1997 APA National Planning Award Winners

Presidential Award

Earvin "Magic" Johnson
The Magic Johnson Theater complex in the south central section of Los Angeles glimmers today as a visible product of one man's attitude and faith toward his fellow men. This former basketball star invested in his inner-city roots, and his gamble paid off. Not only is the 12-theater cinema one of the most profitable complexes in the country, it is looked upon as a model for others seeking similar business opportunities in minority communities. Thanks to Mr. Johnson's emotional, and financial, commitment, the theater has turned the neighborhood around and truly improved the quality of life.

Distinguished Service Award

Sergio Rodriguez, AICP
From his initial membership in APA in 1972 to his election as a commissioner in 1992, Mr. Rodriguez's voice has always spoken eloquently and loudly for professional education and social equity. As both city manager and planning director in the Miami area, he has furthered planning objectives of social justice as relates to housing, inner-city revitalization and education. By his dedicated participation in APA, he assures that all voices get heard in the debate over physical and social decisions affecting their future.

Current Topic Award: Planning and the Design of Places

Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative/Winthrop Estates
This vision for development without displacement has renewed the dignity of hundreds of residents and is revitalizing an entire Boston neighborhood. Working with planners, and forging partnerships with the City of Boston and funders, the resident-run Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative has taken matters into its own hands. With unmatched fervor, they decided how they wanted the neighborhood to change and made it happen. Most recently, when they couldn't find a developer, they became their own, building Winthrop Estates and providing many with a place they could finally call home.

Comprehensive Planning — Large Jurisdiction

Louisiana Department of Natural Resources
Office of the Governor of Louisiana
University of New Orleans, College of Urban and Public Affairs
Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality
Louisiana Association of Levee Boards
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
Bayou Lafourche Freshwater District

Comprehensive Planning — Small Jurisdiction

Fort Ord Reuse Plan and Environmental Impact Report
Assigned with the hopes of serving as a model for integrating other closed military bases across the country into the community, the Fort Ord Reuse Plan has met its challenge. The straightforward plan will lead others, as it guides the development of the 28,000-acre former Fort Ord Military reservation on Monterey Bay in California into the 21st century. It includes renovation of existing housing, new housing, the addition of commercial and retail business and the development of recreational areas. In many ways, the Fort Ord Reuse Plan charts new territory in the area of successful reuse of public lands.

EDAW, Inc.
EMC Planning Group, Inc.
Fort Ord Reuse Authority

Planning Implementation - Large Jurisdiction

City of San Jose — Department of Housing
Instead of looking the other way, the city of San Jose responded to its growing need for affordable housing with its "Five Year Housing Investment Plan." The plan's sensible approach was successful in educating the community about the need for affordable housing and establishing the city's commitment to addressing the challenge. Generating a "yes in my backyard" attitude, San Jose's successfully implemented affordable housing program and policies set the city as the national leader in the field.

Department of Housing Staff:

Alex Sanchez
Leslye Corsiglia
Diana Elrod
Regina V.K. Williams
Tom MacRostie
Mayor Susan Hammer, City of San Jose

Cultural and Environmental Restoration

Kaho'olawe Use Plan
For decades, the U.S. Navy used the island of Kaho'olawe as a bombing range. Now Hawaii's smallest island has the opportunity not only to clean itself up, but to grow and develop under a unified vision. The Kaho'olawe Use Plan provides such a vision, one that directs future land use with cultural and environmental sensitivity. Here new generations of Hawaiians will be trained in the stewardship of the land, and learn Hawaiian arts and sciences in a cultural learning center where the beliefs and practices of the Hawaiian people can flourish.

PBR Hawaii
Kaho'olawe Island Reserve Commission

Public Education Awards

Your Town: Designing Its Future
The innovative Your Town: Designing Its Future workshops are bringing planning tools and techniques, otherwise unavailable, to small towns nationwide. At the invitation-only workshops hundreds of community leaders hash out critical problems facing rural America today, such as heavy outmigration and loss of jobs. One town at a time, the visionary, professional and high-impact workshops are empowering individuals to successfully effect change where it's needed most.

