrc a new highway corridor plan, which would becomeA blueprint for sprawl repair for die w hole cit). 1 he planning department staff let! die planningteam; its share of the work accounted for the city's financial match. Designers, engineers, andeconomists from die consuldng finn Town Planning & Urban Design Collaboradve, whichhas an office in Nashville, made up die rest of die team.

The team moved very quickly after work began last June. Cf)re analysis was completed thatmonth. A seven-day charrette was held in July, with die refinement of preliminary designs anda linal plan delivered in August. T hroughout these months, the work was the central convei-sa-don for the endre commtinity, and a weekly—sometimes daily—feature in the local newspa-per.

.At least 300 cidzens, 50 business owners, and several state agencies took part in die conver-sadon. (Collaboradon with fellow grantees—something the federal program encoirrages—fromas far away as Burlington, X'ennont, and as nearby as Knoxvillc was paiticularly helpfiil, sincediey face the same challenges and are ccjnsidering some of the same soludons.

T he completed plan. The Boulevard 2050, will help Columbia make a fundamental shifrtoward true sustainable development. The |ilan's most important element is the highwayictrolit, aimetl at transfonning the roadway fi-oni a five-lane bypass to a multiway boulevardcomplete with pedestrian and cyclist facilides, street trees, narrowed lanes, and safer design.

An essendal element is the redevelopment of the strip commercial area, which will changeto a more nodal, or center-based, fonn. T his is best seen in the plan's "catalytic developmentsite," the enclosed shopping mall. P'ollowing the lead of Mizner Park in Boca Raton, Florida,and similar grayfield rctlevclopments, this neglected monolith is expectetl to become a vibrantlifestyle center with civic space, high density, mixed uses, and a unique design that respects Cxj-lunibia's rich local character. Best of all, market analysis shows that this new center is feasiblelor construcdon totlay, even in C'olumbia's challenged economy.

But tbe real work sdll lies ahead. T he Boulevard 2050 was approved unanimously by tbephmning commission and is expected to be adopted by the city council this month.The nextslep, implementadon, will be die most daundng, but some success can already be claimed: AÍ ily diat has been mired in crisis now has a way out. (Columbia is now acdvely redevelopingits most important corridor into the livable, sustainable place that its residents deserve. Andalthough the challenge will be great, die plan makes the soludons clear—and thus feasible.

Best of all, (Columbia's is only one story of many. Sixty-one other communides pardcipadngin the Sustainable (Communides inidadve will complete their own plans in the coming year.

Norman Wright, AICP

B Wright is the planning director of Coiumbia, Tennessee.

ever in more than a century of commutertranspoitadon.

Connecticut steps up

After Connecdcut's county government sys-tem was eliminated in the 1960s, 15 MPOseventtially filled the vacuum. Those MPOshave "no audiority and are generally ad h(x;partnerships," according to David Kooris,AICP, RPA^ vice president for Connecdcut."Due to our situadon in (Connecdcut wedecided that the exisdng MP(^s would rep-resent smaller towns and villages and princi-pal cides would represent diemselves in theconsordum," says Kooris. "Now we have acorridor from New \brk to Boston engagedin similar and coordinated regional acdvi-des."

Despite its reputadon for wealth, Con-necdcut does have problems, accordijig toKooris. Many communides are sufferingfrom outmigradon, and the state has not hailnet job growth since 1989. Sdll, the state hasa strong planning tradidon, he adds: "Wehave a generadon of land-use planning in apolycentric region made up of many down-towns. Each of these MPOs has long-rangeplans. And they are all more or less sayingdie same diing."

RPAà first task will be to look at all ofthese plans and bring the authors and imple-menters together to idendfy areas of con-sensus and disagreement, Kooris says.

Now with the Sustainable Communidesinidadve, he has some hope for implemen-tadon of existing community plans, such asthose calling for TOD, affordable housingnear transit, and green infi^structure. "Weare aligning discussions among all munici-palides, state agencies, and federal agencies,"savs Kcxiris.

Six Principles

The Livability Principles as definedby the Interagency Partnership forSustainable Communides are:

1. Provide more transportadonchoices

2. Promote equitable, affordablehousingEnhance economic3.

4.5.

6.

compeddvenessSupport existing communides(Coordinate policies andleverage investmentValue communities andneighborhoods

28 I Planning December 2011

Four large-scale TOD projects are beingconsidered along Metro North's New Ha-ven line. T hree plans include a study for anew commuter rail stadon in Stamford, ini-dal work on a TOD master plan for SouthNorwalk, and a study for converting NewHaven's historic Union Stadon into a moreintennodal facility.The fourth plan concenisBridgeport, Connecticut's largest city.

Bridgeport's Barnum Station

HUD's Sustainable Commtmides Region-al Grant Program awarded Bridgeport a$186,000 grant for a study assessing the feasi-bility of building a commuter raü stadon nearthe struggling neighborhoods of the Ea.stEnd and the East Side. The study is part of alarger city project called the East BridgeportDevelopment Corridor, inidated by MayorBill Einch, which aims to create a secondNortheast Corridor rail access point for thewhole region.

