Author's Forum: The Equity Planner

On the park bench@www.tiny url.com slash OT PB feedback. And you can join us for upcoming on the Park Bench webinars. On Tuesday, April second. Join us for Authors Forum, City Limits. Join author Megan Kimball. To discuss her new book, City Limits, Infrastructure, Inequality, and the Future of America's Highways. And you can register online@cnu.org slash resources slash on the park bench. Also, registration is open for 30 s annual Congress. Seeing you 32 will be in Cincinnati, Ohio on May fiftee

nth through eighteenth 2024. This is the Premier National Vent bringing together policymakers, planners, urban designers, developers, advocates, and more to engage with the trends and challenges related to building community. You can learn more and register before early bird rates close@cnu.org slash seeing you 32. And now for today's webinar. We are joined by Jason King. Jason King is a principal at Dover Column Partners and has served as the project director and prime author on over 200 plans

for cities, towns, neighborhoods and corridors. Jason has authored 2 books. The climate planner overcoming pushback against local mitigation and adaptation plans. And the equity planner. 5 tools to facilitate economic development with just outcomes. Diana is a co-founder and partner at Able City. An architecture and urban planning firm in South Texas. Her experience serving on the board of Bethany House of Laredo, an agency providing shelter and meals for community members in need. Has deepened

her interest in public policy, social equity, urban design, and exploring the relationship between the built environment and mental health. She now resides in San Antonio. Kessie Estol is a native of Haiti, is a passionate urban planner and designer. Her educational journey began with a bachelor's degree in architecture and urban planning from Florida Atlantic University. Building on this foundation. She pursued a master's in urban and regional planning. Deepening her understanding of land use,

transportation, and community dynamics. Since joining Dover Colon Partners team in 2021. Kessie has been an integral part of numerous urban design projects. For master planning new communities to updating municipal codes. She brings creativity, empathy, and a commitment to equity to every endeavor. Her work extends beyond blueprints and zoning regulations. It's about creating spaces that resonate with people. Fostering connections and enhancing quality of life. And I am Lauren Mayor, communicati

ons manager at CNU. So I'll turn it over to Jason to start today's webinar. Thank you. Lauren. Thank you for having us. Thank you. Seeing you for. Participating today. Hopefully you can see the screen. Yeah. Right. So my name is Jason King. Again. We don't recall and it's a pleasure to be joined by Deanna. Or co-author and Cassie, someone that I get to work with. Quite often. So just to go right into it, what is equity planning? Equity planning is inclusion and it's shared success. So inclusion

is involving people at the decision making table who or narrowly might not be involved. It's it's talking to a diverse audience. It's making sure that you're reaching every segment of the population. And shared success is equally important, right? It isn't just enough to have to have a diverse audience. It's also about shared economic success and for that reason the book is largely an economic development book about better outcomes for different communities. Equity planning is creating options f

or people who otherwise wouldn't have them. The American Planning Association. Does a good job with this definition. The just and fair inclusion into a society in which all can participate, prosper, and reach their full potential. So participate, that's inclusion. Prosper, right, and reach their full potential. That for me has real economic, implications. Cause we know that everywhere that we work as an, traveling around quite often. Is we find ourselves in a in a city divided in 2, right? Every

city however small is divided into one city of the poor. And the other of the rich and there's a low level quiet. Tension between them. In every situation. It's always been that way. And without equity planning, not a commitment, rather an understanding, and a commitment to equity planning. Urban planners and maybe New Orleans, can't help but assume the traditional role. Of advocating for businesses and the upper class. These are the people who come to the meetings. These people have the time,

the resources, financially they might be the most invested. And we're doing this instead of working with the needy in the working class who tend to be people who can't attend as many meetings don't understand as much about the process but are will be more effective. There's more at stake for them. And, so for me, this sort of journey of, to learn about equity planning. Starting when we're working in Albany, New York. I talk in the book about how Watched powerlessly as investments made in poor pl

aces where I worked paradoxically left the poor in those places worse off. So in Albany you know, the new organism is about, increasing property values. So this is a beautiful rendering by Kenneth Garcia. It's about the public grounds about reinvestment. And the raising of property values is both good and it's bad and it's good because you know, it creates better places and more, but economic opportunity and more amenities, more things. And there's a lot of people who I found in New York. In col

d New York couldn't wait for half the property values were getting raised they could and they move down to Florida. But then there's also another group and this is a group that, are much more threatened by the increase of property taxes. And I saw that our plane was changing these areas. And they used to have certain kinds of festivals dedicated to, to new immigrants and new cultures. And, and all of a sudden that started disappearing and it was a great fun awesome October fest in the warehouse

district of Albany. And it was kinetic. It was helping to this whole area to change. But over the years, I started to see that we were displacing a lot of people. And that a lot of the people that I met on the were no longer there. They were renters. They were going their own businesses or they or they lived, you know, in the warehouse district, a difficult place to live in a lot of ways. And slowly they were being pushed out. And I found that I didn't have any tools for dealing with that. I kne

