Podcasts about planning department

On this episode, we speak with Kinikia Gardner, a Senior Planner with the Los Angeles City Planning Department. With more than two decades of experience in urban planning, Kinikia has focused her career on making the planning process more accessible and equitable, especially for historically underserved communities.She currently leads the South LA Development Services Center, one of only a few centers across the city where residents, business owners, and developers can get in-person help with permits, zoning, land use, and development questions. These centers are part of the Planning Department's effort to demystify a process that often feels out of reach for everyday Angelenos.Kinikia is also a member of Black Planners of Los Angeles, a Qualified Minority Employee Organization within the City that helped push for the creation of the South LA center.Resourcesplanning.lacity.govplanning.lacity.gov/project-review/south-los-angeles-development-services-centerappointments.lacity.org/apptsys/Public/AccountSouth LA DSCAddress: 8475 S. Vermont Avenue, 1st FloorEmail: planning.southla@lacity.orgInstagram: www.instagram.com/planning4laCommunity AnnouncementsEvent Name: CicLAviaNeighborhoods Featured: Historic South Central, Florence-Firestone, WattsDate: Sunday, June 22ndTime: 9 AM to 4 PMLocation: Central Avenue & 103rd StreetWebsite: www.ciclavia.org/ciclavia_historic_south_central_meets_watts25

This episode of the Town of Brattleboro's podcast covers a regular Selectboard meeting held on May 20, 2025, recaps the Special Representative Town Meeting, and previews a brief, special meeting on May 30 and the next regular meeting on June 3. Show notes: May 20: Agenda, Watch Special RTM: Watch May 30: Agenda June 30: Agenda Apply to join a board or committee here. The Planning Department will be hosting a public forum regarding an intersection study on Western Avenue. 

Investigative journalists Mandy Matney and Liz Farrell are back and we begin today's episode revisiting (01:02) how Scott Spivey was shot to death in his vehicle by Weldon Boyd and Bradley Williams in September 2023.  A significant development comes in the form of a "legal filing", an "absurd 9-page motion to stay" by Bradley Williams' attorney, Robert E. Lee… yup, that's the name he prefers… We'll also share a disturbing, but pertinent call between Weldon and his granny discussing the incident.  Then (23:00) we share updates on the 'updated' sentence of suspended Hilton Head Island attorney Peter Strauss, the as-yet-unscheduled sentencing for Russell Laffitte, Michael Colucci's retrial scheduled for June 16th and Lee Gilley's Houston status hearing on June 4th for his murder trial.   As our primary focus, (25:06) Mandy and Liz critically examine the 2025 Horry County Police investigation into the 2021 death of Chris Skinner, husband of JP Miller's alleged mistress, highlighting discrepancies between the official ruling of accidental death and video evidence suggesting something else. We'll share police interviews with Chris Skinner's friends, noting the friend's belief the death was a suicide possibly influenced by JP Miller, and questioning the wife's inconsistent statements and demeanor.  Ultimately, we are advocating for truth and justice in all these cases.  Lots to cover, so let's dive in...

Metro's Planning Department just released a Housing and Infrastructure Study that showed Nashville's affordable housing crisis in stark reality: We need to build at least 20,000 more homes in the next decade, and 99% of our neighborhoods are out of reach for the average Black or Hispanic family. Planner Greg Claxton joins host Marie Cecile Anderson to explain the changes we need to make to fix the way this city gets built. Planning wants to hear from you! Share your thoughts with them here. Learn more about the sponsors of this April 14th episode: Prolonlife.com/city - Use this link for 15% off Want some more City Cast Nashville news? Then make sure to sign up for our Hey Nashville newsletter.

Boston's Planning Department approved proposal to bring back beloved Great Scott music venue after closing down during the pandemic. For more, ask Alexa to play WBZ NewsRadio on #iHeartRadio.

In this episode of the Dover Download podcast, Deputy City Manager Christopher Parker chats with Deb Clough about the upcoming "Power of an Hour" litter collection event scheduled for Saturday, April 26, 2025, from 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. Clough explains that this will be the second annual citywide cleanup, organized by ward, with volunteers meeting at their respective voting locations 15 minutes before the event starts. Last year's event saw 283 volunteers collect over a ton (2,000 pounds) of litter in just one hour. Clough encourages participants to wear bright colors and comfortable shoes, bring gloves, and notes that bags will be provided. After collection, volunteers will consolidate trash into blue "New Hampshire the Beautiful" bags, take group photos, and the three wards with the most participants will win "trash trophies." Deb also mentions her "Don't Trash Dover" walks, which have been running monthly for seven years, with the March event attracting a record 55 participants who collected 28 bags of litter.In the second segment, Parker speaks with Erin Bassegio from the Planning Department and Brian Early from Media Services about recent city developments. Bassegio discusses Planning Board activities, including the approval of a second extension for a 173-unit residential project at 47 Chestnut Street, various conditional use permits, and updates to site review and land subdivision regulations. She also mentions the formation of a TDR (Transfer of Development Rights) subcommittee and conservation efforts. Early details the City Council's focus on the fiscal year 2026 budget, including workshops, departmental presentations, and the School Board's $2.4 million budget reduction. He notes that the final budget adoption occurred on April 2. He covers other council actions, including approval of seasonal paving contracts and updates on the Dover High School Athletics Complex project.

A recent bill moving the Metro Historic Zoning Commission under the auspices of the Planning Department sparked unanticipated levels of controversy over the past few weeks. Why? And how does that tie into larger discussions about Nashville's housing crisis? WPLN Metro reporter Cynthia Abrams joins executive producer Whitney Pastorek to explain. Want some more City Cast Nashville news? Then make sure to sign up for our Hey Nashville newsletter.  Follow us @citycastnashville You can also text us or leave a voicemail at: 615-200-6392⁩ Interested in advertising with City Cast? Find more info HERE.

Oh no...the New Year begins with two tasks a lot of us dread: planning and taxes. I can't do much about taxes, but this episode is all about making planning more realistic and more fun. Most people make plans and schedules with their left brains. So you get cold, analytical plans...or even worse, daydreams about the future. That's fine if you're a big business...if you sell cola, beer, or sportswear. But if you're a solopreneur, especially if you provide a service, you have a double role. You plan and you deliver. Let's face it: there's no Planning Department for solopreneurs. So your planning has to be based on your motivations and your personality. You checked all the boxes. You filled out all the squares. You have good intentions. And...nothing happens!  That's because you engaged your left brain and not your right. It's like driving in just one gear. You might be able to get there...but you probably won't. And you'll be damaged along the way. This episode is an experiment. I presented the material in a short workshop format, so it's more educational than some episodes. I hope you'll comment and tell me how you liked it!  Some topics you'll learn about... Why storytelling helps you plan by engaging both sides of your brain 3 types of stories for planning How each story brings you different benefits and requires different aspects of what you offer How to reward yourself in a meaningful way that might seem frivolous You can also order a workbook to help you plan with stories. Go to this link and learn more. Of course, I'd also love to work with you on planning for your own business. Let's get together for a 90-minute session to discover what stories to tell. We'll identify your archetype and your brand and answer any questions you may have.  Click here to learn more. …  

In this episode of the Dover Download podcast, Deputy City Manager Christopher Parker chats with the Planning Department's Erin Bassegio and Brian Early from Media Services about January 2025's municipal updates. Bassegio discusses the master plan steering committee's first meeting to update the land use chapter, the annual Land Use Board meet and greet, and Planning Board activities. She details the board's approval of a scaled-back TDR proposal at 103 Court Street and a residential project at 114 Silver Street. Parker and Early then discuss several significant City Council decisions, including the extension of the Waste Management contract for seven years with a transition to an automated system, authorization of renovations for both the Dover Public Library and Jenny Thompson Outdoor Pool, and approval of improvements to the Garrison Hill water storage tank. Early also notes the School Board's adoption of their fiscal year 2026 budget and mentions an upcoming special session regarding an Ethics Commission report. In This Week in Dover History, we learn about Elbridge Gage, a prominent Dover citizen who passed away on Feb. 1, 1925. Gage was a successful brick manufacturer who operated three yards at Dover Point, specializing in water-struck bricks. During World War I, he adapted to labor shortages by transitioning to agriculture on his 90-acre farm. He was an active community member whose funeral at Pine Hill Cemetery drew large crowds.

In this episode of the Dover Download podcast, Deputy City Manager Christopher Parker chats with Dave Carpenter, Community Development Coordinator, and Ryan Pope, Housing Navigator, about Dover's Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program and the upcoming five-year consolidated plan. Carpenter explains that Dover has been an entitlement community since the 1970s, receiving direct federal funding to address community needs, particularly in housing and economic development. Pope discusses their current community engagement efforts, including surveys and public listening sessions, to gather input for the new consolidated plan. They highlight emerging themes such as housing affordability, housing quality, and economic development. Carpenter notes the challenges of working with limited funding and the importance of prioritizing needs effectively. The plan will go through public hearings before the Planning Board and City Council in early 2025, with final approval expected by spring. In the second segment, Parker speaks with Brian Early of Media Services and Erin Bassegio of the Planning Department about recent city developments. Early reports on the School Board's budget preparation, the Joint Building Committee's work on the Dover High School Athletic Complex, and City Council actions on the waterfront pavilion project. Bassegio details the Planning Board's December meeting, which included approvals for the Library renovation project, various residential developments, and discussion of a Court Street project. She also mentions updates from the Arts Commission and Conservation Commission, including new staff members joining the planning department.

