Outstanding Student Project

Rockaway Beach Waterfront Redevelopment Plan

The project was conducted during the Spring 2024 semester and is an area plan for a small community in Southwest Missouri located on Lake Taneycomo. Entitled, Rockaway Beach Waterfront Redevelopment Plan, the document was developed by eight undergraduate and two graduate students who are either Planning majors, minors, or in our certificate programs.

Rockaway Beach is a historic resort town. However, due to the movement of creating reservoirs throughout the state for recreational purposes and to somewhat control flooding, Rockaway Beach suffered. New dams caused Lake Taneycomo to be much colder and no longer enjoyable as a swimming/ water sport destination. The community, and others nearby, suffered further as the dams resulted in new water patterns contributing to silt buildup. As a result the formerly pristine waterfront beach is now silt and algae, with much of the waterfront being unusable. The town has been facing this issue for decades, and Practicum students were given the challenging task of thinking out of the box for how to bring people back to the waterfront. As other communities in the area face similar challenges, the plan the student created is transferable other towns impacted by the creation of reservoirs.

Though an area plan, confined to the towns waterfront, the plan is comprehensive in scope. Students considered how the waterfront impacts every aspect of the community and developed sections such as: economic development, recreation, natural resources, transportation, infrastructure, community facilities, land use and cultural resources. The waterfront is critical to the towns existence and students considered how various strategies might impact the community. Furthermore, a key element of any comprehensive plan is community input. The students developed a community input event and a survey in order to integrate community input into their vision for the waterfront.

The Practicum students created a quality product. The final plan includes an analysis for each area and numerous visuals including photographs, graphs and infographics. Students utilized their best writing and editing skills in the creation of this document. Furthermore, a Power Point presentation was put together to present the final plan to the public which also demonstrates thoughtfulness, effort, and an understanding of graphic communication techniques. The final plan was well received by the Rockaway Beach community. There was a full house at the final presentation, and several members of the community expressed interest in adopting aspects of the plan, demonstrating that the student plan meets the criteria of implementation.