The Local Government Commission's Livable Communities Project
Creating communities where residents can find everything they need within walking distance of their homes is among this project's principles. Departing from business-as-usual, sprawl development patterns is its vision. Using these ideas, the Local Government Commission, based in Sacramento, California, has produced a massive campaign of publications, conferences, workshops, newsletters and videos. This effort — all to help local officials do a better job — has already reached thousands, and they've only just begun.

Paul Davidoff Award

The Paul Davidoff Award is given each year to the project, group, or individual reflecting APA's Agenda for America's Communities. The winner must show a commitment to social advocacy planning in support of the needs of society's less fortunate members.

Father Joe Carroll, St. Vincent de Paul Village
Internationally recognized as a leader and trend setter in human services, Father Joe Carroll is the guiding force behind this remarkable project. His plan, to bring the threshold homeless of San Diego into a village-like setting which allows for efficient distribution of vital services that help residents achieve self-sufficiency, has become a reality modeled nationwide.

Distinguished Leadership Awards

Professional Planner

Gary J. Schoennauer, AICP
Mr. Schoennauer's pioneering efforts have created a first-class, dynamic city out of the suburban sprawl that was San Jose in the 1960s. As planning director for 23 years, his personal integrity and commitment to public service have served the citizens of San Jose extremely well, particularly as he lead three comprehensive plan revisions. He is an innovator, an educator and a powerful leader whose sustained contribution to the planning profession is exemplary.

Elected Official

Kenneth E. Schwartz
San Luis Obispo's reputation as one of the most beautiful and best-planned small cities on the West coast is due, in large part, to the work of Mr. Schwartz. This former five-term mayor steered the city through turbulent times in the 1970s and is well-known for creating Mission Plaza, a beautiful pedestrian walk that is now the focal point of downtown. First and foremost, he is an educator, serving on the staff of California Polytechnic State University for 36 years, and bringing consensus-building skills to all of his endeavors.

Public Education Award

Your Town: Designing Its Future
We can't all be urban designers about the health of our communities. Non-designers are fast learning how to communicate that care through a workshop called Your Town: Designing Its Future, which takes otherwise unavailable planning tools and techniques to small towns and rural areas across the country. The Your Town experience is "the single most important and effective training session I have ever attended," one Oregon participant said. "Thank you a million times over." High praise, and echoed again and again by other participants in this three-day, hands–on planning workshop. With its vision, professionalism, and impact, the Your Town workshop is on of two winners of the public education award. Credit for Your Town goes to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and the faculty of landscape architecture at the State University of New York at Syracuse.

"Your Town does a wonderful job of educating the average citizen about how planning works," says awards juror Todd Bressi. "The participants experience the difficult and delicate process of building consensus among strangers around a vision; then they take that experience out into their town and multiply it."

Many gifted planners preceded us — skilled and thoughtful pathfinders with a vision for the future. Their work became the models that guide us today planning for the places in which we live, work and play. As well, numerous landmark plans in history influence planners work and inspire planners' efforts today. The American Institute of Certified Planners, APA's professional and educational arm, annually honors select planning pioneers and landmark plans whose effects significantly altered and improved the future of planning practices.

AICP National Planning Pioneers

George Burdett Ford (1879-1930)
George Burdett Ford was the co-founder of the first private urban planning consulting firm in the United States. He was responsible for technical guidance of America's first comprehensive zoning ordinance — for New York City in 1916. And in 1917, he produced the first national survey of American city planning.

Corwin R. Mocine
Corwin Mocine was one of the original and most influential members of the Telesis Group. With their innovative "Space for Living" exhibit in San Francisco in 1940, these visionaries promoted a team approach involving all professionals and the public in decision making. This work created the foundations for post-war planning efforts in the Bay area and influenced a generation of planners and students nationwide.