In this episode of the Dover Download podcast, Deputy City Manager Christopher Parker chats with City Clerk Jerrica Vansylyvong-Bizier about voting in the upcoming General Election on Tuesday, Nov. 5. They discuss Dover's six polling locations, voter registration processes, absentee ballot procedures, and ballot counting methods. Vansylyvong-Bizier explains the rigorous checks and balances in place for vote counting. She also details the crucial role of poll workers, with some wards having up to 45 volunteers working from early morning until after the polls close at 7 p.m. Parker then speaks with Brian Early of Media Services and Erin Bassegio of the Planning Department about recent city government activities. They discuss several developments, including parking rate adjustments, the completion of the Dover High School construction project (coming in under budget at $87.6 million), and the approval of a public art installation on traffic control boxes in collaboration with Dover High School's National Arts Society. They also cover updates to the city's Master Plan, including the upcoming Land Use chapter revision and the near-completion of the Conservation and Open Space chapter.

At its Oct. 10 meeting, the Henrico Planning Commission issued a rare recommendation of denial, to a proposed data center and light industrial complex in the Fairfield District on the Richmond-Henrico Turnpike near its intersection with Azalea Avenue. Planning Department staff had recommended approval, but the proposal had raised opposition from nearby residents who cited noise, traffic, and environmental concerns. The property is located a mile from Henrico High School and sits near the Azalea Flea Market and an Amazon distribution center. The developer, BWS Enterprises LLC, already had modified the proposal during its consultation with the Planning department, first...Article LinkSupport the show

In this episode of the Dover Download podcast, Deputy City Manager Christopher Parker chats with Margaret Joyce and Jed Allen from the Greater Dover Chamber of Commerce about the upcoming 40th annual Apple Harvest Day on Saturday, Oct. 5, 2024. They discuss the event's growth from its humble beginnings to becoming a major regional attraction, drawing visitors from far and wide. The conversation covers various aspects of the festival, including the 5K race, the first bite ceremony, entertainment stages, and the addition of a calm area for attendees needing a break from the festivities. They highlight new features such as the US Navy Band's performance, custom cornhole boards, and the relocation of the acoustic stage. Following the update on Apple Harvest Day, Parker speaks with Brian Early from the Media Services Department and Erin Bassegio from the Planning Department about recent activity by the city's public bodies. In This Week in Dover History, we learn about the inaugural Apple Harvest Day in 1985, which featured apple-themed breakfast specials, farm stands, a Best Apple Pie contest, craft fairs, live music, parades, and even tethered hot air balloon rides.

In this episode of the Dover Download podcast, Deputy City Manager Christopher Parker chats with William Harbron, the superintendent of Dover schools, about the upcoming school year and recent developments in the district. Harbron discusses the implementation of a multi-tiered system of support (MTSS) for students, ongoing facility improvements, and his upcoming retirement. He also touches on curriculum adoptions, staffing updates, and the district's strategic planning efforts. Following this, Parker speaks with Brian Early from the Media Services Department and Erin Bassegio from the Planning Department about recent activity by the city's public bodies. Early provides updates on City Council meetings, including discussions on the parking system, library renovations, and upcoming reviews of the curbside waste and recycling collection program. Bassegio shares information on recent land use board meetings, including zoning board decisions, Conservation Commission endorsements, and Planning Board approvals. She also mentions ongoing work on the city's master plan and impact fee program.

In this episode of the Dover Download podcast, Deputy City Manager Christopher Parker chats with Dover's Facilities and Grounds Superintendent Mark Colonna, Planning Department intern John DesRoches, and Dover's Resilience Manager Jackson Kaspari about Dover's street tree replacement program. They discuss the multiple benefits of street trees, including aesthetics, drainage, reducing heat island effects, and improving public health. The conversation covers the origins of the project, the process of replacing trees, funding sources, and the importance of species diversity in urban forestry. The team explains how they're addressing the issue of ash trees infested with emerald ash borer through a phased removal and replacement approach. They also touch on the logistics of planting and maintaining new trees, including watering practices and the option for residents to donate trees. The discussion highlights the city's effort to create a resilient and diverse urban canopy by planting various species. Later, Parker and Kaspari discuss Dover's Community Power program, explaining the new electricity rates effective from August 2024 to January 2025. They outline the different renewable energy options available to residents, ranging from 24.3% to 100% renewable content, and how customers can easily switch between tiers. The conversation emphasizes the program's flexibility and its role in promoting clean energy adoption in New Hampshire.

The Henrico County Planning Department will host five listening sessions during the next several weeks to gather community feedback about the county's next comprehensive plan, dubbed Henrico NEXT, which will shape the future of the county through 2045. The meetings are designed to solicit feedback about a series of visions and goals that were crafted by planners and the county's consultant, using input from residents through a 2021 Residents' and Recreation and Parks Surveys and the 2022 Community Visioning Exercise. Planners are currently finishing the second phase of the five-phase process while simultaneously working on parts of the third and...Article LinkSupport the Show.

In this episode of the Dover Download podcast, Deputy City Manager Christopher Parker chats with Erin Bassegio, Outreach Coordinator for the Planning Department and Office of Business Development, and Jackson Kaspari, the city's Resilience Manager, about the ongoing update to the Conservation and Open Space chapter of Dover's Master Plan. They discuss the chapter's last update in 2012 and the current efforts to incorporate advanced GIS techniques, story mapping, and community feedback into the new version. The conversation covers the makeup of the steering committee, the timeline for completion (expected in the fall), and the various ways residents can engage with the project, including through a new interactive story map. They also touch on the challenges of balancing land preservation with housing needs and the importance of public access to conservation lands. The team highlights recent conservation successes, such as the Ekola family's land donation, and discusses the process of evaluating and acquiring conservation properties. In This Week in Dover History, we learn about the first sitting U.S. President to visit Dover.

Welcome to BG Podcast Episode 256! On this episode the Bingham Group CEO A.J. Bingham and Associate Hannah Garcia wrap up the week of June 10, 2024 in Austin politics, and discuss the week ahead. Highlights include:

Boyle Street has had the permit for its site revoked…again. Plus, the police have declined a public audit, and we'll talk about Sohi's polling numbers. Is it really that time already?Here are the relevant links for this episode:Guest: Jack Farrell@_jack_farrellJack Farrell at St. Albert GazetteBoyle Street / CPTEDBoyle Street denied permit to build south Edmonton overdose prevention sitePermit denied for Wolf Den overdose prevention site in EdmontonJack's tweet threadHow EPS got involved in city planning — The YEG YellerEPS CPTED trainingPolice auditEdmonton police commission refuses to release audit plan to city councilMichael Janz's tweet threadFrom the Taproot newsroomTim Querengesser, managing editorPadmanadi and Seoul Fried Chicken tackle Calgary expansions differentlyCouncil to decide if U of A's proposal to redevelop farmland into housing can start planningTaproot Edmonton's roundupsWhat are you curious about? Let us know at hello@taprootedmonton.caLRT musicNews Release: Travel to the tunes of Tchaikovsky and more in downtown LRT stationsStephanie's tweet2011: Mercury Opera's 104 Underground (an operascape)Sohi troubleEdmonton heading in 'wrong direction,' Sohi on the ropes: Leger pollPoll results show Edmonton city council faces a tough re-election roadCivic Matters: Downtown Edmonton during the Oilers' playoff runDistrict planningEdmonton district planning decision could be weeks away, signals plans may be sent back for changes'Citizens are abandoned and angry': Public speakers distrustful of Edmonton district planningRapid fireIncrease in Edmonton's paper, reusable bag fee takes effect July 1Taste of Edmonton announces presale tickets ahead of 40th anniversary'We are at risk of running out': Calgarians asked to use 25% less water than yesterdayThis episode is brought to you by the Edmonton Public Library which is hosting another instalment in its Forward Thinking Speaker Series. Don't miss Dr. Marie Wilson in conversation with Chief Wilton Littlechild on June 19. The Truth and Reconciliation Commissioners will discuss what we can do to further reconciliation across Canada. Tickets are now available for this EPL fundraiser.Speaking Municipally is produced by Taproot Edmonton, a source of curiosity-driven original stories, curated newsletters on various topics, and locally focused podcasts, all in the service of informing Edmontonians about what is going on in their community. Sign up to get The Pulse, our weekday news briefing. It's free! ★ Support this podcast ★

Shelley, Mary, and special guest Kristy Kilbourne, are back with a great episode discussing various issues that come up in the Planning Department or Planning Office and those workplace dynamics at play. This episode actually came from a listener's voicemail who was seeking advice on issues in their own workplace. We discuss topics around poor leadership, the slow movement of government or bureaucracy, finding resources, and burnout. To learn more about Kristy and her work, go to yourplanningcareer.com or her instagram at @passionateplanning. Want to be a part of the podcast? Send in an email! The team behind the upcoming Better Planners podcast wants to hear from you about the real life issues you handle as a planner. What are the honest, gritty, wicked problems you find yourself managing? To share your experiences, email betterplannerspodcast@gmail.com Your message might end up in one of the upcoming podcast episodes. You can be as anonymous or as identifiable as you want. Where to find us:Website: https://oregon.planning.org/community/betterplannerspodcast/Instagram: @betterplanners

Welcome to Sur-Urbano! Our guest today, Raquel Rolnik, may be known to many of you for her critical scholarship and prominent defense of the right to house and the city: Raquel Rolnick. Based out of Sao Paulo, Raquel is professor at the Architecture and Urbanism Department at the University of São Paulo. She has held various government positions including Director of the Planning Department of São Paulo and National Secretary for Urban Programs of the Brazilian Ministry of Cities, and between 2008 and 2014, she was the UN Special Rapporteur on adequate housing.  On this episode, we discussed one of her papers which we translated to rent-seeking landscapes, and landscapes for life: https://periodicos.ufmg.br/index.php/indisciplinar/article/view/32741 She described how new financial instruments and technologies have transformed the way we produce or relate to housing. We discussed her views about  land value capture instruments  And she ended by talking about how creativity, and resistance, rather than planning, can create new possibilities and change reality

