Sessions
Thursday, October 7, 2020
These sessions will be presented live at the conference center. They will also be live-streamed and recorded to allow for remote viewing.
2020 Legislative Review - Legislative Activities at the State and Federal Level
The purpose of this legislative forum is to highlight the current legislative issues and activities at the state and federal level. Learn about the legislation you need to be aware of at the various levels of government and how you as planners can be an advocate for great planning. There continues to be ongoing legislation at the state and federal levels that have direct impacts on our communities and the planning profession. The purpose of this legislative forum is twofold. First, the speaker will discuss recently-passed and current legislation that is under consideration at both levels and the potential impacts (good and bad) to our communities along. Second, the speaker will also talk about ways that you, as planners, can get involved in advocating for communities and planning. Presentation by Jason Ray, AICP.
Creative Housing Solutions for any Missouri Community
Based on professional experience as an engineer, planner, economic developer and land developer, Chris will provide key insights into helping cities think differently about how to "jump start" housing growth that meets the needs of their community. Presentation by Chris Chiodini, AICP.
Great Places with Trees, What Does it Take?
Trees add various benefits to our communities. Some are quantifiable, some are not. To have large trees, which provide the most benefits along streets, in urban pocket parks and even along residential streets, requires proper planning for, installation, and care. This includes providing adequate soil rooting space, good tree selection, proper tree planting, and long-term care. There are various ways to achieve these goals. This session will present established research and methods to achieve large trees in appropriate spaces. Presentation by Jon Skinner.
Great Places with Trees handout
Managing Two Common Urban Wildlife Species: Canada Geese and White-tailed Deer
This session will address the two most common species that become issues for entire communities: Canada geese and white-tailed deer. It will be discussed how these species become an issue. Various management techniques, for both species, will be presented and how communities can integrate multiple techniques to manage these urban wildlife populations. Examples showing different community management approaches will be presented. Presentation by Ashley Schnake.
What's in a Name - Creating Great Spaces for People
This session is a professional development presentation regarding low-speed, low--volume streets including different names used across the country, elements of planning and design, as well as communication with neighborhoods and tailoring how we talk about streets that focus on people, not cars. Presentation by Paul Wojciechowski.
On-Demand: Virtual Sessions
Virtual sessions will be pre-recorded and available for on-demand, remote viewing by all conference attendees.
Active Transportation Practice with Missouri Department of Transportation
Find out about the practice of active transportation at Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) with its limited resources. You will hear about major projects and practices, both past and present, that improve transportation choice for Missourians. Lastly, gain a sneak peek into what's coming that will improve MoDOT's practice of active transportation. Presentation by Shaun Tooley, AICP.
Affordable Housing Trust Funds Are Coming To Missouri: What's Next?
Missouri is on track to establish its third Affordable Housing Trust Fund (AHTF), a local and proactive response to a growing housing crisis. This comes as state and federal resources for affordable housing are shrinking and demand for affordable units and middle market housing is growing. An increasing number of low-income households, particularly families of color, now pay more than one-third of their paycheck on housing. Planners need to act now to leverage and partner with AHTFs at the local level in order to address our state's growing housing crisis. This presentation will highlight relevant takeaways for planners across the state, drawing on firsthand experience from St. Louis City & County. This includes lessons learned, pitfalls to avoid, and creative strategies from around the country. Presentation by Gary Newcomer.
AICP Exam Prep Training Session
The AICP exam preparation session will include advice from recent test takers, overviews of the exam sections, types of questions, and how to write a good application essay. Presentation by Bonnie J. Johnson, PhD, FAICP.
APA's Community Planning Assessment Team (CPAT) Program in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands
This presentation will provide an overview of the speaker's work in St. Thomas, USVI in September 2019, as part of the American Planning Association's CPAT Program. Presentation by Chris Chiodini, AICP.
Community Commons: Planning for Healthy, Equitable Communities
Ensuring our communities are healthy and vibrant places takes more than a good plan. And, planners can't lead transformative community change alone. Now, more than ever, we see how interconnected we are - and how much we need to work across sectors to advance health and well-being for all. This session will introduce Community Commons, a publicly-available resource platform that serves the healthy communities movement through curated collections of leading practices. With the latest reports, webinars, tools, and stories at users' fingertips, the Commons functions as a virtual coach, making it easier to find answers to your questions - and to discover resources you didn't know you needed.
