The following CDs are currently available to members of the PA Chapter of the American Planning Association from our lending library.
CD Lending Library Agreement Form
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CD Lending Library Evaluation
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One CD may be borrowed at a time, for a period of up to five days. There is a $10.00 charge for shipping and handling. Please use the accompanying form, and complete the evaluation form, as well.
The Chapter office will process requests on Mondays and Wednesdays. Please give yourself adequate time for processing when placing your order.
To obtain more information about the lending library, or to discuss with Chapter staff availability of various titles, please call the PA Chapter of APA office at 717-671-4510, or email info@planningpa.org.
For reviews of the various CDs, written by members of the PA Chapter Professional Development Committee, please see below.
Peer Reviews:
Smart Growth Street Design
James Daiso, Joseph Kott, and Paul Zykofsky serve as the panel for this presentation on Smart Growth Street Design.
This program provides an informative and enlightening look at smart growth street design. The program begins by giving an overview of smart growth street design and the benefits it affords a community. Travel demand is growing faster than our population and our ability to build new transportation infrastructure. Smart growth street design provides new concepts that can alleviate congestion, improve safety, decrease miles traveled, and decrease construction and maintenance costs.
The program then proceeds to examine the differences between traditional street design and smart growth street design. All elements of street design such as the number of lanes, lane width, street types, intersections, bicycle and pedestrian facilities, and traffic calming are all discussed in detail. The discussion of the smart growth street elements are then followed with design guidelines that help to take the street design elements from concept to practice. Best practice examples from through the country are provided to show the implementation of the concepts presented.
Overall the program is an informative overview of smart growth street design concepts. New planners or those with limited experience in transportation planning would stand to benefit the most from the program. While the concepts in the program have inherent value, implementing them in Pennsylvania will be a challenge. 1.25 CM Credits
Farmland Preservation
The CD is a panel discussion between a county commissioner, American Farmland Trust staff member, and a Planning Department staff member regarding farmland preservation challenges and techniques. The discussion covers methods to preserve both the farmland and the economic viability of agricultural operations. Techniques discussed include development of an overall preservation strategy, agricultural zoning, economic development programs, purchase and transfer of development rights, urban growth boundaries, right to farm laws, and community/non-profit involvement. This program is valuable to entry to mid-level planners working with communities that have agricultural resources of any type, as it provides a solid introduction to preservation efforts and limited detail on specific techniques. CM Credits: 1
The Economics of Density
Presented at APA San Francisco 2005
This is an in-depth look at density and the economic impacts it has on a community. The presenters are very knowledgeable and present a balanced look at the positives and negatives of higher density developments. Though most of the presentation looks at higher density in urban settings, suburban communities are also considered and discussed. Topics include understanding the market factors behind density, how to determine appropriate density for your community, the impact on infrastructure costs, and how to regulate density. This is a good presentation for governing body members, planning commissions, staff planners, and private and non-profit planners/developers.
CD includes the audio presentation and PowerPoint, note sheets for group presentations, and PDF files of additional reading on the subject.
Public Anger and Community Decision Making
June 3, 1998 Audio Conference
Although this presentation is 10 years old, the material is still very relevant today. The issue of dealing with angry public is one that all planners will cross at some time in their career. This audio conference and associated materials will provide the listener with good tools to better handle angry citizens at public meetings. The panelists include a planning director, a consultant and a planning commission member. Topics covered include a good understanding as to why citizens get angry, what issues can cause such anger, how to offset public anger, using facilitators, and how to handle a public decision maker who is stirring up public anger to make a political statement.
CD includes the audio presentation and PowerPoint, note sheets for group presentations, and PDF files of additional reading on the subject.
Effective Community Parking Standards
EFFECTIVE COMMUNITY PARKING STANDARDS, Stuart Meck and Others
This is an excellent “overall” introduction to the topic of Parking, and the impact that parking has on the built environment. The main thrust of the hour-long presentation is that “there is no free parking”. Someone ends up paying for parking: either in the price of goods, as taxes on real estate, or lost “opportunity costs”, e.g. is there some better use for that land the parking lot is built on, for example extra landscaping, a more creative building footprint, or building structured parking and leaving more open space as a result.