This episode covers the Brattleboro Selectboard meeting held on April 2, 2024 and previews an upcoming regular meeting scheduled for Tuesday, April 16 as well as a special meeting scheduled for Thursday, April 25. Show notes — April 2 meeting: Meeting Material, Watch  Summer Day Camp registrations are open now. The Planning Department is holding an Open House on April 18. Super Fun Bike Day is April 20. For more updates, visit Brattleboro.gov Reach out at townmatters@brattleboro.gov

Can community theater help mend our broken and conflicted communities? In this episode Ash Hanson shares the story of what she and her many citizen collaborators have learned about how our place stories can help our communities not only heal but find new resilience and common ground.BIOAsh Hanson (she/her) has two decades of experience working with rural communities to activate stories, connect neighbors, and exercise collective imagination. She is the Creative Executive Officer (CEO) of Department of Public Transformation (DoPT) -- a nonprofit organizations that works at the intersection of creativity and civic life in rural communities. She is a member of the Center for Performance and Civic Practice Leadership Circle and she was an Artist-in-Residence in both the Planning Department at the City of Minneapolis and with the Southwest Minnesota Housing Partnership, where she employed creative community engagement strategies for equitable participation in urban and rural planning and development processes. Previously, she was the Program Director for the Minnesota Theater Alliance—where she managed statewide regional networks and resource sharing—and the Program Director for Public Art Saint Paul—where she produced large-scale participatory public art events and projects, including the Saint Paul City Artist-in-Residence program. In addition to her work with DoPT, she is the founder of PlaceBase Productions, a theater company that creates original, site-specific musicals celebrating small-town life. She holds an MA in Applied Theater with a focus on Rural Community Development, and she was named an Obama Foundation Fellow and a Bush Fellow for her work with rural communities. She believes deeply in the power of play and exclamation points! To learn more about Department of Public Transformation visit www.publictransformation.org Notable MentionsDepartment of Public Transformation: We are an artist-led nonprofit organization that works to develop creative strategies for increased community connection, civic engagement, and equitable participation in rural places. We believe in the power of rural creativity in activating solutions to address community challenges.PlaceBase Productions: Some of America's most inspiring stories are nestled in the communities of rural towns. PlaceBase Productions is using community theatre to bring these stories to life—and shift the narrative about what it means to live and work outside of big cities.Ignite Rural: Ignite Rural is an “at-home” artist residency operated by the Department of Public Transformation focused on uplifting and supporting emerging rural artists that engage in social/civic work. To be considered for the Ignite Rural program, artists must reside in rural communities with a population of 20,000 or less within the colonial state borders of Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, and the 23 Native Nations that share that geography with priority given to BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) and Native artists and culture bearers.Partnership Art. In 2015, SWMHP was one of six organizations that received funding...

With Boston facing an affordable housing crisis, Mayor Michelle Wu today signed an ordinance creating a new city agency to oversee real estate development in Boston. WBZ's Mike Macklin has more.

Melinda Taylor, Executive Director of Habitat for Humanity, joins Discover Lafayette to share the work of her organization. A native of Wichita, Kansas, Melinda has served as ED of Habitat since 2000, the year she moved to Lafayette, after serving in a similar position in Hattiesburg, MS. Interestingly, her realtor at the time of her move here in 2000 served on the board of Habitat and encouraged Melinda to apply for the first ED position to be filled here in Lafayette. Now, 24 years later, Melinda is still exemplifying what it means not only to lead, but to inspire others to volunteer and make meaningful change in our community. Habitat serves as both a building contractor and the lender for qualified clients, and helps individuals acheive homeownership who can't otherwise access the commercial lending market. Qualified Habitat clients must make less than 80% of the median income in our region. Although they are individuals with low to moderate income, they are steady in life and willing to partner and work with Habitat toward their goal of homeownership. Some may have no credit or negative credit scores, so they are unable to qualify for a conventional mortgage. Melinda points out that Habitat's clients have the capacity to make the payments of their monthly rent, which unfortunately is sometimes up to 1/3 to 1/2 of their income. It can be more expensive to rent a home in Lafayette than it is to pay for a Habitat mortgage payment. Lower rents are usually tied to substandard housing options, so applicants are eager to get into a Habitat home and enjoy an affordable, well-built, and energy efficient home. Many more applicants apply for the program than can be helped, and some people have a lot of work to do before they qualify. Habitat will send these individuals to other organizations who can help them work on their credit so that they can successfully re-apply. LCG's Community, Development & Planning Department offers a Neighborhood Counseling Service that brings in professionals to teach how to work on getting credit in better shape and stabilizing income in preparation for homeownership. Also, First Horizon's Congress St. branch offers "Hope Inside," a class that helps people work on their credit and learn about home ownership. The Louisiana Housing Corporation offers online training and financial literacy program, and assists low to moderate income individuals prepare for homeownership. Individuals who have judgments or liens against them are precluded from qualifying until these issues are cleared. It can take 18 months to two years for a successful applicant to get into their new home. Patience is needed. The journey to home ownership includes completing an educational process, volunteering time to build other Habitat homes as well as the one they will move into, and of course, the actual build time to construct the house. Funding is derived from a variety of sources and Melinda says "We never get enough funds to build the whole house. HOME grants from HUD are earmarked locally for building affordable housing, and Habitat also leverages these funds with other resources, such as in-kind and monetary donations of all sizes. In 2022, Lafayette Habitat received an unsolicited $2.5 million donation from philanthropist MacKenzie Scott. Also, as Habitat homeowners pay their mortgage, the payments go back into the process, so as they make their payments, they are paying it forward because it's reinvested back into the program." Pictured is a Women Build Team from Catalyst Bank in February 2024. Melinda Taylor says, "Volunteers really drive our work. They are the engine that keeps things going. Not just on our construction site but also at our ReStore. We have regular volunteers from the University as well as future homeowners themselves who work alongside our crew. We work with volunteers at all levels. Our crew is patient and teaches our volunteers whatever they need to know.

David Salazar speaks with us today on his experience involving youth in urban planning, working with Long Beach City College and Cal Poly Pomona to develop an associates degree in urban planning -- the first one in California, and the importance of increasing representation of Latino/a/e urban planners at the state and national level. David Salazar, FAICP is currently the Executive Director for the Long Beach Community Design Center. He has a combined 29 years of campus planning and design experience in public and private universities and colleges. He holds a bachelor's degree in Sociology from Cal State University, Long Beach; a Master of Urban and Regional Planning from Cal Poly Pomona; an Executive MBA from Claremont Graduate University and studied strategic management at Oxford and Anahuac University, Mexico. David is a member of the College of Fellows American Institute of Certified Planners, the American Planning Association, and the California Planning Roundtable. He served as an adjunct faculty member in the Urban and Regional Planning Department at Cal Poly Pomona. ________________________ Co-host: Haydee Urita-Lopez, Principal City Planner, Los Angeles City Planning Co-host: Isai Madrid, Student Professional Worker for the City of Los Angeles in the Planning Department. Co-producer: Haydee Urita-Lopez Co-producer: Betty Barberena, City Planner, Los Angeles City Planning Editor: Grecia White, New Mobility Planner, City of Boston ____________________ Plan Dulce is a podcast by the Latinos and Planning Division of the American Planning Association. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/plandulcepodcast/message

The Nevada County Board of Supervisors will hold a Special Meeting tomorrow, December 13th, where they will hear presentations from both the Planning Department staff and Rise Grass Valley. The public will also have an opportunity to weigh-in. 

Dana Okano from Hawai'i Community Foundation joins us today to talk about the needs of her home state Hawai'i, and the importance of giving back to the land that rejuvenates you. She dives into the ongoing challenge of supporting environmental and community needs. Dana and Sybil dig deeply into her freshwater initiative and many of the important priorities in Hawai'i in order to donate and support local organizations in a place that many people visit for rejuvenation.Episode Highlights:Tips and strategies for effective giving Leveraging local resources in a place that rejuvenates youFavorite grants and initiativesDana Okano Bio:Dana Okano, PhD, AICP, (she/her) is Director of the Natural Environment sector at Hawai‘i Community Foundation, and is responsible for programs such as the Hawai‘i Fresh Water Initiative, Holomua Marine Initiative, and co-chairs the Hawai‘i Environmental Funders Group. She is also Director of the EPA-funded Hawaiian Islands Environmental Finance Center, providing Technical Assistance to communities across Hawai‘i for their water needs.Prior to joining the Foundation, Dr. Okano worked for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Coral Reef Conservation Program and Coastal Zone Management Program in Saipan, CNMI. Dr. Okano also previously worked as a Planner at County of Hawai‘i Planning Department, and she began her career as a Peace Corps Volunteer serving in Benin, West Africa. Links:Holomua Marine Initiative: https://dlnr.hawaii.gov/holomua/ Hawai'i Makai Watch: http://pupukeawaimea.org/programs/makai-watch Hawai‘i Community Foundation https://www.hawaiicommunityfoundation.org If you enjoyed this episode, listen to these as well:https://www.doyourgood.com/blog/150-pooled-funds-that-protects-sharkshttps://www.doyourgood.com/blog/129-jim-enotehttps://www.doyourgood.com/blog/leveraging-public-dollarsCrack the Code: Sybil's Successful Guide to PhilanthropyBecome even better at what you do as Sybil teaches you the strategies and tools you'll need to avoid mistakes and make a career out of philanthropy.Sybil offers resources including free mini-course videos, templates, checklists, and words of advice summarized in easy to review pdfs. Check out Sybil's website with all the latest opportunities to learn from Sybil at https://www.doyourgood.com Connect with Do Your Goodhttps://www.facebook.com/doyourgoodhttps://www.instagram.com/doyourgoodWould you like to talk with Sybil directly?Send in your inquiries through her website https://www.doyourgood.com/ or you can email her directly at sybil@doyourgood.com

Get up and get informed! Here's all the local news you need to start your day: The NYPD is still searching for a suspect in connection to a double murder that happened in East Flatbush late Sunday. Also, New York City's Planning Department is asking Bronx residents what they'd want for the future of the Cross-Bronx Expressway. Plus, the MTA has begun activating on the subway's first OMNY vending machines.