w how to make a beautiful public realm with our form-based codes and our recommendations on capital improvement plans and are beautiful designs. But I didn't know how to work with them. And so book is about trying to find a toolkit. You know. What can we bring as an urbanists into these situations? So that way we're We're helping the people who need our help the most. So equity planning is about the necessities of life like affordable housing rival public transportation and emergency services, g

ood schools and low crime. And the thing that the new urbanist sell are quality of life elements, you know, walkable mixed use urbanism. Parks and trails and and a great public realm. Our job is to make sure that we're working for both. Cities and that what the project what the plan does or what the But the book does, I'm always talking about plans. What the book does, Because it talks about 50 different case studies. Just, you know, finding myself in these situations. Feeling like I was making

the situation the the place worse in a lot of ways. I was planning for place and not for people. To pull, Nick Silver and recent, Park Bench, you know, again, planning for place and not people. And slowly over time I've I've been working I've been learning from people like Deanna and Kessie who who are better at this than me. And slowly I'm working toward being. An equity planner. The study of all these different places led me to try to figure out, you know, quickly. What are the 4 attributes of

an equitable plan? And we know those of us who learn architecture in school are on the job, we're familiar with Retrovius, right? This century BC, architects, the 3 qualities of every good building. From a task, And then us Stas and money firmness and delight. Every building needs to have a utility, a use, they need stability and it needs to stand strong and it needs to possess beauty and the new urbanism is helping to bring back. Lot of ways the beauty so What about plans? You know? When as th

e, move from architecture projects to comprehensive plans or regional plans. What is it, what is it that we should bring to every plan and The floss for Berkshire Russell, a contemporary philosopher, very, very influential. He talked about the qualities of every individual. Valuable traits to raise in our children or develop in ourselves. And I found these traits. Totally applicable to the plans that we make. We should make sure that every plan has courage, intelligence, vitality, and sensitivit

y. And so courage, this is like Daniel Burnham, make no small plans, the whole city beautiful movement that. That sort of at the basis of. Of our. Northern, grand visions. We're bold we we are radical we draw new buildings and new streets and new Hug spaces fearlessly. Intelligence is to know what makes places better and what makes them worse, especially. And to help them avoid making them worse and vitality is sort of the energy, the excitement. And, and sensitivity. Sensitivity is a corrective

. When your plan has enough courage and enough of vitality, There are going to be people who are gonna suffer. Adverse impacts and sensitivity is the is how you communicate with them and and how you find a way to be more inclusive. So the project, the plan. The book, the book talks about several case studies. I love the plan that DPC did in Providence, Rhode Island, 1990. This is one of the first planes I ever saw. I was working a parking lot in the downtown. And Andreas one and Loose Plotters I

brok had a I saw Andre speak on the steps of city hall with buddy Siancy the infamous mayor. And I was pretty young and it got me it was one of the big reasons I got into the new urbanism. What was incredible about this plan to bring back the downtown, which has been entirely successful by the way. Is that with the first plan to say that it's the arts? And it's the artistic community. That's where you start. And that artistic community was largely at that time and often still is the gay and lesb

ian community. You know, Providence is a working class blue collar town. This group was sort of marginalized. They were sort of living in the in the downtown. But they had a lot to offer. Let them have gone to school for down school design at Brown University. And they hadn't been part of the planning process before. You know. And and TPC gave them both a physical plan and programming goals and DPZ I think helped teach inclusive inclusivity. They brought this group to the to the table. And that

was amazing to see. Montgomery Alabama when Victor Dover and Margaret Flipping and Joe Cole and myself and so many other DKPs arrived at Montgomery. It was dead quiet, the downtown was empty. It gotten so bad that there were no residents, there were no businesses. There weren't even any pigeons in the downtown. The only resident population with the people living in the county jail. And, if, if you heard anything about, Montgomery and its Renaissance. Know that there's a lot a lot is change and t

he interesting thing about Montgomery is that The population of the city of Montgomery has continued to drop. So it's not like Austin or Boston where the population rose and a renaissance was sort of inevitable. This is a place that's still struggles to keep kids in the school or businesses open. It is by sure will and commitment that Montgomery succeeded. And so We talk about that. In the book. The plan for El Paso is one most important plans for me personally. One of the things that did a lot

of things and one of the things that it did is it put in place one of the most extensive public transit systems in the world. It's a bus rapid transit system which connects every part of the city. So they have a downtown trolley, which is wonderful, but it isn't just, you know, the transit commitment isn't just the downtown trolley. It is all these connections. Rural areas in urban. They're slowly building the city one transit oriented development at a time and it is entirely feels to me we cont

inue to work in Passo a success it's inclusive people are still cheering on. Planning even though it's a it's a poor place it's a it's a border town it it is an area that struggles but it does, it's planning the right way. I was really impressed too, working with TPVC in Lewiston, Maine. This plan, so it's an old factory town, you see the big factory and the population had been dropping. It started in about 1960 and up until the day that we were working there the population of that downtown was

dropping. In the city's attempt to bring back involved welcoming Somali, Somali Bantu population, a large population. A considerable and visible population to their downtown. Tpdc did a great job. Lewiston has this commitment and now Lisbon stream, which is their main street, is completely revived. And in a very cool way that mixes, that mixes culture that you feel like you're You're having a deep, you feel like you're traveling, you're having a rich experience. And it wasn't easy. So. And slowl

