Our Joyful Year: 2023 Highlights

OUR JOYFUL

2023

YEAR HIGHLIGHTS

OUR TEAM

Dr. John Cooper

Jaimie Masterson

Jeewasmi Thapa

Tyrene Calvesbert

Director Emeritus

Senior Program Coordinator

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Director

Community Outreach & Design Coordinator

OUR IMPACT THIS YEAR WITH TOTALS OF THE LAST 10 YEARS

$452,000/$11MILLION IN STUDENT WORKFORCE VALUE

6/63

COMMUNITIES

18,795/367,635

STUDENT WORKING HOURS

18/220

128/1745

COMMUNITY MEETINGS

STUDENT PARTNERS

16/175

12/97

FACULTY

COURSES

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OUR INTERNS Elizabeth Dupont San Antonio, Texas

Cedric Shy Houston, Texas

Keerti Rath Odisha, India

Adam Sieracki Macomb, Michigan

Jenna Beyer Brookshire, Texas

Heather Wade Austin, Texas

Matt Bodine Broomfield, Colorado

Sarah Cumm Annapolis, Maryland

Sam Fowler Colleyville, Texas

Farzana Ahmed Khulna, Dhaka

Grace Canady Klein, Texas

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ST U

• Community Engagement in Jefferson, TX –

AWARDS

Design Program and Conceptual Site Plan. The project received several departmental awards, including: 1) Best MLA final project award (2nd place), 2) Best Design Communication Award (2nd Place), 3) Best Landscape for Healing Award (2nd Place).

NT

• Waco Winery, Vineyards & Resort –

DE

Winner for The Texas Chapter of the American Planning Association Student Project Award

• Community Engagement in Jefferson, TX – Winner for Central Texas Section of Texas Chapter of the American Planning Association Student Project Award

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CELEBRATING OUR

30th ANNIVERSARY We commemorate serving Texas communities and connecting Texas A&M University’s faculty and students to local needs and global challenges. This year, we looked back on the accomplishments of students, faculty, and communities!

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We launched the 30x30 series to honor 30 faculty, students, and community partners that made an impact in communities and made TxTC the great program it is today.

SOA Showcase

We were a featured panel at The School of Architecture’s 25th Annual Showcase. Partners from the City of Nolanville and City of Galena Park shared their experiences working with the university and the significant value and contributions it has brought to their communities! Dr. Galen Newman, Department Head of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning shared the value it brings to faculty research and student learning outcomes.

“It opened up a lot of citizens’ eyes. For years and years, we were disconnected. Our parks had some equipment from 50 years ago. [Working with TxTC] was a catalyst for people to say ‘OK, we can change this. We are masters of our own destiny.’” -City of Galena Park Fire Chief

Chief Tom Ehlers, Jaimie Masterson, Kara Esajeda, & Dr. Galen Newman pose after their session

TxTC Team at our booth

Chief Tom Ehlers, Jaimie Masterson, Kara Esajeda, & Dr. Galen Newman during their session

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Kellogg Foundation Community Engagement “This is the first time Texas A&M University Award has won this prestigious

By the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities

award

”

Since 2014, Texas A&M University (TAMU) and TxTC worked alongside the Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services, a non-profit in Houston, to jointly investigate and document persistent vulnerabilities stemming from chronic pollution, natural hazards, as well as chemical and non-chemical stressors. Engaging local high school students and teachers, the partnership collected data on a range of complex environmental issues, educated residents on risks, and developed solutions to reduce exposure and contamination. The project, which was initially sponsored by university start-up funds, allowed Nalleli Hidalga of T.E.J.A.S. And Dr. John Cooper accept the Kellogg Foundation Award in East Lansing, Michigan TAMU and Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services to build trust, engage the community, and explore community needs before developing proposals for additional funding. Additionally, the university invested in a community engagement program, Texas Target Communities. The research validated community concerns by revealing increased risk of exposure to heavy metals in drinking water and standing surface water, as well as reduced general physical health scores. To address these risks, classes of TAMU students and community members co-developed landscape architecture and green solutions based on environmental and health assessments and community desires.

This collaborative work eventually resulted in a federal Superfund Center and $32 million in research on the health impacts of toxic pollutants.

8 2023 Highlights

Tx APA CONFERENCE CELEBRATION At the Texas Chapter of the American Planning Association Conference we led the “Transforming Practice through Planning Education and Research” Track to commemorate the 30th Anniversary. The track explored the evolving role of planning education and research through one of the most decorated planning assistance programs, specifically the value of learning-by-doing, the university connection to practice, the immersion of students in communities, the effectiveness of community engagement, the reciprocity required for innovation, and the application of scholarly research. Here’s a list of the sessions we led at the conference!