Episode #103 gives you a close-up look at how down payments work. A National Association of Realtors survey in 2021 found that 29% of first-time homebuyers said the down payment was the most difficult step in the home buying process. Topics covered include: Why your down payment is important to you Why it's important to your bank Why it's okay if you aren't able to put down 20% as a down payment What are the rules for using a financial gift from your family to help with your down payment What's a good faith deposit and how does that work into your down payment A brief look at some of the first-time homebuyer programs available in California, which will be the deep dive we take in the upcoming Episode #104. Plus, some tips that might help you in your efforts to save money for your down payment Guest: Mike Shenkman, Real Estate & Mortgage Expert, lecturer in the Urban Studies and Planning Department at University of California, San Diego. Other Resources: DRE Website: https://dre.ca.gov/FirstHomeCalifornia

After United Auto Workers walk off the job, Crain's Daily Gist host Amy Guth has a look at the historic strike against the Big 3 Detroit automakers. Plus: Discover explores a sale of its student loan business; a City Hall veteran is picked to run the Planning Department, at least for now; a measure to eliminate Chicago's tipped wage takes a step forward; and Crain's reporters Corli Jay and Ally Marotti discuss what dollar stores cost Chicago's South and West side communities.

Show Notes: David Block, a graduate of Harvard, had always been interested in cities since he was a child. He decided to explore his interest in cities and their physical aspects, rather than people or economics. But since Harvard does not offer undergraduate architecture major,  so he took a year off from Harvard to study at Columbia University's program, "The Shape of Two Cities," which offered a comprehensive introduction to architecture, urban planning, and urban history. The program was divided into two parts and took place in both New York and Paris. He decided to apply to architecture, so upon graduating, he applied to architecture schools. He went to Princeton for one semester, but dropped out due to the program's focus on post-structuralist or literary thinking. He eventually returned to the Midwest and transferred to Washington University, where he enjoyed a more pragmatic and focused program. David's journey to becoming an architect was marked by a shift in focus from making cities and buildings to power dynamics and the influence they can have on society.  David was hired as a graduate student staff for the Mayor's Institute on City Design Midwest, a program of the National Endowment for the Arts, designed to bring mayors of cities of all sizes around the country together. They covered 12 states and worked with city planners, council people, and economic development specialists to identify key economic development and urban development challenges facing midsize cities. The program was held at Washington University each fall and brought together nationally recognized experts in architecture, urban planning, and economic development. David graduated from the School of Architecture and later returned to Boston, where he worked for several firms.  Working for an Affordable Housing Developer  In 2000, David moved to Providence, where he could afford a house. He was hired at the Providence office of the nonprofit affordable housing developer, Community Builders. He spent five years working at the Providence office and worked on several projects around New England, including the Hope Six redevelopment, Dutch Pointe complex, Mill Village revitalization project, and a new library. In 2006, David moved to Chicago, where he joined the growing Chicago office of Community Builders. He was hired at TCB where he was involved in several of the phases of projects, including the development of a rec center and many mixed-use urban developments. He worked there for 12 and half years before he was offered the opportunity to really help build a new, national, affordable housing development practice at Evergreen Real Estate in Chicago He became involved in adaptive reuse projects, converted old ice cream factories into loft housing, and converted former Art Deco hospital buildings into senior housing.  One of the most exciting projects is the one that created the biggest splash for Evergreen in terms of national growth. David's department was selected by Mayor Rahm Emanuel to do buildings that combined a new Chicago Public Library neighborhood branch with affordable senior housing on prominent sites in several neighborhoods in Chicago. He worked with talented architects, including John Ronan, who was the only Chicago-based architect to be a finalist for the Obama Library. He also worked with Perkins and Will, an international firm based in Chicago, on a small neighborhood project in his hometown. David believes that his projects have had an important impact on cities and neighborhoods, providing much-needed affordable housing opportunities in markets where there is a growing need for affordable housing.  Barriers to Building Affordable Housing Barriers to building affordable housing include the involvement of minority groups (NIMBYs) and the “not in my backyard” backlash. Some states, like St. Paul, Minnesota, and California, are considering creating opportunities for developers to override local zoning concerns to get affordable housing done, however, David is a big proponent of working with local communities to find a solution that everyone wants to see. However, sometimes, people's concerns are not rational and cannot be rationally argued. In such cases, additional tools involving state involvement in local zoning may be needed. He also talks about the impact of COVID on the supply chains and labor shortages that impact construction.  Barriers to Single-Use Occupancy Buildings David explores the concept of single room occupancy (SRO) buildings as they were once viable for people who were homeless or unstable. However, zoning restrictions have made it difficult to build such buildings, making them more expensive. The current thinking is that housing for a homeless or near homeless population should include services to address underlying issues, such as mental health or drug addiction. The challenge is to find funding and staff for these services in an incredibly resource-constrained environment. National statistics show a $3-7 million dollar shortfall in housing units nationally, and the vulnerable, homeless, mentally ill, or drug addicted population are the ones who are least able to compete for housing. This leads to a massive societal crisis.  Cost of Construction and Development of a Housing Unit The primary system for building affordable housing dates back to the Reagan tax reform of 1986 and the creation of the Low Income Housing Tax Credit. Back then, a housing unit could be built for under $100,000, and the tax credit functioned well in that model.  However, today, construction and development of a housing unit is approaching a million dollars, even in Chicago. The financing model for affordable housing is at a crisis point, with regulatory requirements, union and prevailing wage requirements, and the sheer layers of financing involved. The question of whether the government should follow the old public housing model of the 1930s and 1940s is a question that has been answered by the better-maintained housing built with tax credits, market exposure, and oversight by banks and regulatory agencies. In conclusion, the current model for affordable housing is at a critical point, and it is unclear where to go from here. While the intentions are right, the financing model may be at a breaking point, and there is no definitive answer to where to go from here. The Issue of Empty Commercial Real Estate Post-COVID Post-COVID, many cities are experimenting with various opportunities for redevelopment. In Chicago, the city's Planning Department has put out an RFP for the redevelopment of several buildings along LaSalle Street, which is known for its historic 1920s and 30s Art Deco buildings. These buildings need significant work to adapt to residential use, particularly the newer ones. Cities are offering varying degrees of funding to address these problems, with the city of Chicago offering significant TIF tax increment financing. San Francisco is struggling with this issue, with a giant shopping mall in the middle of the city that the owners have just handed back to their lender. David talks about ways to follow a career path in urban development, however, he states that it is crucial for individuals with an extremely broad range of interests to understand the challenges and opportunities in repurposing these buildings for residential use. Influential Courses and Professors at Harvard David, an English major at Harvard, credits his English classes with inspiring insights into English literature and poetry. He took three classes with Helen Vendler, an expert on Yeats. These classes opened his eyes to the importance of artistic and creative matters in advancing meaningful conversations. Another professor was Derek Pearsalll, who taught Chaucer. David's passion for great design for housing and working with talented architects has led to the creation of beautiful buildings that can be part of urban neighborhoods. He believes that the ultimate test of his work is whether it will stand the test of time, as he believes that buildings that stand the test of time are a work of art. Timestamps: 08:45 Working as an architect in Boston 14:43 Working at TCB.Inc in Louisville, Kentucky 24:44 The impact of zoning restrictions on development 30:00 Permanent supportive housing 33:10 Why affordable housing is so expensive 36:08 On empty commercial real estate post COVID 38:57 The difference between older buildings and newer buildings 39:34 Architectural code rules on light and air  Links:  Website: https://www.evergreenreg.com/  

There's nothing more important when buying a home than money. This episode focuses on helping you figure out how much home you can afford, and how to be comfortable with what you're going to spend for your first home. Our guest is Mike Shenkman, who has more than 20 years of experience in California's real estate industry. He's also a lecturer in the Urban Studies and Planning Department at UC San Diego. More at: https://dre.ca.gov/FirstHomeCalifornia

The Cayman Islands Government announces a two-day period of national mourning for former MLA Captain Eldon Kirkconnell A Hazard Management Cayman Islands' Hazard Mitigation Specialist recently supported the Planning Department by offering damage assessment training for the Damage and Economic Assessment Emergency Support Team in the National Emergency Operations Centre Police are investigating a possible Firearm Incident in Watering Place, Cayman Brac that took place June 27th A developer is told to remove containers being used as houses and a duplex after a recent meeting by the Central Planning Authority.    A new report shows that while 87% of the reefs surveyed in Little Cayman are in “good” or “very good” health…the types of corals thriving there…are changing. Government's Wellness Committee is raising awareness of gender violence with the viewing of the 2022 film “Alice, Darling,” at Camana Bay Cinema... the Committee's third annual movie night --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/rcnews/message

In our final "Outside In Thinking" episode, Ian Murray and Andrew Tenzer of Burst Your Bubble suggest turning our outward facing tools inward to address our cultural and professional disconnects. This series sponsored by The Planning Department.