Another obstacle to overcome is the fact that most people feel free and/or convenient parking is an “entitlement”. Parking is a challenging topic to solve, as the lack of it is often just a perceived lack. While pockets of shortage may exist, the overall supply of parking spaces in most American cities is adequate. Case studies from Washington State are discussed, and the fact that parking is not a static commodity is emphasized. For municipalities that are truly interested in getting to the core of parking problems and not have an over- or under- supply, a parking study is recommended.
Other topics: Cost/revenue of Structured Parking
Residential vs. commercial parking ratios
Alternative strategies to alter behavior, e.g. bicycling, bus passes, car and van pooling, etc.
(good) Site Design for Parking Lots
This is a good CD to get you thinking about different sides of the parking issue. CM credits: 1 CM credit.
New Urbanist Codes
(April 25, 2004), Victor Dover, AICP (Dover Kohl & Partners), Christopher Duerksen (Clarion Assoc.), Dwight Merriam, FAICP (Robinson & Cole), and Robert Joseph Sitkowski, AICP (Robinson & Cole) serve as the panel for this presentation on new urbanist or form based codes. Dwight Merriam’s introduction explains that such codes regulate the form of buildings, and assume, generally, that all else will follow. Essentially, start with what you want the community to look like, and then back into the details from there.
Victor Dover speaks first, explaining the history of new urbanist codes back to George Washington’s plan for Old Town Alexandria. He explores the types of new urbanist codes, the methodology of form based codes, the legal aspects of such regulations, and the strengths and weaknesses of various regulatory approaches. Dover recommends starting with a physical vision built on visual preference surveys. He notes that such codes typically contain four components: regulating plans (a detailed map), urban standards (addressing the bulk, form, and position of buildings), architectural standards, and street standards. The codes address building types, street types, types of public space, and transect (sub-area or neighborhood). He briefly introduces Duany’s concept of the “SmartCode,” a tabular, organizing tool that can be used to implement a new urbanist code once it is calibrated to your community. Dover just touches on each of these subjects. Any implementation of the concepts he introduces would take much more research.
Robert Sitkowski speaks next, and addresses the legal aspects of form based coding (note that PA expressly enables Traditional Neighborhood Development, a type of form based code, through the MPC). He notes that form based codes do specify uses, but calls them building function standards. Then Duerksen speaks about traditional zoning vs. form based codes vs. unified development ordinances – highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of each.
This session should be considered a broad introduction to the concept of new urbanist, form based, or smart codes. As such, it is suitable for both planning officials and professional planners who are unfamiliar with these tools. However, a professional who is already familiar with these tools and possibly interested in implementing them needs to look beyond the presentation itself. To that end, however, the CD-ROM does provide a few additional reading materials that the planner could pursue. 1.25 CM Credits
LEED for Neighborhoods
Viewed conveniently at workdesk pc. Consists of powerpoint slides and audio, includes links to copy transcript and slides with lines for notes. Audio is clear in sound quality.
LEED for Neighborhoods abbreviated LEED-ND covers the very new field of LEED applied to: the specific site layout(s), having those comprehensive-holisticsynergetic-yet sustainable on-site/off-site interconnections and the specific buildings going into an area.
Some of the presentation helps with catching onto the vocabulary, as LEED-ND is founded in the green – smart growth –preservation – and new urbanism fields…
It’s mostly an overview of the possible highly technical form of review and approval of the community improvements that are efficient in a planetary sort of way. Yes planetary.
The presentation panel seems knowledgeable. Most of the examples are west of the Mississippi River. Some of the discussion is good on the case studies. Pilot projects of a total 238, could be referenced thru a web-site.
Also, a 150 page rating system can be accessed on a web-site as the “metric” used in the assignment of LEED-ND ratings. The presentation keeps to generalities and leaves the details to be reviewed by going to web-sites, that are part of the powerpoint slides.