y, if you check now, the population of Lewiston is on the increase again. These are plans that I think all the should learn about. They were success stories. We can talk about success stories. And just one little bit and then pass this over. Equity questions are pretty complex. And so oppose this question to the, who are listening, right? We'll talk about the Yukon Argyle Apartments in Hollywood. California. And so here's a proposal on the left for a two-story apartment building with 40 apartmen

ts to turn into you know a large Mixed use place on the right. And it's project, did a good job. In terms of the public realm. There's storefronts and there's on street dining. They built a much they plans to build a much bigger sidewalk. Street isn't perfect. Didn't have on street parking. Perhaps not a bike lane yet, but their proposal they presented something that the charter, Phil, and that most anonymous would just applaud and they would love. But specifically, you look at the details. They

had 40, essentially. Temporarily. Affordable units and it would be turning into 200 market rate units. And roughly 40. Affordable units, but they'd be mixed use of the hotel and restaurants and all this was ted. It's all within walking distance. And you can't help but feel like that before image. Is, it's time for it to transform. My guiding principle as a planner has always been the greatest good for the greatest number, right? The morally right action is the one that produces the greatest goo

d for the greatest number of people. So that's how we We say no to the nimbies who don't want to sacrifice one iod of. Of anything to in order to make other people. To give other people a great deal. So the greatest good at the greatest number. And that would say that the know the one on the right is the is the choice. But for an equity planner, they look at it differently. The people in those 40 units would have an intolerable situation. They were elderly, they were low income. Would be a devas

tating effect on their life. Those 40 families. And so the job of the equity planner is to avoid putting people into desperate situations or intolerable making intolerable choices. It's the first requirement of a decent society. And so equity planners in Hollywood said no to this project. They were resisting it. They were making it impossible. And they were saying pause. And that's what equity planners do. And the end result was that, the project. Lot of conversation with housing advocates and w

ith nonprofits and local leadership. In the end, the plan is for all of the renters who would be displaced. They get to move in back into the new project. And for the time of the construction, 2 years, 3 years potentially. They would be housed by. The developer at the same price that they were they were living. And so that's it. You need to protest a little. You need to hold out. And you need to demand now in this time. Equitable solutions. We pass this already testing. Okay, let me know if you

can see my screen. Okay. So I will be talking about, the zoning update for the Broadway mixed use district in West Palm Beach, Florida. So West Palm is, anyone who's familiar with Florida is it's a it's a city south of north of Miami. And, if, if you're familiar with like Westcombe, West Palm Beach, you probably would think it's a very wealthy community. But Broadway Boulevard is a bit different. So currently, the, corridor is a very, has a lot of vacant buildings, a lot of empty locks. It's ver

y dilapidated. There's a lot of crime. There's a lot of drugs going on in the corridor, so it needs to be revitalized. So we had our kickoff meeting, last year in September and our first meeting we had over a hundred 80 people and one of the exercises that we did with the community was that we printed very large maps and we had everyone sit down at tables that we printed very large maps and we had everyone sit down at tables and we had everyone sit down at tables and we had them write on the map

s and we had everyone sit down at tables and we had them write on the maps and we had them sit down at tables and we had them write on the maps and tell us exactly what they wanted to see change within their community. And at the end of the of the exercise we had each group one person from each group stand up in front of the in front of the group and basically give a small summary of everything that happened during the event. And it went it went really well. We were able to have a lot of people

that usually don't come to those meetings participate. One thing that we, that we did, is that we asked the members of the public that attended that meeting. What was one word that came to mind about the Broadway corridor now? And they weren't shy about their answers. There's a lot of drugs, a lot of crime. They say that it was sketchy, a lot of prostitution. So right now, it's a very rundown corridor and they weren't shy about telling how dangerous they felt in the corridor, but they were hopef

ul. Because we also asked them what is one word that come to mind about broad record or for what they want to see, for the corridor in the future. And the answer is that we're very positive. The, the potential, they wanted it to be more safe. They wanted more modern, they wanted a prosperous corridor, they wanted to feel more of a community, they wanted to get rid of of the prostitution and the drugs happening, currently in the corridor. So this is, a picture of what the corridor looks today. Th

is, this picture is, from, the Broadway from on the corner of Broadway and one of the many perpendicular street that crosses Broadway Boulevard and right now there's a lot of empty lots a lot of empty vacant buildings and it's not a very pedestrian safe place. There's not a lot happening and it's not a very, pedestrian safe place. There's not a lot happening within the corridor. With the with our code update. This picture shows the potential of what could happen in the corridor. So right now as

of right with the code update, the code will allow for buildings to go up to 3 stories currently. The corridor is mostly z zoned residential and the existing commercial that are there are kind of grinfattered in. So the code is allowing for more businesses to be in the corridor. Now, with public benefits, developers will be allowed to go up to 6 stories. And some of the public benefits that they could offer to get to that 6 stories would be workforce housing between 80 to 100% AMI or workforce h