In this episode, I am joined by a guest co-host, Konnie Dobreva and we feature Jenny Delumo.  Jenny is a Senior Planner and Transportation Review Team lead at the San Francisco Planning Department where she reviews complex transportation projects for environmental impacts and works on transportation policy. In addition to transportation and environmental planning, she has experience in sustainable development, redevelopment, and inter-agency collaboration.  Jenny discusses the importance of finding a mentor, being a mentor, and being a champion for others' success. Join us as we learn about Jenny's approach to leadership as an environmental professional. 

Ep#3 in our Outside-In Thinking series, Helen Edwards (columnist, author, prof) describes how fringe behaviors mainstream. We talk about what they are, how to discover them in your category and the audiences most likely to ignite them. This series is sponsored by The Planning Department.

Ep#2 in our Outside-In Thinking series features Andrew Hovells. We talk about his decision to live outside the bubble of London in order to regain perspective. Thanks to The Planning Department for sponsoring this series.

Ep#1 of our "Outside-In Thinking" series features Steven Lacey of The Outsiders, a cultural consultancy in London. He shares how our industry can break out of fishbowl thinking in order to deliver real value. This series sponsored by The Planning Department.

How will Colorado Springs' updated zoning and subdivision ordinance make our community more sustainable and resilient? City of Colorado Springs Planning Supervisor Morgan Hester shares important details about RetoolCOS. The City of Colorado Springs City Council recently adopted the first comprehensive update of the City's zoning and subdivision ordinance in several decades.  The 3-year process has been spearheaded by the Planning Department and is known as the RetoolCOS project, which will result in a Unified Development Code (UDC) to establish a new, modern, and more user-friendly approach to zoning and subdivision regulations as directed by PlanCOS, the 2019 Council-adopted comprehensive plan, to fit the needs of the City.  The zoning and subdivision ordinance governs how property owners can use their land, including regulations such as building height, setbacks between properties and rights-of-ways, and what uses are permitted. The zoning and subdivision ordinance also describes the procedures for subdividing property or undertaking a development project.  Learn more at https://coloradosprings.gov/project/retoolcos-zoning-ordinance-update. This episode was recorded at the Sustainability in Progress  (SIP) virtual event on February 15, 2023. Sustainability in Progress is a monthly program of the Peak Alliance for a Sustainable Future. Join us (free) the third Wednesday of every month. The mission of Peak Alliance for a Sustainable Future is to promote regional sustainability and advance the Pikes Peak region's sustainability plan (PPR2030) through regional collaboration and outreach. Connect with us at peakalliance.org The following environment/sustainability organizations in the Pikes Peak region collaborate to produce the Peak Environment podcast about environmental stewardship, sustainable living and enlightened public policy in the Pikes Peak Region. Peak Alliance for a Sustainable Future https://www.peakalliance.co/ Pikes Peak Permaculture https://www.pikespeakpermaculture.org/ GrowthBusters https://www.growthbusters.org Keep up with all the organizations and events making our area a better place to live. Follow on your favorite podcast app so you don't miss an episode:    

This episode carries content warnings for distorted and layered vocals (00:30 - 01:10), discussion of workplace injuries, discussion of medical debt, and discussion of slavery and indentured servitude. For three years, the Bilateral Intercession has held Palisade under blockade. The Pact of Free States holds just beyond Nideo space, waiting in the dark for an opportunity to strike. The Qui'Err Coalition's fleet hovers at the edge of the Mirage, a flock around the Brink. Millennium Break's strike force hides in the shadow of Palisade's moon, Travertine.  Something must give. Someone must move.  And that is when Perennial whispers into an ear she's taken as her own, giving the Witch in Glass a new task and reminding her of an old law: Everything that has happened before will happen again.  And so she moves. The Witch in Glass is fearless, and after all, she has two Divines on her side. The revivified corpse of Past and, of course, the Adversary herself. So she leads the Reflecting Pool (and its many attack wings) crashing through the blockade and driving Crystal Palace once more into the ground--albeit in a much more controlled way this time. It is only hours days after making landfall that the Witch departs the city, joined by Emmeline, her attache, but leaving behind her most loyal supporters. She leaves behind two orders: First, that they must turn their wider landing zone into a city worthy of her rule before she returns. Second, that the city must carry the name which came to her as she browsed Past's ruined archives one night, taken from a kingdom that once ruled vast expanses of the Quire desert: the Crown of Glass. And with no further words, she wanders out into the wilderness–everything that has happened before will happen again–leaving behind only a group of the ship's de facto leaders to see to the new city's repairs and re-establishment. This week on the Road to PALISADE: City Planning Department Records Recovered from the Divine, Arbitrage Factions The Bilateral Intercession: This faction, made up primarily from Stel Nideo and Kesh assets, was formerly known as the Curtain. The rebranding comes as part of a “civil coup” performed by Cynosure Whitestar-Kesh. In a move that surprised no group more than the Curtain themselves, Cynosure spent years growing in confidence and power, until that intelligence organization could be once again reduced to a tool. Still defined by their traditionalism, they wield their control on culture, religion, and history as a weapon—and the extensive spy network for which they are named when those come up short. The Pact of Free States: While the Bilateral Intercession's name change reflects a shift in leadership and posture for the Curtain, the shift from “The Pact of Necessary Venture” to “The Pact of Free States” is simply the public acceptance of what was already widely understood to be true. Led in name by Dahlia, the Glorious Princept, and in day-to-day operation by senior members of Stels Apostolos and Columnar, the Pact paint themselves as liberal reformists whose aim is to increase the degree of autonomy in each of the Stels, such that they become in reality five separate nations. Hypha & Ashen: The former were a culture of galactic nomads, guided by a paranatural force called the Strand which they could commune with using technological devices built into their antlers. The latter are their descendants, their routes broken by the Principality's expansions and occupations, their culture ripped from them.  The Branched: A post-human culture from the Golden Branch star sector who have transformed their bodies into spectacular forms, but who are now weighed down by an endless war with the Principality. Persons Apparatus Aperitif (they/them), Shunley Pernard (they/them), Antonina Juris (she/her), Plum Tort (he/him), and Kojack Variety (he/him): The leading council members of the Crown in Glass, the city built from the fallen ship the Reflecting Pool. The Witch in Glass (she/her): A former scion of Kesh who, after knitting a bond with the adversary Perennial, came into control of the body of the Divine Past. Now scours the galaxy for the lost, injured, and unsure, recruiting them into her growing city-state. A shaky ally of Millennium Break. “Haunted” by an old foe. Exanceaster March (he/him): Head of the vast Columnar multi-system conglomerate called the Frontier Syndicate, which is older than the Stel itself. While the Syndicate has its hands in many enterprises, the heart of it all is corralling and instrumentalizing data. One such effort, Exanceaster's pet project the March Anecdatist Foundation, set its sights on Palisade as a testing ground. Locations The Bontive Valley: When the fledgling Divine Principality left Palisade—for reasons unknown by most—those few who refused to leave (unwilling to see themselves become part of a new empire) remained in quiet isolation, blessed by the gifts of the Divine Bounty. Where that Divine is now remains a mystery. Miscellany The Perennial Wave: Perennial is something like a god, or at least I think she imagines she is. Her wave is her arrogant whim, made manifest. Functionally infinite nano-particles, spread throughout the galaxy, hampering all technology except (curiously) Divines.  Kalmeria Particle: A so-called miracle of modern science, providing those that master it power akin to what was wielded before the Perennial Wave. Like most miracles, there is an explanation, but most people have neither the knowledge of nor interest in what it really is or where it came from. Some know that it is named for the rogue engineer Kal'Mera Broun, but few know that it is the result not only of their research into the divine Asepsis, but also the particular consequences of Millennium Break's battle with Motion and her siphoning of so-called “Autonomy Itself.”  Hosted by Austin Walker (@austin_walker)  Featuring Ali Acampora (@ali_west), Janine Hawkins (@bleatingheart), Keith J Carberry (@keithjcarberry), and Andrew Lee Swan (@swandre3000) Produced by Ali Acampora and Austin Walker Music by Jack de Quidt (available on bandcamp) Text by Austin Walker Cover Art by Craig Sheldon (@shoddyrobot) You can buy City Planning Department right here: https://kaelandm.itch.io/city-plannin...

