Regional partnerships blossom

In the first test of its regional outreach program, CNU lends technical expertise and builds consensus on recharging an urban neighborhood. In late May, CNU's Regional Partnerships program kicked off with a three-day workshop developing a new urbanist revitalization strategy for a long-neglected neighborhood and federal office center along the Anacostia River waterfront in southeast Washington, D.C. The U.S. General Services Administration's (GSA) Center for Urban Development and the District of Columbia's Office of Planning (DCOP) jointly sponsored the event. The Regional Partnerships program, now led by longtime new urbanist planner and urban designer James M. Moore, will split its time working with organizations in Albuquerque, New Mexico; Boise, Idaho; and California's Sierra Nevada Mountain Range — with more projects under discussion. Moore says the partnership program is an attempt to work with local governments, activists, businesses, and community members to build a national consensus on the principles of New Urbanism. "We will be working with allied advocacy organizations to determine local needs, bring in technical expertise from our membership, and help show how the principles of New Urbanism can be applied to local development issues." Remedial planning This CNU initiative comes at a crucial time. John Anderson, a planning consultant in Chico, California, says, "There is a remedial layer of planning work that needs to be done from coast to coast, and it's important that a group with the weight of the CNU can take that role, without looking like the consultant of the week." Moore says this "remedial layer of planning" is what CNU aims to facilitate. In particular, the group hopes to help develop principles and strategies in areas where development pressure is growing and where there is potential for New Urbanism, at both the local scale and broad regional scale. Moore adds that CNU's Regional Partnership program will complement private consulting activities. For example, as a nonprofit organization, CNU is eligible for funding not typically available to the private sector. Moore adds, "We bring the strength of a 2,000-member nonprofit organization. We bring our members' technical expertise to complex interdisciplinary and interjurisdictional projects." ideas to improve D.C. waterfront In D.C., CNU organized and facilitated an intensive three-day workshop in cooperation with GSA and DCOP. The meetings included neighborhood residents, business owners, a distinguished team of architects and planners, and an alphabet soup of government agencies. With CNU coordinating, the event took place in an atmosphere of cooperation and forward-looking enthusiasm. With the principles and strategies from that workshop in hand, GSA and DCOP will now bring in planners, architects, and developers who can turn good ideas into a great neighborhood. Moore says CNU was seeking to "improve the economic, social, and environmental," performance of the neighborhood. By the end of the weekend, he says, the meetings had come up with ways to apply New Urbanism, with all three fronts reinforcing each other. The ideas are bedrock New Urbanism: Reconnecting the city to the waterfront, resurrecting the street grid, expanding housing options while preserving affordable housing, combining housing growth with job growth, and incorporating environmental strategies to decrease degradation of the Anacostia River. CNU members who provided their expertise in the workshop included moderator Ken Greenberg, as well as Jonathan Barnett, Daniel Williams, Jim Daisa, Daniel Hernandez, Larry Beasley, Dena Belzer, Dhiru Thadani, Stephanie Bothwell, Peter Hetzel, and Steve Hurdtt. Other participants included Maurice Cox of the University of Virginia and Diana Nottingham, an economic consultant in D.C. Over the next year, with the help of grants from the Surdna, Packard, and Hewlett Foundations, CNU will be developing regional partnerships throughout the West. These include partnerships with the Sierra Business Council in California's Sierra Nevada, 1000 Friends of New Mexico in Albuquerque, and a group of mayors in the Boise, Idaho area.