1. Making Capstones Great Again: The Story of One of the Most Decorated Planning Programs 2. Preparing the Next Generation of Planners 3. Adapting to Change: Application of the Latest Research in Communities 4. Mobile Workshop--The City of Rockport Recovers 5. The Plan integration for Resilience Scorecard (PIRS) 6. Promising Approaches to Engaging Communities:Testing Strategies within the University

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OUR PROJECTS Liberty County Jefferson Milton Parker Home Waco Winery Building Rural & Small Town Resilience Southeast Texas Urban Integrated Field Lab Plan Intergration Resilience Scorecard (PlRS)

LIBERTY

COUNTY Graduate students in Applied Planning engaging with Liberty County members

Liberty County is updating its Strategic Plan, a comprehensive road-map that guides development decisions for the coming decades.

Teaming up once again with TxTC, Liberty County asks residents’ input to formulate a plan for the future. The 2016 plan has served as the county’s official policy guide, addressing crucial factors such as growth, economic development, and environmental considerations.

Now, as conditions in Liberty County and the region continue to evolve, the time has come to revise and update the plan to reflect the changing landscape and address new challenges head-on.

A strategic plan is a vital document that outlines the long-term vision for a community’s growth and development. It encompasses essential elements such as development considerations, transportation, community facilities, economic development, environment, and housing. By reassessing goals and priorities, Liberty County aims to create a forward-thinking plan that ensures a resilient, thriving, and inclusive community for generations to come.

The Liberty County Strategic Plan outlines capital improvement projects, regulations, county investments, and aids in securing grants for proposed projects.

Since September 2022, Liberty County has been collaborating with a community steering committee and Texas A&M students, faculty, and staff to drive the planning process forward. The project team conducted stakeholder interviews, Online engagement, and focus group workshops. These engagements aimed to gain insights into the distinctive challenges and opportunities faced by Liberty County.

Building upon community feedback and best practices, the team formulated potential solutions addressing critical needs such as growth management, affordable housing, transportation safety and efficiency, economic development opportunities, community facilities siting and funding, healthcare and food access, and hazard management.

Transportation group discussing thoroughfare plan

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JEFFERSON

Graduate planning students designed and facilitated the first engagement process in Jefferson, Texas, with TxTC and the Department of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning at Texas A&M University. The City of Jefferson and the Jefferson Economic Development Corporation collaborated to understand community priorities and inform the development of the comprehensive plan.

In the fall of 2022, second-year graduate students in the Master of Urban Planning program in the Communication in Planning course undertook the engagement process. Students developed a multifaceted approach embracing traditional public meetings, interactive pop-up engagements, and cutting-edge virtual technology. To enable broader participation, students used Social Pinpoint, an innovative tool with interactive mapping exercises and virtual discussions, providing a convenient and accessible avenue for participation. Additionally, planning students conducted multiple small-group stakeholder meetings to ensure community leaders and champions engaged and provided diverse perspectives in the community.

The Jefferson Economic Development Corporation and the Jefferson City Council contacted TxTC to help the community plan for the future.

While the City had worked with a consulting firm in 2019 to conduct a planning and capacity study, residents did not add their needs and priorities.

Small, rural communities Public meeting discussing strengths and opportunities By utilizing an inclusive like Jefferson (pop.1830) often lack the capac- and equitable engagement process, the City ity and resources to develop plans or conduct of Jefferson is now equipped with a good unrobust community engagement. The new part- derstanding of the community’s needs, priornership with TAMU presented an opportunity ities, and concerns. The resulting document to connect with residents, review and validate is the first step for this small town to harthe findings of the previous planning study, and ness local knowledge and amplify the voices foster a collaborative envisioning of the future. of residents, businesses, and stakeholders.

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MILTON PARKER HOME Landscape Architecture students in LAND 212 Design Studio developed conceptual designs for an event venue for The Milton Parker Estate in Bryan, Texas. The property is a 4-acre site with an East-lake stick Victorian home built in 1885. The building has been designated on the National Register of Historic Places since 1987 and is now a charming bed & breakfast five blocks from the historic downtown Bryan.

The owners are now looking to utilize up to two acres of the property with a conservatory for a wine-tasting venue featuring Texas-grown and Aggie-owned wines.