I began writing this from Dallas, Texas this morning, where yesterday USC suffered a heartbreaking loss in what was one of the most exciting Cotton Bowl games ever. I am back in Newport now, where tomorrow morning we reveal the new large office expansion to our team (same floor, same building). It has been a labor of love, I assure you. We have added new advisor offices (we have a new advisor starting in Newport Beach and another new one starting in Nashville next week), but mostly the Newport expansion houses new members of our Tax Department, Planning Department, Research, and Trading. It is really beautiful space. Today's DC Today is the normal Monday format of DC Today and, obviously, the kick-off to 2023! There is a 27-page white paper coming Friday in the Dividend Cafe providing the most comprehensive recap of 2022 and forecasts for 2023 we think you will find anywhere. I hope you find it to be a labor of love, too. Links mentioned in this episode: TheDCToday.com DividendCafe.com TheBahnsenGroup.com

On December 6, 2022, SPUR and UC Davis law professor Chris Elmendorf stopped by our the Living Room for a conversation about San Francisco's notorious “Nordstrom's parking lot” housing development and the implications for future housing policy around the state. In 2021, San Francisco's Board of Supervisors rejected a proposal for a 495 unit building on the site of a Nordstrom's valet parking lot. Even though the city's Planning Department had completed its review and approved the project, supervisors rejected the recommendation, sending the project back with dubious demands for additional environmental review. Prof. Elmendorf discusses the relationship between the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), and the state's Housing Accountability Act (HAA), the 469 Stevenson fallout and potential solutions. If you want to understand why San Francisco's housing landscape is so frustrating, be sure to check out this episode. About SPUR: SPUR — the San Francisco Bay Area Planning and Urban Research Association — is a nonprofit public policy organization. SPUR brings people together from across the political spectrum to develop solutions to the big problems cities face. Based in San Francisco, San José and Oakland, it is recognized as a leading civic planning organization and respected for an independent and holistic approach to urban issues. Follow SPUR's channel @theurbanistchannelspur2461. About Prof. Elmendorf: Chris Elmendorf is the Martin Luther King, Jr. Professor of Law at UC Davis and a leading scholar of land use and housing issues. He has published widely in top law reviews and political science journals. He is the author (with Tim Duncheon) of “When Super-statutes Collide: CEQA, the Housing Accountability Act, and Tectonic Change in Land Use Law,” forthcoming in the Ecology Law Quarterly. Last year, he advised SPUR on a bill, AB 2656, that addressed the CEQA-HAA conflict. He provides commentary on California housing issues via Twitter @CSElmendorf. About us: Manny's is the space where the community comes together to take part in civic and political life. Our community extends from our neighbors in the Mission, to all of San Francisco, the Bay Area, California, the United States and the world. We are the modern day town hall or village square, where anyone can meet and engage with civic leaders, elected officials, artists, activists, change makers and each other. Come here for a great cup of coffee, a new book and great conversations and events. Follow us at @welcometomannys on all social platforms.