ousing between a 60 to 80% AMI and to provide locally on commercial, locally owned commercial spaces. We also proposed that, they could also have provide community social service provider spaces. And those faces would be up to 3 additional floors for businesses and they would be spaces for nonprofit organizations which would provide childcare, education, drug treatment, women shelter, transition. They could also provide municipal, acquiring municipal organization space that provide police substa

tion and emergency health services. What was interesting, however, is that the city did not want those spaces to be provided, as an incentive for more height. And their argument was that currently the Broadway corridor is oversaturated with those bases. They already have a lot of it. They feel like they have too much of it and in order for the corridor to change for the better, their argument was that they needed to kind of stop a little bit with those faces and Open the door for other uses. So

the corridor could change for the better. One, one benefit that they did like was the idea to provide locally on commercial spaces. And those spaces, developers would have to provide up to 3 additional floors for locally owned businesses and the criteria for those businesses would be that they would have to make less than 1 million per year, they would have to be owned and operated at 51% by a county resident living within 5 miles of the corridor those businesses would have to remain a locally o

wned for a period of 20 years and they would have to be small in size. So they could not go over 2,500 square foot increment. So they could not go over 2,500 square foot increment. And all of this is to ensure that those spaces are small enough and all of this is to ensure that those spaces are small enough and all of this is to ensure that those spaces are small enough and they stay local for a long period of time in order to not displacement. And all of this is to ensure that those spaces are

small enough and they stay local for a long period of time in order to not displace existing Now, one example of a CRA that has successfully provided, business spaces for minority and local tenant is the CRA of Fort Lauderdale. So for the past decade I would say, the CIA for Lauderdale has been working along Sisterong Boulevard. Sister Boulevard is a historically African American neighborhood. It has similar similar properties as Broadway Boulevard and so the server for Lauderdale, they've been

working on a revitalization effort and they've built a lot so far and this shows one of the one of their minority tenants. So this is the Blue Tree Cafe located and the newly renovated 5 bay retail building that they also financed and this building is called the Provident and it's It's a it's a small restaurant that specialized in plant-based soul food and the tenant is from South Florida and it's a minority tenant and this the CR for Lauderdale has been able to finance a lot of their project. A

nd if you want to know more about Sister and Boulevard and what the CR for Lauderdale is doing. Make sure to attend Jason and I session at CNU. 32. I can talk about S Strong all day, but if you want to know more about it, if you're attending CNU 32, make sure to attend that session. Now to going back to Broadway Beauard, another policy that we implemented in the code is a vacant commercial building ordinance. So like I said, previously there's a lot of vacant commercial buildings currently along

the Broadway corridor and they are remaining vacant because the owners they're just not doing anything with it. So the picture shows an existing vacant building along the corridor. So what what this ordinance would do is that it would It would make sure that those call those vacant buildings that they register with the city and those buildings would not have to, would not be allowed to remain vacant and definitely. And the owners would have to submit a plan to the city of what they will do to t

he structure. And if they decide to demolish the structure, they have a year to do so. And, and they, they have a certain amount of time. Where they can renew their plan before the city, find them. So that's just a way to make sure that there's no vacant buildings. For a long period of time throughout the corridor. So now, there's only so much that the code can do. When it comes to anti displacement policy, so we also recommended that the city does a complement amendment to make sure that these

that these policies can be implemented into their company. So they would have to have a displacement. Mitigation plan, which would be a condition for rezoning within the be the Broadway Mixuse District. And they would have to have displacement studies and plans to uncover the potential loss of existing residents and businesses if no protection policies or programs are created. And they would have to provide a tenant relocation assistant programs, which means that if they are displacing renters,

for example, they would have to provide them a place within the new development or place for them to go if they don't want to say within the new development. This is another photo of why Broadway Boulevard looks today. This photo is taken within the corner of Broadway Boulevard and Fortieth Street. And, not only in our office did a really nice rendering of what this, this corridor could look like within our code and with the added public benefits. And if you if you look We made sure to leave spa

ce for the existing buildings for the existing, commercial uses to show that with this code being implemented, there will be space for the locally owned businesses to remain within the corridor. And, one thing that we successfully were able to do with our public, effort for the Broadway Boulevard is that we were able to reach people that are usual that we usually don't. We usually aren't able to reach in our planning efforts. So our second meetings, we went back again to the Manor to the Manatee

Lagoon and we had another big meeting, but we had to find creative ways to engage members of the community that usually don't feel comfortable coming to those public meetings. So after the big meeting at Manati Lagoon, we had 2 separate meetings. So the second other, the second meeting was with the Northern Rise Community Resource and that's the African-american community. Agency within the Broadway, Boulevard and that meeting was a smaller meeting and it allowed people that maybe didn't feel c

omfortable going to the vigor meeting to come to that meeting and really talk to us one on one and tell us what they wanted to see for the corridor. Another thing that we managed to do is that the road recorder currently is very diverse and there's a lot of different cultures and different people. So we were able to have a fully Spanish meeting. So Natalie and Jackie in our office, they speak Spanish. So we had a third meeting at the Esperanza Community Center and that's the Hispanic Center for