Ian McHarg
As chair of the landscape architecture department at the University of Pennsylvania and a private practitioner, Ian McHarg developed a holistic method of ecological planning that changed the way environmental decisions are made today. His approaches and environment analysis technique created the foundations for the "GIS Concept" that is an integral part of professional planning practice. Also, his 1969 book Design With Nature was a call to action, as well as a seminal text on environmentally conscious design.

AICP National Planning Landmarks

New Harmony, Indiana (1814-1827)
On the banks of the Wabash River in Indiana, New Harmony was a unique reflection of both the religious and secular "communitarianism" that was popular in America between 1800 and 1860. Under British industrialist Robert Owen the town became a remarkably advanced cultural and intellectual center before the experiment came to an end in 1827. New Harmony, despite its failures, stands as an early industrial-agrarian model for economic and cultural community development. Its physical and social design generated a legacy of ideals that showed it is possible to create rational, livable and just communities through comprehensive planning.

The Roanoke (Virginia) Plans of 1907 and 1928
Well-aware of their town's rapid growth, Roanoke, Virginia's visionary leaders engaged fledgling planner John Nolan to prepare an improvement plan for the city in 1907. In these, his first efforts as a professional planner, he recognized a need for unity as well as beauty. In 1928, Nolan was retained once again to prepare a new comprehensive plan for the city. Both plans provided the foundation for city planning for Roanoke and carefully guided decades of growth as the city flourished.

The Petaluma (California) Plan (1971-1972)
Suburban development pushing north from San Francisco in the late 1960s prompted the agricultural community of Petaluma to formulate a new tool designed to limit growth and maintain its small-town qualities. Stressing quality over quantity, The Environmental Design Plan for Petaluma proved that a city can manage residential growth to achieve other community goals. The plan is successfully controlling the rate, timing and location of residential development and has greatly influenced city planning nationwide.

APA's membership is divided into 18 divisions by professional area of interest and nearly 50 chapters by state. Each year, select divisions and chapters are recognized through the awards program for their outstanding contributions to the association. Division Achievement Awards

Individual

Carole Bloom
Englewood, Colorado

Special Publication

City Planning and Management Special Edition Journal
City Planning and Management Division
William D. Wagoner, AICP, Chair
Charles C. Graves III, AICP, Secretary/Treasurer
Margaret Stirling-Hamilton, Livingston County Dept. of Planning
Livingston County Planning Department Staff:
John L. Enos
Kathleen J. Kline-Hudson
Coy P. Vaughn
Beti J. Dudley
Richard L. Winsett

Special Program

1996 Federal Planners Workshop, Federal Planning Division
Workshop Committee:
Roger Blevins
Radonna Parrrish
Christopher Noah
John McDermon
Helen Lightle
Mary Anne G. Bowie
Frederick Wiant
David Van Horn

Overall Program

Urban Design & Preservation Division
Todd W. Bressi, Chair
Gary Hack, Vice Chair for Programming
Diana Painter, Vice Chair for Mentoring
Kevin Wall, Secretary/Treasurer

Outstanding Service to Members

California Chapter
John Bridges, President, APA California Chapter
Reba Wright-Quastler, Past President, APA California Chapter
Dev Vrat, AICP, Imago Internet Marketing, site developer
Allan Moore, site developer
Timothy Tyndall, Regional Alliance for Information Networking (RAIN)

Outstanding Outreach to the Community

Louisiana Chapter
Karen B. Fernandez, AICP, Chapter President
Roger K. Hedrick, AICP, Past President
Elrhei S. Thibodeaux, Vice President, Membership
Ernest Broussard, AICP, Vice President, Finance
Troy L. Bunch, ASLA, Vice President, Public Information
Rodney Emmer, Ph.D., Secretary
Martin Bruno Jr., AICP, Planning Directors Council