On this midweek show, Seattle City Councilmember Tammy Morales stops by to discuss Seattle's Comprehensive Plan with Crystal and how this roadmap, which determines the manner in which the City accommodates growth, plays a critical role in issues that affect our day-to-day lives. Councilmember Morales fills us in on how the Comp Plan and its impending update is an opportunity for us to create a vision for what our communities look like, whether it be addressing historic inequities, tackling climate change, or realizing sustainable, healthy, connected neighborhoods across the City. The show wraps up with details on how to get involved with the Comprehensive Plan update and guide what Seattle looks and feels like in the future. As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Follow us on Twitter at @HacksWonks. Find the host, Crystal Fincher, on Twitter at @finchfrii and find Councilmember Morales at @CMTammyMorales.   Councilmember Tammy Morales Councilmember Tammy J. Morales was elected to the Seattle City Council in 2019. As an experienced community organizer and advocate, Morales worked for the Rainier Beach Action Coalition and served as a Seattle Human Rights Commissioner. Morales is trained as a community and regional planner, and has spent her career working with frontline communities on local issues including food security, displacement in low-income neighborhoods and community-centered development. Morales previously served as a Legislative Director for a state representative in Texas, as a city budget analyst in New York, and ran a successful consulting firm on food access research and programming, with clients such as the City of Seattle and King County. Morales has been a Seattle resident for nearly 20 years. She is a mom with three kids - two in the Seattle Public School system and one a proud Viking at Portland State.   Resources “Seattle Reveals Rezoning Concepts and Invites Scoping Comments for Big 2024 Update” by Doug Trumm from The Urbanist   Seattle 2035 Comprehensive Plan | Office of Planning & Community Development   One Seattle Plan | Office of Planning & Community Development   Seattle Within Reach - Presented by Councilmember Tammy Morales - A town hall series about how we build a Seattle in which everyone has the ability to live, work and play - within reach   One Seattle Plan Community Meeting Series - In-person community meetings throughout Seattle   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington State through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. Today, I am so thrilled to be welcoming back to the program, Seattle City Councilmember Tammy Morales. Welcome back. [00:00:47] Councilmember Tammy Morales: Hi, Crystal. I'm so happy to be here. [00:00:49] Crystal Fincher: So happy to have you here again, thankful for all of the hard work you've been doing, and how you've been pushing throughout the budget process in Seattle - very helpful, and I think especially those connected to community and community organizations - have been appreciating how you've been listening and trying to move in concert with community. And hopefully things turn out well on the backend. But today we're actually going to talk about the Seattle Comprehensive Plan, which is a whole undertaking. So I guess starting out, what is the Comprehensive Plan? What is this thing and why do we do it? [00:01:36] Councilmember Tammy Morales: Sure. So the plan is really a guide for us about how, as a city, we plan to accommodate growth - where that growth will go. It's really a vision and kind of a roadmap for where we plan to locate housing, where we think job centers should go, also how we invest in transportation, where we might put parks, utilities. It is technically a requirement from the State Legislature. In 1990, the Legislature adopted the Growth Management Act, and that does require the City to prepare a Comprehensive Plan really for how we will grow over the next 20 years. So we update this - every plan has to include what they call elements, which is basically different chapters that need to be included. So ours includes land use, housing, transportation, parks and open space, utilities - there's a couple others in there - capital facilities, port because we are on a port. And it really does regulate development so that we can curb sprawl. It was really intended to be a way to help protect environmentally sensitive areas surrounding urban areas - in our case, to make sure that we are protecting our farmland, our waterways in King County. So we are required to do this, and it is also a way for us, importantly, to be very intentional about how we plan to grow as a city. [00:03:27] Crystal Fincher: Very good points. And I want to just dive a little more into the issue of sprawl. It's a buzzword that I think a lot of people have heard, but maybe don't understand completely or why sprawl is such an issue. What is sprawl and why do we try to avoid it? [00:03:48] Councilmember Tammy Morales: So sprawl is really where we start to grow - we start to build housing, business parks, warehouse space, all kinds of ways that cities tend to grow - outside of what might be their seeming boundaries. And it is problematic for lots of different reasons. As I said, in our case, because we could potentially start to grow into our farmland and Washington is a very important agricultural producer and we do rely heavily on our own agricultural production just for our own consumption. It's also important because we are trying to address the very urgent crisis of climate change. And so it's important that as a city, we really try to grow in a way that allows us to have more compact neighborhoods, that really relies on public transit so that people can get around. And it's really also an attempt to try to reduce our carbon emissions as a city so that we can curb what is increasingly really problematic greenhouse gas emissions. [00:05:17] Crystal Fincher: Great point - all valid. And then, especially with sprawl - sprawl is expensive. I think we see a lot of this - it's a little more challenging in the City of Seattle, which is built out to a lot of its boundaries - and a lot of what we're talking about is how to redevelop stuff, but you can really see it in a number of our suburbs and rural areas. South King County used to actually be a very fertile agricultural area. Kent used to be known as the lettuce capital of the United States. [00:05:53] Councilmember Tammy Morales: Indeed. [00:05:54] Crystal Fincher: But - I'm here for your Kent history facts - but as the city grew and houses took over that, industrial lands took over that - warehouses, commercial space - and really paved over agricultural land, which I think some people might reconsider if they had to do it all over again today. Certainly not all of it, portions of it, would have been nicer to preserve - but wetlands, environmental areas, and just growth is expensive. This is city infrastructure that you have to build out, that has a cost, and then you have to maintain. And we talk about needing to handle our existing infrastructure and build more of - and complete the infrastructure, like sidewalks - [00:06:44] Councilmember Tammy Morales: Absolutely. [00:06:45] Crystal Fincher: - and bike paths to help everyone get along. And now we're building out further and basically expanding the map of what the City is responsible to do. And oftentimes that's not captured in the cost of development, and that's not captured in the existing tax scheme. So that just ends up adding additional costs, additional responsibilities to the City - which we want to avoid. So coming out of this Growth Management Act - basically mandate underneath it - it's a way to strategically manage growth - which happens. We can't stop it despite weird debate questions that I hear about like - Should we stop growth? That's not really an option. People move to the area. We can't stop them from moving to the area. Usually not a good sign when people don't want to move to the area. So good things are happening. Good things attract people. And that's what we've seen. Now, the City adopted the current 2035 plan as of 2016. So is this going to be redoing this plan? Is this revisiting this plan? What is happening with this? [00:07:51] Councilmember Tammy Morales: Yes. So we - as I said, the requirement is to do these for every 20 years. And so it is our time to update our plan. And this is a real opportunity for us, because one thing that we have seen as a city - that our Office of Planning and Community Development has made clear, that our City Planning Commission has made clear - is that the way we have used this Comprehensive Plan in the past has really contributed to some of the inequities that we see in the City. And this is an opportunity for us to update the growth strategy that we have had in the past. It's a chance for us to address the displacement that we have had in the City. And really create a vision for a sustainable city that supports healthy neighborhoods, that creates safe places for people - so it is an important opportunity for us. And we have begun those discussions, which I'm sure we'll talk a little bit later about how folks can get involved, but it's important for us to take a look at this periodically because as we've discovered now, the current Comprehensive Plan really created an equity gap in housing and jobs. And this is an opportunity for us to address that. [00:09:21] Crystal Fincher: How did it create that equity gap? What in it made that happen? [00:09:27] Councilmember Tammy Morales: As a city, I will say we have a history of planning without real consideration for communities of color and how they will be impacted. The Chinatown-International District was split when I-5 was put in. We have a history of redlining in the City that really kept Black families and Jewish families and others from purchasing homes in most of the City. Even the very founding of the City on unceded land - over time, all of these decisions compound the effect on communities and really have a negative impact on the ability of these families and their children to grow generational wealth. It affects the ability of these communities to stay intact and has contributed to displacement. So there's a lot of reasons why we need to take a look at this. So part of the reason for these problems is that we have a 25-year-old strategy that is really centered on this idea of urban villages and urban centers. Effectively, what that means is that multifamily apartment buildings - the ability for them to get built - has really been squeezed into corridors - major transit corridors, arterials, and these urban villages. So that's where we put all of our apartments, while most of the City is reserved for single-family homes. And this has really created a tale of two cities, if you will, where wealthy homeowners can live in mostly single-family neighborhoods, and lower-income or even middle-income people get pushed into these corridors where apartments are allowed. There's all kinds of reasons why that is problematic, not the least of which is that it creates environments where lots of housing and the people and children and elders living in that housing are on, in many cases, dangerous roads exposed to higher auto emissions. It just creates this cascade of problems for the people who are living in those areas. So there's, as I said, an opportunity for us to rethink that particular strategy and rethink how we can create a more equitable array of options for where people live and what they're able to afford. [00:12:21] Crystal Fincher: So what are the options, the alternatives being considered? [00:12:25] Councilmember Tammy Morales: We've got several. There are five different options that the Office of Planning and Community Development are looking at. All of them are intended in some ways to address this. I will say - I think part of the priority for this phase that we're in right now - we're in this kind of research phase called the Environmental Impact Statement that they are drafting, and that will be looking at five different options. The first is basically No Action, so just continue to follow the existing plan that we have - putting most of our housing in urban centers and urban villages. There's one that they're calling Focused. Each of them basically offers slightly broader perimeters around these urban centers where different types of housing can be built. And so that is the conversation that we will be having over the course of the next year is - what do these different alternatives mean? What's the difference between an urban village and an urban center? What does it mean to build along a corridor versus building more broadly throughout a neighborhood? Does my neighborhood have an industrial center? - because that's another piece of the decision making that happens here. And so throughout the next year, we will be talking about the different ways that we could be building. How broadly do we want to move into what is now - well, it used to be called single-family zoning - now everything is called Neighborhood Residential zoning. So how much do we want to change the kind of housing that's allowed in these different areas? And that will be the discussion. We know that we have grown so fast as a city, faster than I think anybody anticipated. And we didn't plan for that. We grew by almost 130,000 people between 2010 and 2020, but we only built 70,000 new homes in that same time period. So as an example - I know a lot of people think there's housing going up everywhere, we're building too much - but the reality is that we are short over 20,000 units of apartments that would be affordable for middle-income folks - and I think that's the key. The way we have grown, the housing that we've produced has not been housing that is affordable for working class families. And so that needs to be a really key part of the discussion, because one thing we know for sure is that Seattle can't keep looking the way it does right now if we're serious about addressing equity. [00:15:42] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. [00:15:44] Councilmember Tammy Morales: And so part of the discussion - we'll just have to ask ourselves what kind of changes need to be made so that everyone can find housing that they can afford in the City. [00:15:56] Crystal Fincher: So now we're in a place where we're reexamining this, there are some other options - does it pretty much look like no matter what happens that we're going to be expanding the areas that new housing can be built in? Does that look like a uniform feature of the options moving forward? [00:16:15] Councilmember Tammy Morales: Yes, absolutely. The real question and the conversation will have to be about how far we push. I think there is an interest in allowing more - not just more types of housing, allowing it in more places, more parts of the City - but also allowing a mix of uses. So one of the things that we've been talking about, I've been talking about a lot in my office, is the need to make sure that we have better access to essential services so that we have not just - I'm not interested in just building more units of housing. I think it's important for us to contemplate how we build healthy neighborhoods. And that means that we have small businesses allowed - we allow for more neighborhood commercial space so that everyone can have easy access to a corner store or a small grocery, to childcare, to healthcare, to your bank - credit union, to a neighborhood hardware store. These are the things that help people navigate through their neighborhoods, have access to the essential goods and services that they need - without having to get in a car. And that's how we have the kind of healthy, more vibrant neighborhoods that can also lead us to the climate goals that we have - by reducing our reliance on getting into a car to do everything. [00:17:58] Crystal Fincher: Which makes a lot of sense. And as we go through this plan, obviously considerations about how we do need to proceed while reaching our climate goals is very, very important. I'm also curious about - talking about building those communities, which those - evidence shows that those are healthier communities, safer communities when they are built like that all the way around. I'm also thinking about just the environmental injustices that have been created by the current way the community is designed and situated, where we have places in Seattle that have average lifespans six and seven years shorter than other areas in the same city - but because of proximity to pollution, because of all of the other factors just from an environmental external perspective that are weighing on these communities, whether it's proximity to pollutants or carcinogens or things that exacerbate asthma, whether it's being in close proximity to roadways and freeways, underneath flight paths - those things all take tolls on health. How, as you move forward in this Comprehensive Plan, are you also looking to make sure that we mitigate environmental harms that have been done and move to prevent future harm? [00:19:20] Councilmember Tammy Morales: Sure. You make a really good point, Crystal. And I have many of the neighborhoods in my district that do suffer from those health disparities. Georgetown and SoDo and Beacon Hill, the Chinatown-International District - all of these neighborhoods are literally under the highways or along the Duwamish, where air and water quality are affected. And look, the truth is we just can't keep building housing in unhealthy neighborhoods, and the idea that we should build apartments along busy arterials and make low-income people live there does not promote equity and it does not promote public health. So we really do need to be looking at how we reduce emissions, how we support climate resiliency. One of the things that we're working on right now in the budget process is creating Resilience Hubs, so creating the ability in some of our community centers for people to go and be safe during an extreme heat event or a smoke event. So we are planning for these kinds of climate disasters, and we can't at the same time acknowledge that we have to take those steps and still allow for our growth management strategies to include restricting people's ability to find housing only to arterials. So I think there will need to be some analysis of our internal consistency in some of our different city policies, but absolutely climate change is one of the elements for our Comprehensive Plan update and needs to be a part of what we think about. Another important piece of that is transportation. Something like 30% of our City households are not within a 10-minute access to transit. And I will say - in this particular case, it is not necessarily a racial equity issue because the truth is that it is often fairly exclusive neighborhoods that have less bus service. But for the purpose of meeting our carbon emission reduction goals, we absolutely need more bus service in those neighborhoods too. And we really just have to move from this idea of isolated urban villages to a city of neighborhoods that are well-connected, that are within a walkshed of high-capacity transit, frequent reliable buses. We need safer sidewalks. We need protected bike lanes. We really have to encourage people to get out of their cars. But the truth is that as long as they don't have a safe, easy alternative, people will keep driving. And so we need to make alternatives the easy choice. And I think that has to be part of our conversation over the next year - is how do we create a city that is more sustainable and that protects both the climate and our public health? [00:22:48] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I think that makes perfect sense. And to your point, this is the opportunity, I think, to really think about and imagine what your neighborhood could be, to really think about the potential that lays ahead and how to capture it. So many times we're forced to think about settling for so many things. Yes, we don't have current transit service that is sufficient - so if I am going to get to work, and pick the kids up from daycare, and make it to a sports practice, or something like that - I have to have my car right now. That's what the current conditions force. But if we are looking ahead to - okay, how can we design our city and how can we design a blueprint that we can build upon that enables these better things? - Why don't we implement that? Why don't we do that? And I think it's a really exciting thing. I'm also a former land use and planning board member, so this is exciting to me. I know a lot of people initially look at it and go - okay, this sounds so boring. [00:24:08] Councilmember Tammy Morales: No, I can totally geek out on this. [00:24:11] Crystal Fincher: Yes! But it does impact the way your community, the way your neighborhood looks today - from where and how you park or don't have to park, to what traffic looks like, to what school drop off and pick up, which if you have done that, it's usually a trial and a tribulation, to where your daycare is, to what your commute is - all of those things. If you have to fit in a doctor's appointment, do you have to drive 20 miles away or is it right in the neighborhood? Just all of those things are so key to quality of life, so key to being able to have time for yourself, for your family, for your own pursuits outside of just working and coming home, but even just how you work and then go home, or maybe you're working from home - is all impacted by this design. And so this is an exciting thing for people within the City to get engaged in. And there are a lot of mechanisms built in for engagement with people in the community. What are those? [00:25:24] Councilmember Tammy Morales: Sure. I'm going to give a shameless plug for a series of conversations that I've been having to try to help folks understand this. It's called Seattle Within Reach. We've had, I think, five conversations with folks about some of these different topics. It's not just me, it's people from around the country - actually around the world, a couple international folks too. So you can find links to those conversations on my Seattle City Council website. But we are also - the City is doing a series of community meetings that I do think it's really important for people to participate in. This will be a chance to learn more about the plan itself, to talk with City staff, and other folks from the community. There are several community meetings. The next one is going to be Thursday, December 1st at Langston Hughes at 6 o'clock. There's one at South Seattle College, December 8th. There's one December 12th - so there are several. They're all in the evening from 6-8 PM in different parts of the city. And we can provide a link on my website, or you can go to the City's Office of Planning and Community Development website and get more information there. But this is just the next set of community conversations. There is going to be a lot of community engagement for this process. Our Department of Neighborhoods is working closely with the Planning Department as well. We're working with interpreters, with community-based organizations, particularly those who work with immigrant populations to make sure that they get materials that are interpreted, that there are folks who speak different languages who can provide information. So I would say - please reach out to my office. If you don't live in the South End, reach out to your own councilmember to learn more about ways to get involved. But this is going to be a really important opportunity for neighbors to weigh in on what they want the city to look like, the kind of changes you want to see, and the things that you really think should be prioritized in how the City plans for the next 20 years. [00:27:53] Crystal Fincher: That makes sense. So as you're looking through this process, is there anything in particular that you're looking to make sure happens, or any specific changes that you're really trying to implement in this process? [00:28:09] Councilmember Tammy Morales: As I said earlier, I am really interested in this idea of mixed communities. This is a chance to set a vision for healthy, resilient neighborhoods, to rethink how we grow so that our kids and our elders, and really just our neighbors, can enjoy their own neighborhood without having to drive. I think we have a chance to really increase the kind of housing that we have - this crazy real estate market has been driving a lot of the displacement, so we need to take land out of the speculative market and keep it in community land trusts, for example. We can also take City land off the market and lease it for social housing development, and this would really help keep housing permanently affordable. Because the idea there is that the construction of the housing would be on City-owned land, so it helps ensure permanent affordability. So there are a lot of really interesting ideas that we can start to talk about. We're already talking about some of them in this budget process. I'm not saying it's going to be easy to make some of these adjustments to how we think about growth and about the systems that we have in place now, but that's the point of the Comprehensive Plan - is to rethink the systems that we've been using - to see how we can use them better. And I think in our case, it really is about setting a 20-year plan for a more equitable, more sustainable city so that our kids can grow up in a healthy Seattle. [00:30:00] Crystal Fincher: Thank you so much for all the work that you have been doing, all the work that you will do on this. We will share in our show notes and on the website all of the opportunities to engage in this process. And please feel free to keep us updated as things proceed. [00:30:15] Councilmember Tammy Morales: Great. Thank you so much, Crystal. It was really nice to talk to you again. [00:30:18] Crystal Fincher: Thank you. Thank you all for listening to Hacks & Wonks. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Lisl Stadler. Our assistant producer is Shannon Cheng, and our Post-Production Assistant is Bryce Cannatelli. You can find Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks, and you can follow me @finchfrii, spelled F-I-N-C-H-F-R-I-I. You can catch Hacks & Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show delivered right to your podcast feed. If you like us, leave us a review wherever you listen. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.

