Previous Workshops

Planners Training Service workshops help planners meet the challenges of growth and change. Topics and venues change each year to offer the latest perspectives on the most current issues.

Spring 2008 — Chicago

Click here to view 2008 presenters' biographies — Chicago

Affordable Housing
Dramatic changes in the American housing market have brought affordability and housing supply issues to the fore throughout the United States. In this course, you'll learn how to help your community address these issues with affordable housing approaches that create choices for all residents.

Sustainable Zoning and Development Controls
Is your code sustainable? Does it address energy, climate change, and other cutting-edge green building issues? In this course, you’ll learn how to draft sustainable zoning codes and get tips on good code organization and managing the rewrite process.

Conflict Management
Planning departments — situated squarely in the middle of developers, citizens, elected officials, planning board members, and the media — are at the center of conflict at the local level. In this course, you’ll learn to cope with that challenge by negotiating effectively, assessing disputes for their suitability for mediation, planning public involvement processes, and thinking strategically about siting controversies and environmental justice issues.

Transit-Oriented Development Design
In this course, you'll learn how compelling urban design can help you make the most of transit-oriented developments — and how TOD can support neighborhood revitalization and economic development. It will cover the theory that forms the foundation for TOD location, design, and policy and will provide hands-on experience with TOD from concept to realization.

Click here to view 2007 presenters' biographies — New Orleans

Transit-Oriented Development Design
The perfect example of coordinated land use and transportation? Transit-oriented development. Demand for housing near transit is growing as transportation costs and congestion increase, and more regions are investing in new transit systems. A network of public transportation services is a scarce resource we cannot afford to waste. In this course, you'll learn how compelling urban design can help you make the most of transit-oriented developments — and how TOD can support neighborhood revitalization and economic development. It will cover the theory that forms the foundation for TOD location, design, and policy and will provide hands-on experience with TOD from concept to realization.

Affordable Housing
Dramatic changes in the American housing market have brought affordability and housing supply issues to the fore throughout the United States. In this course, you'll learn how to help your community address these issues with affordable housing approaches that create choices for all residents.

Effective Zoning Techniques
Whether you're a zoning novice or an old pro, keeping up with the laws that affect zoning, new zoning techniques, and hot topics is essential. In this course, you'll learn how to draft more effective zoning regulations with tips on good code organization and managing the rewrite process and the latest on everything from federal legislation to computerized codes.

Environmental Justice
All citizens deserve a healthy environment in which to live and work, and access to the decision-making processes that affect their environment. In this course, you'll learn how to integrate environmental justice into local comprehensive planning, land-use regulations, and capital improvements.

Fall 2006/Spring 2007 — Providence and Chicago

Click here to view 2007 presenters' biographies — Providence and Chicago

The Transportation/Land Use Connection
Anyone who has tried to calculate the impact of a new road or a rail line knows that transportation and land-use patterns are inextricably linked, but the public policies responsible for those patterns are not often well-coordinated. In this course, attendees learned to integrate transportation and land-use planning to better manage growth, improve the efficiency of travel, and contain infrastructure costs.

Collaborative Growth Visioning
Visioning is a suite of tools that can inform and energize the public at either the local or regional levels. In this course, attendees learned how to use visioning to engage stakeholders in planning for growth and got ideas on using maps to direct discussions, dealing with visioning logistics, and more.

Urban Design and Site Planning
What does it take to realize your community's vision for public spaces and the buildings that define them? What role does site planning play in realizing that vision? In this course, attendees learned how to craft urban design guidelines and prepare and review site plans.

Effective Zoning Techniques
Whether you're a zoning novice or an old pro, keeping up with the laws that affect zoning, new zoning techniques, and hot topics is essential. In this course, attendees got tips on good code organization and managing the rewrite process and the latest on everything from federal legislation to computerized codes.

2006 Workshops — San Diego and Chicago

Click here to view pictures from the 2006 San Diego workshops

Click here to view 2006 presenters' biographies

Land-Use Law After the Four Supreme Court Decisions of 2005
The nine justices of the U.S. Supreme Court spent much of their 2004–2005 term changing the legal landscape in which planners work. In Kelo v. City of New London, they affirmed the use of eminent domain for economic development. And in Lingle v. Chevron, they jettisoned the "substantially advances" test for takings. Course attendees mastered the new takings standards established by the Court and what they mean for individual communities.

Tax Policies and Techniques That Support Planning
Tax policies can work in conjunction with regulations to promote better development decisions. The best tax policies minimize the community's exposure to loss, maximize the community's long-term gain, and encourage cooperation between the private sector and public agencies. Attendees studied the best practices that helped them set fiscal policies that support planning goals.

Growing Green, Achieving Sustainability
Local land-use decisions have a major impact on the environment. Planners can use zoning, subdivision regulations, and capital improvements programs to ensure those decisions protect the natural resources of their communities. This course outlined the tools and techniques needed to integrate environmental planning into the comprehensive planning process.

Paying for Economic Development
Economic development can enhance fiscal balance, provide employment, and increase local wealth. Industrial and commercial developments, redevelopment projects, and special attractions require proactive governments that create a climate for economic growth. Attendees mastered the financial aspects of the development process planners need to know to make economic development work in their communities.

2005 Workshops — Chicago and Washington, D.C.

Click here to view pictures from the Chicago workshops

Click here to view pictures from the Washington, D.C., workshops

Click here to view 2005 presenters' biographies

Safe Growth
Safe growth means crime prevention, disaster mitigation, and so much more. Planners are increasingly expected to deal with all these issues — and this workshop will prepare you to do so. This workshop taught the best ways to assess and respond to various risks and to relate safety to land use, urban design, and environmental protection. Attendees learned to use Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design to create spaces that are secure and aesthetically pleasing and to get proven strategies for mitigating natural hazards and ensuring compliance with the Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000.

Zoning
Attendees found out how the First Amendment and recent case law affect zoning at the local level, including ideas for regulating big-box development, parking, truck traffic, transit-oriented development, land re-assembly, and environmental protection.

New Urbanist Codes
Communities across the country are embracing the ideals of new urbanism, but how do those ideals become built projects? This workshop was designed to show how. Practitioners who have experience making new urbanism a reality helped workshop attendees apply lessons from other communities to their own. You'll take home ideas for education and participation that will help you win support from the public and policymakers. The workshop will also cover stimulating infill development and evaluating the environmental and transportation impacts of new urbanism.

Parking
Parking can be one of the thorniest issues a planner deals with — and it has the potential to influence many other aspects of development. This workshop will help you navigate the political minefield of parking. Workshop attendees learned how to estimate supply and demand, how to select sites, and how to project costs and develop a fee schedule. They found out how to pay for alternative transportation programs with savings on parking structures and reform codes to establish maximum instead of minimum parking requirements. Trainers provided details on automated parking facilities, design requirements for SUVs, entry/exit requirements, truck parking, and parking at transit stops, plus big-picture ideas on aesthetic and architectural standards and zoning requirements for parking.