This all seems o.k. –so the presentation remained in focus on target. APA /AICP for 1.
Planning for a Low-Energy Future
Review coming soon!
Form-based Zoning
Form Based Zoning (April 27, 2004), 1.25 CM Credits: Paul Crawford, Geoffre Ferrell, and Bill Dennis serve as the panel for this presentation on Form Based Zoning.
The program opens with a discussion of traditional zoning and some of its inherent problems. Form based zoning is then compared to traditional zoning with a discussion of how form based codes overcome some of the problems with traditional zoning. The program then shifts to the specifics of preparing a form-based code. The audience is led through the 5-step process of preparing a form based code.
After providing a thorough background on the function and benefits of form based codes, the program shifts to reviewing best practice examples of form based codes. Most examples were from west coast communities but some discussion was made of communities in Virginia.
The program closes with a discussion of what communities typically want out of codes and how what they want is not always delivered by the codes they have implemented. The discussion is helpful in identifying how form based codes can sometimes achieve better results than traditional codes.
This session should be considered as a broad introduction to form based codes. Given that form based codes have not seen much use in Pennsylvania, the program would help introduce planners to the concept and provide them with enough info to assess whether or not the tool may have applicability in their community.
Meeting the Sign Regulation Challenge
APA’s CD-ROM package Meeting the Sign Regulation Challenge is actually two separate presentations that together earn 2.25 CM credits: Issues in Sign Regulation and Context-Sensitive Signs. Each of these two opens separately from the CD-ROM’s main menu. As they don’t interconnect, I’ll review each presentation separately.
Issues in Sign Regulation: Eric Damian Kelly, 2006: Kelly begins this session by claiming that most sign ordinances that haven’t been updated in the past year or two are unconstitutional. After getting your attention thusly, he covers four fundamental constitutional rules governing sign regulations. He warns of the dangers of contentbased sign ordnances, which are quite common in Pennsylvania (e.g., special rules for “real estate signs,” “church signs,” or even “off-premises signs”). Kelly addresses issues such as commercial signs vs. non-commercial signs, on-premises vs. offpremises signs, objective design standards and review procedures, sign clutter, window signs, sign plans for commercial centers, residential signs, temporary signs, sign design, sign heights, contextual sign size, flags, church signs, signs on people, holiday signs, and much more. Kelly promotes the concept of content-neutral sign ordinances, and explains how they work in some detail. A PowerPoint-type presentation runs concurrently with Kelly’s speech, and this presentation shows plenty of graphic examples of what Kelly addresses. Overall, Kelly’s presentation is very comprehensive. However, it includes only one or two actual examples of regulatory language. Thus, this presentation is best used as a checklist for reviewing a municipal sign ordinance. This presentation would be sophisticated enough to enlighten many professional planners who don’t work with signs every day, but it is not over the head of planning officials and could be used at a planning commission work session.
Context Sensitive Signs, 2006: This presentation was sponsored by the Lincoln Land Institute, and also includes an accompanying PowerPoint-style presentation. A group of municipal planners, an attorney, and officials from the APA Research Department speak in a panel fashion. The presentation defines “context sensitive signs” as “signage that respects and enhances the aesthetic character of a region, community, and commercial district.” It states that context sensitive signs are the result of a planning process. Mark Young, a planner for the City of Flagstaff, Arizona generally describes the process that his city used to develop a context sensitive signs ordinance: community visual preference surveys were used to identify proper colors, materials, and architecture. Broad public participation was used, and judged to be vital in the final product’s success. Attorney Randall Morrison then reviewed the federal case law framework for sign regulation, as well as common regulatory pitfalls (some of this is redundant to what Kelly covers). This presentation was much more general than Kelly’s, and would not be enough information, on its own, for a municipality to begin work on its own context sensitive sign ordinance. It is geared more for planning officials than professional planners.
The CD-ROM provides a list of reference materials – from APA and other sources – for further study.
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