Overall Chapter Achievement

Washington Chapter
Susan L. Bradbury, Phd., Chapter President
Roger Wagoner, AICP, Past President
Robin McClelland, Former President
Lori Peckol, AICP, Vice President
Paul Stewart, AICP, Co-Chair, Legislative Committee
Michael P. Davolio, AICP, President-Elect and Co-Chair, Legislative Committee
Bob Cornish, Chair, Senior Action Committee

Large Newspaper

Sally Hicks
"Houses of Paradise"
News and Observer, Raleigh, North Carolina

Medium Newspaper

Edward Finnerty, Julie Mack, Mickey Ciokajlo, Barbara Kirchheimer, Earlene McMichael
More than 200 articles and columns about plans to reintroduce cars to the city's downtown pedestrian mall
Kalamazoo Gazette, Kalamazoo, Michigan

Small Newspaper

Carol Bradley
Three-part series about how shoddy development victimized Montana property owners
Great Falls Tribune, Great Falls, Montana

Best Article

Scott Campbell
"Green Cities, Growing Cities, Just Cities? Urban Planning and the Contradictions of Sustainable Development"
Volume 62, Number 3

Best Article — Honorable Mention

Jose A. Gomez-Ibanez
"Big-City Transit Ridership, Deficits, and Politics: Avoiding Reality in Boston"
Volume 62, Number 1

Best Feature

Stephen E. Barton
"Social Housing Versus Housing Allowances: Choosing Between Two Forms of Housing Subsidy at the Local Level"
Volume 62, Number 1

Best Feature — Honorable Mention

Donald C. Shoup
"Regulating Land Use at Sale: Public Improvement from Private Investment"
Volume 62, Number 3

The Honorable James L. Oberstar
U.S. Representative
8th Congressional District, Minnesota

The ranking Democrat on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Representative Oberstar has long been a supporter of good planning. Oberstar's background and continuing interest in transportation and public infrastructure make him an especially qualified proponent of planning as envisioned in the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act, whose reauthorization he strongly supports.

The Honorable John H. Chafee
U.S. Senator
Rhode Island

Senator Chafee has long supported planning requirements and environmental legislation, and was instrumental in passing the 1990 Clean Air Act. Most recently, he has introduced bills on the improvement of Superfund and cleanup of brownfields. As chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee (which has jurisdiction over ISTEA), Chafee has pledged to make its reauthorization a cornerstone of the committee's agenda this year.

AICP Student Project Awards

Best Demonstrates the Contribution of Planning to Contemporary Issues

Voices in a Community: Capacity Building in the Old Town/Chinatown Neighborhood
Portland State University, Planning Student Organization
Stephen Duh, Eric Engstrom, Jason Franklin, Karen Howard

Honorable Mention

New Bedford/Fairhaven Harbor Study
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Best Applying the Planning Process

American Samoa Coastal Management Program: A Case Study on Alternative Management Strategies
University of Hawaii, Manoa
Roselvin Abrincia, Mika Edaki, Shayne Hasegawa, Joshua Hekekia, David Hockey, Naila Hussain, Norren Kato, Peter Lam, Tuyen Phuong Nghiem, Gavin Shatkin, Dean Watase, Mikayo Yamazaki
Under the Direction of Professor Luciano Minerbi

Honorable Mention

Governors Island: An Urban Retreat
Hunter College, City University of New York

Government Consulting — Sustainable Planning

The 1995 Regional Plan of Conservation and Development, Southwestern Region, Connecticut
Buckhurst Fish & Jacquemart, Inc.

The Mitchell Creek Watershed Protection Strategy, Grand Traverse County, Michigan
Beckett and Raeder, Inc.

Greg Lindsey, Jack Wittman, Matthew Rummel
"Using Indices in Environmental Planning: Evaluating Policies for Wellfield Protection"
School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University