Students were tasked to provide ideas that build on the historic charm of the site and create a unique, welcoming, and versatile space that can accommodate various events and functions. The students’ ideas included different social gathering spaces, conservatories with multiple event configurations, outdoor spaces like wandering gardens, trails, edible gardens, detention ponds, and environmentally-conscious landscaping incorporating native plants and preserving existing trees, as well as energy-efficient features like solar power and rain gardens. Students presented the ideas to the owners to help them envision possibilities for the new additions to the estate.

This project was completed in partnership with the Department of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning at Texas A&M University and Milton Parker Home. Students in the LAND 212 Landscape Design II course were guided by faculty members, Russell Reid and Zihan Tao. 13 2023 Highlights

WACO WINERY The owners and developers of Waco Winery LLC are in the initial planning stages of developing a multi-use vacation destination and event venue near Waco, Texas and have requested assistance in the master planning and landscape architecture design phases.

Eight minutes from downtown Waco Winery & Resort is positioned to capture visitors from all of the Texas Triangle’s major urban centers.

The project aims to provide a destination resort that cultivates lasting community connections and fosters ownership of the landscape through celebration of the wine-making process and its Tuscan and Texas cultural roots.

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The design program focuses on spaces for events, gatherings, and short-term vacation stays. The design and programming phases of the project focus on the ancient art of wine-making and its history in the State of Texas, cultivating a cultural landscape, and implementing low impact development design strategies. With family origins in Italy, the client requested references to Tuscany’s wine industry and landscape.

This project was completed in partnership with the Department of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning at Texas A&M University, The Parkland Group LP, and Waco Winery LLC. Master of Landscape Architecture student Trevor Deines created the master plan with guidance from faculty, Changshan Huang, Bruce Dvorak, Michael Arnold.

Waco Winery, Vineyards & Resort Conceptual Site Design

BUILDING RURAL &

SMALL TOWN RESILIENCE

Rural communities within the Gulf Coast are at high risk to natural hazards and future climate impacts. When looking for solutions, urban planners often assume that rural places are just smaller cities, and simply apply urban theories and practices. But we know this approach doesn’t always work. Also, many vulnerability analysis tools, which are based on urban vulnerabilities, overlook rural-specific needs.

Working with colleagues across the Gulf Coast, the Extension Disaster Education Network (EDEN), and the American Planning Association, we are developing a community workbook that centers the needs, challenges, and strengths of rural communities. Working together, the workbook and associated instructor manual are intended to support rural communities as they conduct a risk assessment, plan network analysis, housing stock vulnerability assessment, and integrate hazards into their comprehensive plans. This project is funded by the Gulf Research Program of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

15 2023 Highlights

THE SOUTHEAST TEXAS URBAN INTEGRATEDSETx-UIFL FIELD LAB “

How can we better understand future hazard risks from water, air, and climate, and the linkages between them and communities, so that we can develop real strategies together?

This is the question posed by a research team from the University of Texas at Austin, Lamar University, Texas A&M University, Prairie View A&M University, Oak Ridge National Laboratory , and Texas Target Communities. Named one of only four “urban integrated field laboratories” by the U.S. Department of Energy, the research team will work closely with local stakeholders from Southeast Texas and the Beaumont-Port Arthur region. The region faces regular “acuteon-chronic” hazards in which short-notice technological and natural stressors (e.g., oil spills, coastal storms) occur alongside long-term chronic environmental, industrial, and social stressors (e.g., subsidence, toxic pollution, population growth). This region is a bellwether of future national challenges or of strategic success. Our team will work collaboratively with local decision makers and residents to link air, flooding, and climate modeling and observations with local knowledge and preferenc-

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es to create strategies to address anticipated challenges and increase community resilience.

Texas Target Communities supports this effort by providing community engagement and facilitation support, training to researchers on community engaged research and science communication, and outreach guidance and feedback throughout the project.

Research team at Lamar University

The Plan Integration for ™ Resilience Scorecard

(PIRS)

Texas Target Communities has assisted the research team on the The Plan Integration for Resilience Scorecard™ (PIRS).

PIRS assists local practitioners to assess how networks of local plans target hazardous areas and to evaluate the coordination of local plans.

This year we created three distinct products.