the Corridor. And we had another small meeting entirely in Spanish for the Spanish immigrants that don't speak English and that usually would not know about this effort if we didn't go out of our way to have a meeting all in Spanish and include them. And that's just an example of how we were able to meet people where they where they are and reach, people that usually would not feel comfortable going to the bigger meetings within that project. And I will. Send this to Diana. Thank you. Hello. Eve

ryone, let me share my screen. Okay. I think, Hesse, can you share the screen? There we go. Okay. Thanks. So my name is Diana and I don't do as much technical work as Jason and Jesse, but, I've been in the business of architecture and urban planning for. For a few years, but I learned the most when I worked. At Bethany House, which is a shelter in in a food kitchen that That's our school in the community. This is my story and then we're gonna go into a case study that sort of helped my story inf

luence. Our work. So Dorothy Day is one of my favorite people if you don't know her. I think she's a saint. She's not especially a saint yet, but She was a writer and activist and she lived among the poor. She believes that the warmth of an individual a sense of love and community was a real turnkey as it related to social justice. And I admire her because even though she had a difficult life and she thought that long loneliness that a lot of us feel in her life. She still pointed herself to oth

ers as to be of service to them to be a community for them. And 15 years ago, I went through a rough patch of depression. I was socially isolated in my suburban home in Laredo as a young mother. And part of my therapy was to go out and meet people and to help others, to serve others. So as luck would have it, my my uncle was on the, when he was the president of the Bethany House, which, which is that shelter. And so that's where my joining interest in affordable housing began. I've been helping

the people. Experiencing homelessness ever since and now hopefully preventing that experience through our housing work. Able City. Prior to. Our firm practiced architecture only, but we thought constrained. As we try to make. People centric places. We realized we were pitted against outdated, outdated planning codes and public policy that failed to promote the wishes of the community. So we decided to expand our practice into planning and it became evident very quickly that the driving force for

the for improving quality of life. And place lies in the advocates and the community members that need these things and push for them. So in 2,017, we teamed up with Dover coal and partners. And we we worked on the Vivelwriter comprehensive plan. And that's where we were able to practice exactly what Arnstein teaches. Einstein teaches about the requisite component of citizen power in any worthwhile equitable plan. With our partners at Dover Coal helping on the technical aspects of the plan, our

local team was able to pull out all the stops and outreach and awareness prior to the Though did we know just how effective a strategy this was to prevent what the books refer to, what the book refers to as the tyranny of the minority, the So getting everyone's voices out there really helped us. Get to know everyone's needs. And bring that to the forefront of the plan. We reached out to the community advocates that were already engaged in their own interests, including the housing and homeless

advocates, connecting their needs to the plants potential to help their causes. I'll take that we we got a great deal of groups all plugged from their perspective. They would have they would each have their own place piece of the plant to claim for their cause. Historic participation led to a speedy implementation of many goals the first 2 years. We had our first Vike infrastructure investment in the city, the city passed it. We created a mobility committee and arts commission. And we carry thes

e lessons onto our future projects. So 7 years later and many lessons learned later, we were selected to master plant a 550 unit. Public housing redevelopment in San Antonio. The Alessandra Apache courts were the first public housing units in San Antonio authorized under the Housing Act of 1,937 and remains the oldest and largest public housing complex in the city. It's sits on the near west side of downtown San Antonio where gentrification fears held galvanized a grassroots movement. A previous

plan for full demolition. And redevelopment had recently failed in a very public way. That we had nothing to do with. Although the advocacy that stopped the plan was well-intentioned and the process they halted was flawed and generally uninterested in the community's goals. Their position to not introduce any new construction was in conflict. With the proper fulfillment of the residents needs. We had to start building trust as the book states. Being quote, to Coaches and but prudent developers.

And local government seeking the involvement of decision makers stakeholders and the general community at the beginning of their projects and throughout the development of their projects to allow public opinion and the power held by the public to guide decisions. So yeah, we we were very cautious at the beginning to move at the speed of trust and listening. And intense listening in a dialogue to make sure that, that we were really serving the community's needs and our own ideas about their need

s. We pursue the, the new master plan RFQ with a prerequisite that all the old plans were scrapped and that the public input would actually influence the outcome. We didn't get hired to convince or placate a community that needed a real voice. There is a section equity planner title to talk to everyone and that's what it took. After Rocky start with inadequate participation by the residents, they weren't coming to us at the community center or even stopping by when we set up tables on site. We p

ivoted to go truly to where they were. We met them where they were at. We block walked and knocked on all. 501 doors. We met them, talked to them. Mostly in Spanish, thankfully our, our office were mostly Spanish speakers. Overboard. And we explained to them that their voice was important. We made sure to include, yeah, We were a group of people, so we, We split up and And, and we made sure that, we went up. Safely and and always with English and Spanish speakers in the group. So we designed an

in-depth collaborative mutual learning process with the residents so they were able to provide fully informed opinions. I think this is what was really key to the success in this project. We recommended the residents become complicated for their time, so our clients paid them statements to attend. We provided dinner and childcare and the participation was consistent throughout an 8 month long process. It was critically important to create a safe space for residents to voice their concerns sort o