The city hopes that the Barnum Sta-tion redevelopment will be a foothold tothe city's redevelopment planning efforts formixed use transit-oriented development andaffordable housing in the area.

A former industrial site operated by Rem-ington Anns, but donnant for decades, the700-acre brownfield is located in the heart ofthe city, according to Don Eversley, Bridge-p(3rt's planning director. The city owns someof the land, including an underused water-front park; the Bridgejxjrt Housing Author-ity owns a vacant housing site, and the area isadjacent to several major rail connecdons.

Because Bridgeport is only a one-hourtrain ride from New York City, Eversley seesthe potendal for the Bridgeport BarnumStadon to support the endre regional econ-omy. "What is excidng here is that each ofthe communides involved has local projectswoven into a regional approach," he says ofthe Sustainable Communides inidadve. "Allare different, but follow core principles, con-necting into a strong region, moving peoplefrom less connected areas into more con-nected areas for jobs and hotising."

Regionalism is becoming more relevantfor Bridgeport because of changing workpatterns in the area, including "a sttong re-verse commute over the past 10 years, [re-flecting] the Southwest Connecdcut finan-cial boom," says Eversley.

Around New York

The Sustainable Communides inidadve isalso a good fit for New York City's regional

efforts. The city's planning department isleading three programs through the inida-dve: the Bronx Metro-North Corridor,Sustainable East New York, and a climateresilience sttategy (explained in the sidebaron page 26).

"We are seeing strong local leadershipfor the Sustainable C^ommunides inidadve,as well as a tremendous amount of polid-cal will and support because it is reinforcingplanning in land use and transit. It is con-sistent with Mayor Bloomberg's PlaNYC,"says Sarah Goldwyn, the planning depart-ment's director of planning coordinadon.She represents the planning department onthe NY-CT Sustainable Communides Con-sordum and has been elected cochair of theorganizadon's steering committee.

Another benefit: opportimides for disatl-vantaged communides, for example dirouglithe Sustainable East New York project. "Noone has looked at East New York in this waybefore," says Pumima Kapur, director of theplanning department's Brooklyn office. Thegeographical area for the project, Brooklyn'sCypress Hills and East New York neigh-borhoods, is one of the city's poorest andremains largely undeveloped, according toKapui". But its infi'astrticture is excellent andits subway and train connecdons have greatpotendal, she says.

Kapur cites redevelopment around Yan-kee Stadium as a good recent precedent ofhow the planning department and the localcommunity supported mass transit, strength-ening the area economically in the process.Moreover, the HUD grant program is thefirst opportunity that Kapur's office has hadto work in a truly muldjurisdicdonal way, she

says. The Ea.st New York project will planfor new mixed income housing, improvedaccess to employment and transjxjrtadon,streetscape improvements, and opportuni-des for more healthy food opdons.

Similarly, the Bronx Metro-North Corri-dor project is hoping to support communitydevelopment not just in its area, but in sur-rounding neighborhoods as well, accordingto Goldwyn, who manages the study. Theproject could help to reconfigure the de-sign of commuter rail stadons to make themmore invidng and visible, as well as to pro-vide better [x;destrian access, with the goalof "connecting area residents to job centersin the region," according to Cíoklwyn. Thecity will launch die program with commu-nity workshops in the fall and winter.

Good things take time

One term mendoned by many of the partici-pants in the NY-CT consoitium is leverage,whether it is leveraging rezoning in the Bronx,securing future funding for the Bridge}X)rtstadon, or sup}X)rdng many other andcipatedprojects. And so die inidadve is off to a run-ning start with the NY-CT consordum.

Of cotirse, there is the $64,000 regionalplanning quesdon. As Chris Jones puts it,"Will this be something more than a coUec-don of our individual objecdves?"

With federal involvement cross-refer-encing with local community interacdons,perhaps the answer will at last be "yes."

B Corry Buckwalter Bericooz is a writer and a former direc-tor of planning for Schuyler County, NewYori(, She hasi<ept her original copy of McHarg's Design with Naturefor decades.

AT PRESS TIME The Sustainable Communities Initiative appears to be a casualtyof a November 14 federal budget agreement between tiieHouse and Senate. Go to fittp;//blogs.planning,org/poiicyfor tUe iatest.

IN PRI NT Regional Planning in America: Practice and Prospect, edited byEthan Seltzer and Armando Carbonell, AICP, Lincoln Instituteof Land Policy, 2011. The Regional City: Planning for the Endof Sprawl, Peter Calthorpe and William Fulton, Island Press,2001. Remaking Regional Economies: Power, Labor and FirmStrategies in the Knowledge Economy, Susan Christophersonand Jennifer Clark, 2007, Routledge Studies in EconomicGeography.

ON TiHE WEB New York and Connecticut Sustainable Communities: www.sustainablenyct.org/about. Regional Planning Association:www.rpa.org. Bridgeport Barnum Station Feasibility Study:www.sustainablenyct.org/library/doc/Bridgeport_earnum_Train_Station_Presentation.pdf. New York City PlanningDepartment: www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/sustainable_communities/index.shtmi. Contact Ethan Seltzer about yourexperiences with regional planning: seltzere@pdx.edu.

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