One such technique is the Community Remark(TM) tool.  The Community Remarks(TM) tool is a customized web mapped-based program built on Google Map software.  It provides an alternative method to attract and engage a larger audience by allowing participation from the comfort of home or office.

Citizens want to be more engaged.  They want to highlight assets, issues, and concerns and show you what works and what doesn’t in their community.  This interactive mapping tool makes that possible.  Features of Community Remarks include:

• Ability to post geographic-specific comments
• Ability to load maps
• Ability to load pictures
• Ability to “Like” or “Dislike” comments

In a period of 2 months TheRide Community Remarks site has generated 762 comments, from hundreds of unique users.  These comments have assisted TheRide in their ongoing efforts to tailor the  Moving You Forward Transit Master Plan to meet the transit needs of county residents.  For more information about TheRide’s Community Remarks tool, please visit www.communityremarks.com/theride.

How can the Community Remarks tool assist your community?  For more information contact Ben Carlisle at 734-662-2200.

Scurto will manage CWA's new Macomb County office

Carlisle/Wortman Associates has established an office at 50 Cherry Street, to be managed by David Scurto, who was named a principal of the firm in 2011.
“Our company vision has always been based on growing our business right here in Michigan,” Scurto said. “Our deep knowledge of state law and municipal governance best practices makes us exceptionally effective for the cities, villages, townships and counties we serve.”

In Macomb and St. Clair counties CWA serves the cities of St. Clair Shores, St. Clair and Center Line and has supported the St. Clair County Metropolitan Planning Commission staff. The firm’s 2009 plan, “The Aging of Macomb County,” won the Michigan Association of Planning’s award for public outreach excellence in 2009. Scurto is the chairman of the Macomb County Brownfield Redevelopment Authority and a past member of the Clinton Township Economic Development Corporation.

The firm’s experience in waterfront planning and zoning is well matched to the needs of communities along the Great Lakes and connecting waterways shoreline, Scurto said. He said he also anticipates drawing on his experience redeveloping mature urban communities.

Much future economic growth in the U.S. will come from knowledge-based businesses. Unlike manufacturing, whose locations were defined by access to natural resources, energy and transportation networks, knowledge businesses can locate almost anywhere. Their owners may well choose a location based on their lifestyle preferences or because it will help them attract employees.

Communities can attract and grow knowledge businesses with services and infrastructure including

• Broadband
• Educational opportunities
• Incubator programs
• Social connections
• Investment connections

Effective place making also attracts businesses and, of course, the kind of people who seek attractive surroundings in sustainable communities with varied housing, social and cultural amenities, public transportation and easy walking and biking.

Joining Dick and Don’s presentation were Mark Miller, economic development director for the City of Troy, and Pittsfield Township Supervisor Mandy Grewal. Mark offered the following recommendations for successful economic gardening:

• Stop being just a community planner: Take bold steps. Solve problems
• Make sure your master plan and zoning ordinance support your goals
• Create an environment of investment
• Be bold and creative
• Understand that it’s a long term process

Non-urban townships like Pittsfield offer open space and natural environments that knowledge workers may enjoy. Mandy described a master plan that would attract them:

• Create nodes of intense development, preserving open space
• Foster a multi-modal transportation system, emphasizing non-motorized
• Support arts and culture
• Diversify the housing stock
• Promote sustainability.

The Technology Planning Toolkit which CWA developed with Oakland County has much more information about planning for and accommodating knowledge businesses.

The outgoing president of the association – in this case Steve Robinson, president of Versa Development in Southfield — chooses as the award recipient an individual who has positively influenced his or her professional career. The two met years ago across the table in Independence Township, with Carlisle as the township’s planner and Robinson proposing a real estate development.

“Out of that oppositional relationship grew an ongoing and unlikely alliance that planted the seeds for better understandings between the development community and municipal planners,” said MAP Executive Director Andrea Brown. Robinson was elected to the association’s board and became its first president representing the development community.

Carlisle has been a professional planner for more than 30 years. He served as the president of the Michigan Society of Planning Officials (MSPO) during its merger with what was then the Michigan American Planning Association (MAPA) in 2000.  His leadership during that challenging juncture was instrumental in the successful joining of the two associations into the single body now known as the Michigan Association of Planning.

George Homewood

Planners today are encountering a new generation of political activists and may need to reframe their work to respond effectively, according to George M. Homewood, AICP, vice-president of policy and legislation for the Virginia Chapter of the American Planning Association.

These new activists are concerned about the national debt, an overreaching federal government and fear of diminished property rights, and “Planning appears to be serving as a lightning rod for these core issues,” Homewood writes.