f like what Kesy was saying. So prior to this effort, meetings included residents together with the very well educated and vocal historic preservationists. But that we realized that the setting was discouraging. The residents from sharing their experiences living in the old, moldy and comfortable units. And additionally, the housing authority when they were present, also intimidated the residents. So. They understood that it would it would be better if if them and the preservationists were. We'r

e not in the same meetings as the residents. So we had separate. Separate committees. The entire process was put on line and updated weekly. Full transparency was a mingle. And we invited the historians to tell the story and the significance of Alison on the local and national stage. But we also invited the residents to share their stories. Some generations long about life at Alison. And we put together a session to explain financing structures related to subsidized housing. We forced our financ

e consultant to tell the story in a way that everyone could follow. And the residents were taken through a variety of finite strategies to show the pros and cons of each and how it would affect them. We designed a session that explained the layman terms all the physical constraints and opportunities of the site. Flood Plains, modern versus historic building envelope, the challenge of increasing unit sizes to modern standards within the confines of their existing units. The debate holding up the

process prior to our effort was related to preservation versus demolition. We had to explain why you could not rely only on existing buildings to improve and invest in the project. One could not fulfill the promise of not displacing people without building at least some new buildings on the site. The session ended with a survey of resident priorities for redevelopment. The nonresident advocates mostly historic preservationists had slightly different priorities. After these sessions, we had the C

ooney Design Workshop where we asked them to help us fit the total area. A building needed on their site. The exercise taught the residents through a properly scaled the Lego model. That's some hard decisions about preserving and building knew was required in order to grow our building footprint by 40%. Their design choices tracked against the survey and committee meeting discussion data. We had to combine preservation, selected demolition and new buildings. From the shred, we narrow down the op

tions to 4 distinct concepts, each focused on a big idea. We included these choices in our bilingual survey and The final result was a combination of maintaining the street character and maximizing the green space. Restoring the street and enhancing the comfort and safety they wanted. I needed it is illustrated here. Here we see the street facing restored buildings with the new higher, more dense housing tucked in the back. Between each one is a shared court with green space and program playgrou

nds based on basketball courts and community gardens, which is what they wanted. In the end, not only do we forcefully, did we not forcefully displace one resident, none of them were displaced, we added 55 units to the overall 550 unit count. For our combined strategy of preservation and densification. The finance model had been selected and it allows the inclusion of other income levels gradually over time. To a national turnover of residence and always with resident input coming along with any

changes. And phase one will be and under construction by the end of this year. So at the office, we. We're interested in inclusive capital in them. So equity is about being inclusive like this and said at the beginning. And. We practice listening in our office. That's part of being inclusive. We endeavor to do the same like we're doing in our communities of listening. In the office. So we were accepted as members to the council on inclusive capitalism. And it's a platform for action, a communit

y of learning and and a movement for change to assist in creating more equitable sustainable societies. If you want to learn why you should look up their website. But part of our membership requires us to make hard commitments within our old community, starting with our own employees. It's, part of our shared value initiative. Intrusive capital is dynamic, it's trusted, it's fair, it's sustainable, and it's responsible. So this is one example of a commitment that That we adopted, you know, some

of our employees. Well, all of our employees had a seat at the table. They discussed what their needs were, what they needed. We decided to start with the smallest unit. First, which is the family, like what did they need for their families to be well? What do they need to be well at the office? What does our industry need? Where does the change need to happen? What do I, what does the planet need? And so At all these levels we started making commitments. This is one example of a commitment that

we made. We were creating a culture of interdependency and community care, equity planning from that. Inside Out. We felt it have no sustainable value to plan for equity in a city unless its first being practiced from the smallest, smallest unit outwards. And I agree with Dorothy Day. Equity planning is the only way forward where everyone's being taken care of. Okay. Yeah, back to you. Wonderful. Thank you so much, Jason, Kessie and Deanna for that wonderful presentation. So I am now going to a

sk a couple of questions and if you as audience members have any questions you can feel free to put those in the QA function. We'll get to those shortly. So to start with you, Jason, I have a question, which is, In what ways do equity planners engage with new urbanist practices and tools and how can new urbanism make places more equitable? Good question, Lauren. You know, I just happen to have a slide on hands to help explain that. Let's do this. So. So a big part of the book is, the toolkit and

the toolkit talks about different tools. So, you know, Cassie talked about a couple. You know, vacant commercial building ordinances that's in the list. Or the anti displacement plans that's there. There's things that the new urbanists specifically are great our champions off like accessory dwelling units or the missing middle standards you see those on the list. Or micro-units or just the Just the relaxation of development rules in order to that way stuff can actually get built. No, it's a gre

at parking setback reductions. I think the the spot where we have to learn more about, you know, if you're like me working for developer clients. It used to be enough just to provide. Or just walkable, mix to serve it is. Great public realm. But now it's you know without an affordable housing component without a real commitment to permanent affordability some portion of your your traditional neighborhood development is you know And without that, we're not getting the resilience, right? So. One t