Commons Content - Content is crowd-sourced and vetted by Commons stewards, the team at the Institute for People, Place, and Possibility. Each uploaded resource is tagged with keywords, search terms, and additional context. We know it's not enough to simply find APA's Healthy Communities Policy Guide on the Commons. We help you apply this guidance by sharing related resources and inspirational stories, by moving from an abstract set of policies to what change could look like in your own backyard. Recent examples of Commons content include the way community members responded to our call for their most useful COVID-19 resources to support this collection - and how local leaders highlighted the power of placemaking with APA-IL to advance community health goals.
Commons Frameworks - The Commons also offers sense-making frameworks to help users organize resources in a meaningful way. Instead of a series of related strategies, frameworks tell a comprehensive story, connecting data, resources, and action in ways that reflect how communities actually function. The Vital Conditions for Community Well-Being is a framework that redefines the social determinants of health, or community conditions, to help planners, public health professionals, and community members identify strategies for increasing health and well-being. Presentation by Erin Barbaro and Sara Ivey.
Does the Main Street Program Increase City Economics?
The Main Street Program trains merchants, property owners, city officials, and many others in the Four Point Approach which emphasizes (1) getting organized, (2) knowing your economic opportunities, (3) creating high quality places, and (4) aggressive and collective marketing. Eight Missouri cities have achieved the highest status in the Main Street Program. This session compares the economic changes in those eight cities between 2002 and 2017 with cities of similar size and characteristics elsewhere in the state to see how much difference the Main Street Program has made. Presentation by Robert M. Lewis, FAICP.
How Can My City Obtain Professional Planning Technical Assistance?
Learn how your community can be the beneficiary of "pro bono" professional planning services through APA's Community Planning Assessment Team (CPAT). Presentation by Chris Chiodini, AICP.
The Impact of Decision-Making on Diverse Audiences
Shockey Consulting shares tools and techniques that highlight the decision-making process and the impact on a diverse group of people. Participants will engage in an activity that Shockey uses with Elected Officials and Steering Committees for both short- and long-term planning efforts to identify goals and strategies. Chayton True, City Planner of Kirksville, Missouri, joins Shockey to share first-hand experience of the decision-making process and tools used for their recently adopted Comprehensive Plan. Shockey will introduce another engagement tool that provides a filter to evaluate the decision-making process of the initial exercise. Discussions about diversity will stem from evaluating the selected strategies against generation and labor force profiles and considering how issues of transportation, housing, etc. will impact people of differing race and ethnicity, incomes, ages, genders, and education attainment levels. Presentation by Tyler Waldorf and Chayton True.
Innovation Districts & Innovation Ecosystems
This session will define components of innovation districts and the surrounding area that supports the innovation ecosystem. The innovation ecosystem's ability to access capital, gain business interests, innovate solutions, partner with institutions, and let talented people thrive in one area coalesces into a mission-driven innovation district. The city and the surrounding supporting industries are intrinsically connected with the Innovation District, as the District is a manifestation of the existing supporting networks and organizational collaboration that happen throughout a city.
Beth Letcher, Director of Cortex Strategic Initiatives, will provide a deep dive into the accomplishments and impacts of the Cortex Innovation Community, which is a 200-acre urban hub of innovation and entrepreneurship located in St. Louis, Missouri. One of the region's largest innovation campuses, physically designed and actively curated to accelerate high-growth startups and advance established innovative corporations. Cortex is a nationally and internationally recognized innovation hub that supports all technology sectors.
Jonathan Roper, City of Olivette City Planner, will examine local city advantages and opportunities to participants within the innovation ecosystem. Specifically, how the City of Olivette, a municipality on the peripheral of the 39 North Ag-Tech Innovation District, pursues and promotes connections to the innovation ecosystem through development.