Homewood’s essay advises planners to

• Avoid jargon; speak and write in plain language.  New activists and others may agree that it’s better to work close to home and have clean air and water but don’t want to hear about “walkability” or “sustainability.”
• In a world where opinion blogs and social media hold more sway than daily newspapers, be a source of facts, presented in a non-argumentative way
• Stress planning’s role in assuring that public investments of scarce resources are made effectively and efficiently.

Click here to read Homewood’s entire essay: Dealing with the New Activists essay

David Scurto, AICP, PCP

Carlisle/Wortman Associates has named David Scurto, AICP, PCP as a principal owner of the firm and is bringing Benjamin Carlisle, AICP, LEED AP onto the staff as a community planner.

Scurto has been an associate at CWA since 2007.  He provides comprehensive community and economic development and building services for the City of Riverview and general planning and economic development consulting services for the cities of St. Clair, St. Clair Shores and Troy.  He previously worked at Hamilton-Anderson Associates in Detroit, The Strader Group in Royal Oak and Gerald Luedtke Associates in Detroit.  He received a bachelor’s degree in architecture from the University of Detroit and a master’s degree from University of Detroit Mercy.

Benjamin Carlisle comes to the firm from Teska Associates in Evanston, Illinois where he served as the consulting planner to several communities in Illinois and Wisconsin.  He was previously a planner with the City of Highland Park, IL and an economic development consultant for the City of Chicago.  He has experience in zoning, land use and comprehensive planning, tax increment financing, economic development, site plan review and energy management for municipalities.  He received a bachelor’s degree in urban planning at Miami University and a master’s degree in urban and regional planning from University of Illinois-Chicago.

Doug will host the “Ask the Zoning Administrator” segment, where audience members will have the opportunity to present real-life situations, and receive expert advice on how to address them.  Details about this seminar are available here: Zoning Event Flyer.

The recently enacted P.A. 81 of 2011 modifies Section 2 of the original Act, specifically modifying various definitions.  The primary adjustment was to redefine the term “qualifying facility” to include (in addition to the aforementioned vacant commercial property qualifications): qualified retail food establishment (supermarket, grocery store, produce market or delicatessen) and hotel/motel with meeting or convention space that is attached to a convention/trade center.  This will allow for these types of vacant commercial structures that qualify under the terms described in Act 81 of 2011 to apply for a CREC.

A CREC provides for an exemption from ad valorem property taxes for a period not to exceed ten (10) years.  The exemption occurs during the period of renovation and immediately following.  The CREC application process is similar to the Industrial Facilities Exemption Certificate (P.A. 198 of 1974, as amended) and the Obsolete Property Rehabilitation Exemption Certificate (P.A. 146 of 2000) procedures which require establishment of a district, and application review and approval by both the local government and the State Tax Commission.  All three (3) programs provide tax incentives for rehabilitation, renovation and in some cases, new construction of existing vacant or obsolete commercial or industrial properties.

Troy's form-based code uses an extensive collection of three-dimensional graphics

In April 2011, Troy, MI adopted a new zoning ordinance, its first new full ordinance since the 1960s.  Carlisle/Wortman Associates was retained to partner with the City to develop a progressive new approach to local land use regulation designed to build on Troy’s assets and empower areas of opportunity to transform in line with the City’s 2008 Master Plan, an innovative document also developed by Carlisle/Wortman Associates.

Troy’s former zoning relied on strict land use separation to ensure compatible land use relationships.  However, an unintended consequence of this approach was that the places people want to visit, live in, or work in are separated by great distances.  In many areas, more compact, mixed-use development is therefore a desirable option.  As a result, the City has placed a greater emphasis on regulating urban form over land use in many cases. This shift in focus is what makes this ordinance revolutionary for a large, affluent post-war suburb such as Troy.  Form-based codes, like those adopted for Big Beaver Road, Maple Road, and the Troy Neighborhood Nodes, will help create a more predictable physical outcome from development to ensure that new projects contribute in a meaningful, complementary, and lasting way.

Troy’s Form-based code regulations are based on two main factors:  site context and building form.  Site context is derived from existing and desired characteristics of the area where these regulations are applied.  Areas are distinguished from one another by their size and configuration, street patterns, location, and intensity of use.  Site context requires a customized approach to each project. Building form addresses the manner in which buildings and structures relate to their lots, to other buildings, and to the street.  Building form standards control height, placement, building configuration, parking location, and other design factors.  Use regulations in these districts are more open than in conventional districts, permitting a wide variety of uses by right.  Troy’s form-based regulations will:

•  Ensure that development is of human scale, primarily pedestrian-oriented and designed to create attractive streetscapes and pedestrian spaces.
• Promote infill development and redevelopment to expand the employment and economic base.
• Promote mixed-use development horizontally and vertically.
• Ensure reasonable transition between higher intensity development and adjacent neighborhoods.
• Improve mobility options and reduce the need for on-site parking by encouraging alternative transportation.