hing we have to learn about is how to partner with nonprofit affordable housing providers. For instance, we need to help our developer clients do that. You need to help them understand, loan can housing tax credit. Or you know it's actually for for affordable units or or just generally how one. Adds permanent affordability to great new communities. So the 2 K. Talks about that. I'll just say really quick. Parks are a big part of this and, Mitchell Silver did a great senior park bench the other d

ay. About. You know, cause he used to be the commissioner in New York City working on parks. Lot of it is open space and community land trusts and making public spaces that people feel comfortable in. So item by item, the book goes through each of these tools. I was kind of inspired by. The book done by Dwani and, Leyden and Spect, Smart Growth Hembook, just small digestible. Bits, you know, to describe how this stuff can be put into the new organism. So yeah. There's a list and and it requires

us to learn a lot of new things. Wonderful. That was a great slide, Jason. That is super helpful. We already have a couple of requests in the chats, wondering if that can be shared. Yeah. Because I think people really find that a valuable resource. So my next question is for Kessie. And it is how can today's urban planners best acknowledge harm and center communities. And how do you reach communities that have been historically harmed by inequitable planning practices? And I know you talked a li

ttle bit about this already, but if you have anything else you'd like to share. Hi, as planners, we need to make more of an effort to truly engage every members of our community that we're planning for and really go out of our way to make sure that we speak to those people. And not only engage them, but also empower local leaders within those communities and make sure that they understand what the process is because having those local leaders part of being part of the process will just make it.

They will, if they understand the process, then they will explain it to their communities and they will help you get them engaged and help you have them come to your meetings. And that would be a way to just make them part of the process instead of just planning and they don't even know what's happening. Okay. Great. Thank you so much. And then I also have a question for Deanna, which is what does equitable urban planning look like to you? Whatever. And how does it differ from place to place and

are there any similarities or trends in successful places? Yeah, well I think it begins. With like what Jason talked about. Russell, you know, seeing that the the traits of a of an equitable, sensitive pattern. Is that sensitivity? And that courageousness, I think the most important part we can, the most important part we can play is electing, helping elect leaders who are sensitive. And who are. You know, transparent or courageous to make these changes that really prioritize. The people who ar

e who are not included. I could, like, all plans about inclusivity. So I think we can start by. By really looking for sensitivity in our elected officials. The second part of that question was What does it look like? Yeah, it looks like . Like. You know, it inclusion is the most important part of equity and that means Like in order to include someone you sort of have to know them and care about them and love them like you know if you if you go to middle school the bullies always leave out the pe

ople who they who they don't know. Once you get to know somebody, you care about them. So I think it's, it's. Part of getting to know everyone you can around you and getting to know their story and understand them because once you once you know when someone it's hard you know not to love them and then comes commitment. You know, just how we're trying to do in the office and what we're all doing is an urbanists. We can look at other countries like Texas. I live in Texas and there's not a big comm

itment. I feel to people who who don't own a car. But in the Scandinavian countries. There's a high level of trust between citizens. They know each other. And that social cohesion. When there's an increased level of trust, living in a community can become a more pleasant experience and everyone's a little safer. If you, if you've read Converg's book about, for the people that they talk about the Chicago heat wave and the people that were most at risk for dying were those who were socially isolat

ed. Who didn't know their neighbors. And That's social infrastructure that the, you know, try and build is just so, so, incredibly important because with that infrastructure. You get to know your, you know, your community and so, so equity planning. Is successful when when you really know your community when you know your neighbor, when you can love them and take care of them. And that it all makes it safer, you know, and happier. Great. Thanks so much, Deanna. Really enjoyed that. Now I'm gonna

go through a couple of our audience questions. And so this first one is. Can you provide your best tips on how to structure an inclusive planning process before engaging in planning work? And then they just followed that up with I'm wondering if developing the scope and conjunction with the community is part of that inclusivity piece. I think we should all try to answer this one. Best tips. So, I still believe that the Shirat, which I think with an organism invented is certainly perfected. Is t

he best way of being inclusive because a Chirat is fun, it's exciting, it's interesting, you're at the beginning of something, you're there at the end, you know, within a week, within 2 weeks. It's it's got a lot of different activities for people to participate in. There's meetings in the middle of the conference room with experts and the public is able to listen on the side. I think this thing that was invented for for what we do, it actually works bright in every in every context. So I really

like that. But yeah. Development community. That's the thing that the nourishment is offer, right? We We see both sides of you. Our roommate was born in like seaside and gorgeous new communities. And we understand what the developer, the constraints they live on. And that's important. So we're a bridge between between capital and development and. And and the people who are affected if we choose to be. So, yeah, very much. I think we can bring developers to the table and everybody learns and It'

s a much better outcome. I might add to that too. Let, what we learned in I really, yeah, understand what you're saying. But to add to that, sometimes it's great to do like the anti-surit and, and make your engagement process, your public engagement process very long. Cause that's when you really, really begin to understand. So, so when we did Alison, it was an eight-month process, like an eight-month. Sure that's sort of like just multiple multiple meetings. Until we heard from everybody. Inste