Neighborhood Planning & Placemaking: Articulating and Implementing the Community's Vision
The City of Springfield Planning and Neighborhoods Office will introduce its Neighborhood Planning Program, which includes a number of targeted programs aimed at supporting organized neighborhood associations, in addition to current efforts to update and develop a number of neighborhood plans. The effort to update the City's collection of neighborhood plans began in 2015 in the Rountree Neighborhood, which was facing immense redevelopment pressure and new construction, that did not match the neighborhood's desired character, but was permitted by current zoning. The City of Springfield and H3 Studio collaborated on the Rountree Neighborhood Plan to address the community's concerns through an effort that could be transferable to other future neighborhood plan updates. H3 Studio will present their approach and illustrate the recommendations included in the adopted neighborhood plan. A unique approach to effectively integrate the community's vision with the essential implementation tools available to the City; codifying the community's vision for continual, incremental implementation. Presentation by Alana Owen, AICP, Randall Whitman, and Tim Breihan, A.AIA.
Place-Based Economic Development
More communities are developing an Economic Development Strategy to better develop a shared vision for economic development and provide confidence to existing and potential businesses to invest; however, it can be hard to translate regional and national economic development trends into prescriptive strategies at a community level. This session will explore economic development strategy planning at community scale with examples from two recent projects in University City, Missouri (www.InvestUCity.com) and Fairview Heights, Illinois. A key aspect to community scale economic development planning is utilizing a place-based approach. Defining potential growth around main corridors, parks, transit hubs, and other community nodes can be a great strategy to target economic development. Presentation by Stephen Ibendahl.
Planning and Land Use Law Update
This session will review recent land use cases. Presentation by Steven Lucas and Melissa Vancrum.
Regional Approaches to Housing
The importance of and the process for a regional approach to housing will be discussed in this session along with strategic partnerships necessary to both initiate and implement a regional housing strategy. Most regions include a variety of settings and demographic variations that need to be considered when developing a regional housing strategy. This session will look at a layered approach to implementing a regional plan that includes partners at all levels, from local developers and realtors to regional and state funding partners. Finally, lessons learned from other regional studies will be shared with regards to start-up, planning process, and finally implementation. Presentation by Amy Haase, AICP.
SGF Yields - Springfield's Pedestrian Safety Campaign
In mid-2017, through a Blueprint to Safer Roadways Grant, Springfield Public Works launched our community's first pedestrian safety campaign, SGF Yields, to help combat the growing trend of pedestrian-vehicle crashes. The primary focus is on educating drivers on crosswalk compliance, while encouraging pedestrians to make use of crosswalks. The program playfully intertwines both objectives with a "come to life" version of the MUTCD pedestrian, "Mr. Walker." The life-sized metal pedestrian statues and the heart-shaped pedestrian signs intuitively remind drivers and pedestrians to look out for each other. We believe that this positive approach paired with look-alike signs leads to positive mental association, which is more likely to resonate with most people (especially Millennials) rather than utilizing conventional right or wrong campaigns to prompt behavioral change.
We are currently applying for crosswalk enforcement grants, which should bring compliance up to 70-90% according to studies. We are also working on enhancing crosswalks with RRFBs and unconventional median designs for traffic calming. Presentation by Mandy Buettgen-Quinn.
Show-Me Zero: Missouri's Strategic Highway Safety Plan
Missouri's updated strategic highway safety plan will be unveiled in September 2020. This 5-year plan outlines the top strategies the state can deploy to reduce the number of fatalities and serious injuries occurring on Missouri roadways. The new plan has evolved from past plans to include strategies for all Missourians. The underlying theme is that eliminating deaths on our roadways will require action at both individual and organizational levels. Everyone can do something to make our roadways safer. Presentation by Jon Nelson.
What the Gig? Private Practice in the Gig Economy
A "silver tsunami" of retirements is drastically reshaping the government workforce as the Baby Boomer generation retires and typical recruiting efforts won't always deliver the talent government agencies need. We don't know yet what effects the COVID-19 pandemic may mean for planners' employment prospects. A "gig workforce" of qualified professionals and retirees, stay-at-home parents, young professionals, and displaced planners are seeking gigs to supplement their incomes, continue in their profession while caring for kids and parents, or to launch their careers.
The "Gig for Government" trend provides options for local government to tap into professional expertise in different ways, too. Local governments are hiring on-call professionals, fractional and part-time professionals, and temporary workers to fill gigs as the work ebbs and flows or as special projects arise within their agencies. The result is a dynamic environment for consulting in the planning industry. Speakers will share their experience in private practice from the perspectives of project-based consulting work such as comprehensive plan assignments; specialty projects such as zoning and sign codes; and short-term consulting such as on-call staff support, temporary assignments, and fractional roles. Presentation by Steve Miller, AICP.