First, we created a dynamic PIRS-specific website as a “Plan Integration Hub” (planintegration.com) to showcase the research, community engagement, and teaching work developed

around PIRS. Second, we generated several briefing documents, or “primers for practice”, to further articulate the effective incorporation of PIRS into the comprehensive planning process and implementation of policies and actions for local governments. Third, we developed additional benefit-cost and equity analyses to complement the PIRS methodology, taking another step toward practical guidance for helping communities act on the organized data, insight, and perspective because of the PIRS analysis.

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OUTREACH Presentations:

Koeniger, E., Rumbach, A., Masterson, J., Thapa, J., Malecha, M., Yu, S., Meyer, M., Estwick, N., DeAngelis, & Chambers, A. (2023, March). Developing Resilience Guidance for Rural Gulf Coast Communities: A Community of Practice Workshop. Disaster PRIMR 2023: Promoting Cultures of Preparedness at Prairie View A&M University.

Masterson, J. & Thapa, J. (2023, November). Promising Approaches to Engaging Communities: Testing Strategies within the University. APA Texas Chapter 2023 State Planning Conference.

Masterson, J. & Thapa, J. (2023, February). Texas Target Communities.

TAMU Education and Outreach Expo 2023.

Masterson, J., Golbabai, J., Garcia, I., & Van Zandt, S. (2023, November).

Preparing the Next Generation of Urban Planners. APA Texas Chapter 2023 State Planning Conference.

Masterson, J., Golbabai, J., & Roy, M. (2023, November). Streamline Hazard Mitigation Investments: Integrating Plans for Resilience and Equity. APA Texas Chapter 2023 State Planning Conference.

Torres. A., Masterson, J., Thapa, J., Bennis, A., & Barrett, C. (2023, November). Mobile Workshop: Building Resilience After Hurricane Harvey in Rockport. APA Texas Chapter 2023 State Planning Conference.

Masterson, J., Meyer, M., Newman, G., Li, W., & Sansom, G. (2023, November). Adapting to Change: Application of the Latest Research in Communities. APA Texas Chapter 2023 State Planning Conference.

Masterson, J., Van Zandt, S. & Cooper, J. (2023, November). Make Capstones Great Again. APA Texas Chapter 2023 State Planning Conference.

Masterson, J., Newman, G., Escajeda, & Ehlers, T. (2023, October). Real Community Impacts: The Power of Community-Engaged Learning and Research. School of Architecture Annual Showcase 2023.

Thapa, J., & Williams, F. (2023, October). Nurturing Communities, Inspiring Students: Service-Learning Impact. Texas Conference on Student Success 2023.

Thapa, J., Yu, S., & Malecha, M. (2023, June). Planners and Emergency Managers Building Resilient Communities Together. Texas Emergency Management Conference 2023.

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Thapa, J., Roberts, J.,& Li, W. (2022, May). Addressing Rural Challenges with Innovative Technological Strategies. APA National Planning Conference 2022.

Scholarship:

Wei Li, Jiahe Bian, Chanam Lee, Anatol Bologan, Theodora Chaspari, Jaimie Masterson, Jacqueline Stillisano, Kim Wright, Samantha Shields, Debra Fowler (2023). “Interdisciplinary and project-based service-learning for smart and connected communities: Insights from ENDEAVR.” Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies in Education.

Sansom, G., Hernandez, R., Johnson, J., Newman, G., Atoba, K., Masterson,, J., Davis, D., Fawkes, L. (2023). “Evaluating the Impact of Proximity to Toxic Release Inventory Facilities and Flood Events on Chronic Health Outcomes in the City of Galena Park, Texas.” Climate Risk Management.

NASEM. Strengthening Equitable Community Resilience: Criteria and Guiding Principles for the Gulf Research Program’s Enhancing Community Resilience (EnCoRe) Initiative of the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine. (2023) https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/26880/strengthening-equitable-community-resilience-criteria-and-guiding-principles-for-the Masterson, Jaimie & Katare, Anjali & Thapa, Jeewasmi & Malecha, Matthew & Yu, Siyu & Berke, Philip. (2023). “Plan integration and plan quality: combining assessment tools to align local infrastructure priorities to reduce hazard vulnerability.” Sustainable and Resilient Infrastructure.

1-16. 10.1080/23789689.2023.2165779.

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T S E V A A A C H P D O E

Tune in to Partnerships with Purpose where we explore ways to ethically engage communities in research and service-learning projects. We hope to provide tools for faculty, students, and communities who seek to have effective and lasting community-university partnerships!

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LET’S CONNECT Email: texastargetcommunities@tamu.edu Phone: 979.862.6700 Website: www.collaborations.tamu.edu/txtc