ad of like fast and tense it was slow and we literally moved at the speed of trust. And it took a long time. It took many conversations, a lot of listening, a lot of like, did we get it right? Because, because their time is, They're busy. So for them to give us time, it takes. It's very slow because we can only get an hour of their time a week. So I just wanted to add. That. I also want to add that I agree Jason and Diana that the Shorette is one of the most important tools that we have. I also

think we we need to be very, we need to learn to be more creative with how we, advertise assured. Like we are a global community now. There's so many ways to engage people, especially younger people through the internet, social media. And I think as planners, we need to learn to leverage those tools and advertise through those platforms to have a more diverse group of people attend our meetings. Thank you so much for those insights, everyone. Very interesting with the whole idea of the speed of

trust and the chorete and the anti just cause we're getting close to time, I just want to take an opportunity to thank everybody for joining today and to note that a recording of this webinar will be available to tomorrow if anybody has to leave right at one. We have a couple more questions to go through. So I'm gonna keep going on those questions. This one is pretty related to the last one. About Shoretz and is just wondering about the role of virtual participation. In equity and has it expande

d. The ability to reach populations. What are the successes? What are the issues that are still being you're confronting with this virtual participation aspect. Yeah, so I could just start with that one. Yeah, so we had to learn, had no choice but to learn the virtual We always prefer in person, right? You're more influential in person. You listen better. When you're in person. But COVID, worldwide pandemic taught us the virtual threat and got very good at it. And, and now there's a virtual comp

onent. To every one of our projects. We try to offer online the same experience, same exercises, same questions. That we offer you know in person. I think, and now slowly and then public meetings, public meetings were online for a long time because they had to be. And slowly it's unfortunate, but we've been seeing more and more public meetings closed. They're no longer online like they used to be. And I think that's a whole segment of the population is being lost. I think especially what I saw w

ith a virtual Shoretz where mom's raising kids. So we always say on our on our save the day cars we say bring your kids and we and we provide for them as a kids table but it's hard to travel with kids. It's hard to bring them to these things. And for a little while there It was just a lot of kids playing loudly in the background when we were answering questions and showing designs. And. And so, you know, Can we can we keep doing that? Can we keep finding a way we have one person not the sure out

who's manning the virtual. The virtual booth, right? And, and they're talking to the elderly population, they're talking to people who just aren't comfortable going to a public meeting, even developers or very busy local government governance, they're not going to go to the high school cafeteria, but they might just participate in a stakeholder meeting if it's being the right to their desk. So, I think we learned how to be a lot more inclusive with the virtual Shorette. I still like meeting peo

ple in person. But, we need to keep those tools on the table too, I think. Yes, well, as you can see, we're in a virtual webinar right now, so we've definitely also adapted. To this virtual setting. Alright, I have a Go for it, Kathy. Oh, sorry. I'd also like to add that the virtual shred, I've noticed personally that it also encouraged younger people to attend the meetings. I've noticed personally that it also encourage younger people to attend the meetings. I remember in school when I would go

to planning meetings, you know, the traditional 6 to 9 PM. Meeting, it's usually an older crowd, but with the virtual shred, I find more, more of the younger population attend those meetings because like Jason said, because it's convenient. Thanks so much, Kathy. Absolutely. And so we just have kind of 2 questions about downtowns that I'm gonna combine as our kind of last thing before we go. Which, is basically how does mixed youth growth in, in growth in downtown development projects? How can

we ensure equitable outcomes? And just and prevent displacement of economically disadvantaged communities. Especially if the state prohibits the city from implementing red controls. What are other tools or things that people can use? So just to think about that. So. So the downtown is a place that everybody has in common. And so our work often starts in the downtown. But I'd say, you know, we have to think about more than just the downtown. We had a successful downtown project in Montgomery and

El Paso and then the city kept bringing us back to work with the neighborhoods and it's a whole different set of issues. But equally important, you know, the downtown is just a series of successful neighborhoods. So number one, we need to leave the downtown. With our, work and our knowledge. But let's say, yeah, is a lot increasingly rent control or mandatory inclusionary zoning ordinance, renter protections. They're all slowly being. Being overridden by, at the state level. And it's actually ge

tting harder and harder to put in place. Programs that to be honest just exist as commonplace and in most of Western Europe. So what do you do? How you keep? Affordability. So Kesy did a great job explaining how optional system was what we did there in West Palm Beach. You could we allowed them to go higher and to build a lot more instead of 30% minimum. Rather instead of 30% maximum lot coverage, they're able to access much more of the site, build on 80% of the site. And they were able to go up

to 3 full stories. But in order to go higher, then it came comes the trade. Right? That then comes the community benefits. And For the most part, you're still able to, to bargain. And so we had to build into our form-based codes like they do the Miami. 21. Like TPC did an excellent job with. We need to build in affordable housing in order to get the extra. I think that's still something that we're allowed to do. Thanks so much, Jason, for a very thoughtful answer. And with that, since we're a l

ittle bit past one o'clock, I will go ahead and wrap up this wonderful webinar. Thank you to Deanna Cassie and Jason for being here. As a reminder, a recording of this webinar will be available tomorrow on our website. So thank you all for attending and have a great rest of your day. Thank youThank you