2014 APA FL Conference Awards Brochure

2014 APA florida conference

project awards se p temb er 3 - 6, 2014 hyat t r eg en cy, jackso n ville

j a c k s on v i l l e

2014 2014

2014 APA Florida project awards Awards of Excellence Cascades Park

Category: Planning Project A centerpiece of downtown, an environmental restoration project, a jewel of recreation for residents and visitors, a planned and programmed stormwater facility, a site commemorating historic events, a resolution to local land-use controversies, and a wonderful addition to the Tallahassee Community and surrounding areas. These descriptors are used to identify the recently completed Cascades Park in Tallahassee, Florida.

The park has been 15 years in the making involving multiple agencies and complex community issues, with Blueprint 2000 planning and sheparding the effort from inception to completion.

Tallahassee’s city/county intergovernmental agency Blueprint 2000 has been at the helm of addressing and fixing the City’s most pressing infrastructure needs since 2000, with the Cascades area in one of the highest priority tiers. What Blueprint 2000 provided for Cascades Park is holistic infrastructure planning that has resulted in multi-use corridors, abundant greenspace, regional storm water facilities, and recreation.

Clean and Safe Action Plan Category: Best Practices

The Riviera Beach CRA Clean and Safe Action Plan provides innovative solutions for planning professionals who need to improve real and perceived safety as part of their efforts to transform places into walkable, healthy, and livable communities. It integrates detailed techniques to enhance the physical environment, all kinds of program elements, and strategic communications in ways that improve perceptions – and realities related to safety. The plan is helping to accelerate reinvestment in Riviera Beach, and it has broad application wherever planners need to be intentional about safety – which should be everywhere.

From Pop-Up to Permanency: Opa-Locka Category: Grassroots Initiative

The Pop Up Park initiatve was originally developed by the Gold Coast Section (GCS) of the APA Florida Chapter as a tool to help communities improve access to physical activity opportunities and improve community health. The community of Opa-locka in Miami-Dade County was the first to embrace the concept and take ownership of the execution of the project. Over a 2-year period, the community (working through OLCDC and the City of Opa-locka with technical support from GCS) identified and secured sites, raised awareness and built up sweeping public support, successfully engaged community partners, sponsors and volunteers, and obtained the necessary resources to take the project from concept to implementation, through the coordination of two pop up park events and eventual construction of a permanent playground in one of the City’s most needful neighborhoods.

2014 APA Florida project awards Awards of Merit Indiantown Carter Park Category: Neighborhood Planning

In 2010, the CRA reached out the residents of Indiantown, a rural community near Lake Okeechobee, and asked them what the top priorities were for improving their community. Through this visioning process residents identified the need to improve the existing housing stock by providing new affordable housing options in the historically African-American Booker Park Neighborhood. By stepping back and utilizing urban design tools to look at the community as a whole rather than on a parcel by parcel basis, tangible results were achieved through partnerships with public and non-profit groups,that will benefit the area for years to come.

Community Gardens Program Category: Grassroots Initiative

The local economy of the City of Dade City is historically tied to agriculture. And, in 2013, an ad hoc group of city residents formed the ‘Community Garden Working Group’ to promote community agriculture. The group partnered with the City and convened four workshops during 2013; identifying 31 ways community gardens benefit the City of Dade City. Recognizing the potential of community gardens to improve quality of life, the City of Dade City adopted, by ordinance, a program offering community groups the opportunity to use city properties for community gardens. The working group drafted the community garden regulations applicable to both public and private properties throughout the city, expanding opportunities to grow this initiative. The Dade City Community Gardens Program describes the process, roles, responsibilities, and requirements for starting and operating community gardens in the city.

Affordable Housing Toolkit for the Heartland Category: Best Practices

This is a three prong analytical tool, including an Affordable Parcel Inventory, for the six rural counties within the Florida Heartland (DeSoto, Glades, Hardee, Hendry, Highlands, and Okeechobee Counties). This project was created through the guidance of the Heartland 2060 Consortium, a partnership between universities, regional authorities and councils, and local governments. The toolkit seeks to estimate and examine the affordability of all residential parcels in the six rural counties of the Florida Heartland by estimating their combined housing- and transportation-related costs. This study is unique in that it investigates housing affordability for both rental and for-purchase residential parcels using estimated transportationrelated costs at a regional and localized level and the model is transferable for use in other rural and urban counties.

2014 APA Florida project awards Awards of MERIT Seven50: Southeast Florida Regional Partnership Plan Category: Best Practices

Seven50 (“seven counties, 50 years”) is a blueprint for growing a more prosperous and resilient Southeast Florida for the next 50 years and beyond. The blueprint is the result of unprecedented public involvement and innovative outreach techniques: mobile charrette teams, virtual meetings, social media communications reaching over 8,000 hands on contributors. Seven50 focuses on increased access to opportunity, a vibrant and robust economy and careful stewardship of a fragile ecosystem, while strengthening the region’s role as a national gateway and an international center. Seven50 created a framework so local leaders can work together on issues that transcend boundaries and that are central to the region’s future health, prosperity and global competitiveness.

Greening Green Cove Springs Category: Student Project

In October 2012, the UF Center for Building Better Communities was engaged by Green Cove Springs to develop a community redevelopment area plan. This opportunity was then brought to the Spring 2014 Urban Design and Planning Studio: a dualdiscipline studio with both Landscape Architecture and Urban and Regional Planning students. Recognizing that Green Cove Springs has its origins in the environment and natural resources, emphasis is being placed on redevelopment, infill, and new development with green building and site development criteria.

Annual sponsor

APA Florida 2014

PROJECT AWARDS j a c k s o n v i l le

2014 2014

Hyatt Regency, Jacksonville September 3-6, 2014