Mitch Korbey, partner and chair of Herrick's Land Use and Zoning practice, is joined by Basha Gerhards, Senior Vice President of Planning at REBNY, to discuss plans recently announced by the Mayor and the Planning Department to permit the conversion of certain office buildings in New York City.  Current zoning permits limited conversions in limited areas, but this new plan would more broadly apply.  Our speakers discuss the many nuances for such developments across the City. As the need for housing of all types continues to grow, Mitch and Basha's dialogue of what is possible, probable and next for the City of New York is timely and critical.Music by Michelangelo Sosnowitz

Welcome back to another episode of In Sumter with Sarah Jane!This week SJ sat down with Kyle Kelly, Senior Planner with the Sumter City-County Planning Department. Kyle walks us through the ins and outs of city planning, where the money comes from and goes to, where the bulk of new ideas are found, and why city planners are much more than just the people telling you the rules.He's also got a great story about learning to drive stickshift in Baghdad. But you'll have to listen to the podcast for the details on that one.As always, be sure to follow Sarah Jane Sumter Realtor on Facebook and @sumter_sarahjane on instagram. Have a great weekend everyone!

Toyota by CFAO Motors in the WRC Safari - Sukhi kular-Sales and Stocks Planning Department by Capital FM

Montgomery County Council District 5 is a newly created seat in the eastern part of the county covering Burtonsville, White Oak, and Four Corners. Sunil Dasgupta spoke with five candidates running for the seat: Planning Department employee Brian Anleu (3:45), county business liaison officer Daniel Koroma (26:46), political operative Jeremiah Pope (49:13), immigration lawyer Fatmata Barrie (1:10:40), and community organizer Kristin Mink (1:34:09) about housing, economic development, education, and healthcare. Music for this episode comes from DC-based singer-songwriter Emily Hall.

To support independent ski journalism, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Paid subscribers receive thousands of extra words of content each month, plus all podcasts three days before free subscribers.WhoBill Rock, Chief Operating Officer of Vail Resorts Rocky Mountain Region and Executive Vice President of the Mountain DivisionRecorded onJune 13, 2022About Vail Resorts’ Rocky Mountain RegionThis is it, the inner empire. Where hyperbole suits just fine. This is why people in suburban Detroit buy an Epic Pass. To get here. “Aspirational.” That’s Rock’s word for his half-dozen cloud-pokers. It fits. Even for Keystone, a favorite target of the Cool Kids who only ride Snowbird Brah. Whatever. Keystone is great - it’s bigger, as you can see, than Breck, and it’s about to get larger with the Bergman Bowl expansion, opening next winter.Why I interviewed himFor many, just visiting these snowy kingdoms is not enough. Relocation becomes the only option. They turn west, to the mountains, and there they hack out whatever life they can. I’m not talking Grizzly Adams here. They’re not building log cabins and churning their own butter. But housing in most Western ski towns - and certainly the ones listed above - is limited and expensive. Wages are, historically, low. Skiing is expensive, always.For a long time, the skiing was enough to offset the other burdens. Then things changed. Covid, of course. But less discussed is the drying up of immigrant visas of the sort that destinatin resorts had long used to staff front-line positions. The rising labor movement. Workers, suddenly empowered, no longer had to settle for the fast-food wages of decades past. Vail had to adjust, and in March, the company rolled out a $20 minimum wage for frontline workers next season. But another very real factor contributing to last season’s labor shortage was a sudden and dramatic re-ordering of the mountain-town housing market. White collar workers, liberated by remote work, moved en masse to the mountains. This further distorted an already unbalanced market, driving out whatever shadows of affordability remained. So Vail’s plan also included a significant investment in affordable worker housing, on land that - the company emphasized - it already owned. If that sounds like a straightforward proposal, then you are unfamiliar with the workings of U.S. America, where all easy things are hard and all hard things are impossible. Rock, I figured, could help us at least understand the current conditions impacting resort-town decision making.What we talked aboutThe shift to midweek skiing and what it means for Vail and the Epic Pass; Vail’s 2021-22 operational challenges and successes; chasing the military’s camaraderie and sense of purpose until finding it at Bristol; a regional hopscotch leading to Vail; Northstar as Vail’s executive talent incubator; the company’s monster employee-investment initiative announced in March; how Vail decided on a $20-an-hour-minimum wage for next season; beefing up the HR staff and what that means for the future of the HR tool (commonly referred to as Vail’s “HR app”); owning last-year’s employee-support challenges; the company’s new flexible work policy; why Vail Resorts’ ski area social media accounts have seemed more lively over the past several months; why Vail’s 165-bed employee housing project has stalled in East Vail; “people have gotten really good at gumming up the works”; luxury townhomes go unprotested but suddenly everyone is very concerned about bighorn sheep when it comes time to build affordable housing; the potential of the Ever Vail parcel and if there is a better way to build; updates on employee housing developments in Park City, Whistler, and Okemo; Vail’s $300 million-plus 2022 lift investment and what that portends for the future; “I don’t know if we can find 21 lifts to do every year”; thoughts on why Vail hasn’t sold a lift in several years; the current status of the Bergman Bowl expansion at Keystone; thoughts on new lifts going in at Vail and Park City; “in a town that has over 70 lifts, to do two replacement lifts should really not be controversial at all.”Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewLast month, I wrote a long piece about a dispute between the Town of Vail and Vail Resorts:Unfortunately, we have entered an era in which absolutism reigns. As the ski industry housing crisis accelerates to levels that are endangering the viability of lift-served skiing as a sustainable enterprise, the town of Vail last week activated the nuclear option to block Vail Resorts’ long-planned affordable housing project near Vail Mountain. Per Jason Blevins in The Colorado Sun:The Vail town council late Tuesday voted to condemn a parcel where Vail Resorts plans to spend $17 million to build affordable housing for 165 workers. Dozens of Vail Resorts executives, employees and managers crammed into the council’s chambers Tuesday night as the council heard passionate support for both housing and wildlife. Ultimately the council voted 4-3 to approve a resolution that gives the town the ability to seize ownership of the 23-acre parcel and prevent any development as a way to protect a bighorn herd that winters in the south-facing aspen groves along Interstate 70.“I’m disappointed you’ve been backed into a corner and have to consider this resolution tonight,” said Terry Meyers, the executive director of the Rocky Mountain Bighorn Society. “Please make the decision to protect the bighorn sheep herd and move forward to find other options for affordable housing in the Vail Valley. The sheep have to have this. They can’t go anywhere else.”Exactly which corner the council members have been backed into is unclear: this same council (made up of different representatives), approved this project in 2019, and helped defend it in court in 2020. Vail, which owns the land, has promised to develop just six of the 23 acres. To protect the herd on the remaining land, Vail Resorts “partnered with wildlife experts and Colorado Park & Wildlife to develop an extensive mitigation plan, including funding for long overdue habitat rehabilitation,” and has earmarked $100,000 to implement that plan, a company representative told me. The project underwent “an extremely thorough environmental review process,” the representative added.Meanwhile, more than 100 luxury homes already fill 95.6 acres of this supposedly sacred bighorn habitat. Vail’s proposed development is the three tiny yellow boxes labelled “East Vail Affordable Housing” in the image below:“Vail needs housing now – not development that might happen in five years,” read a statement supplied by Vail Resorts to The Storm Skiing Journal on April 25. “If the Town can support luxury homes in East Vail, then it can support affordable housing. We will continue to aggressively pursue this affordable housing project for the hard-working employees in our community.” …The suggestion that a herd of sheep that has managed to negotiate nearly 100 acres of mansionland developed amidst their territory over the past several decades would suddenly be thrust to the brink of extinction from the addition of six acres of dense housing hard by the roadside is absurd. This whole action by the town feels disingenuous and petty, a because-we-can temper tantrum rooted in the vaguely expressed notion that Vail Resorts has been a disrespectful negotiator.While the town has not yet seized ownership of the land, the strident act by four precious council members all but assures that the legal fistfights will howl on for years. The brazen seizure of private land could ignite a fire that burns all the way to the Supreme Court, an absurd act of overreach that could wind up damaging future environmental efforts by stoking the business-friendly court majority to streamline development approvals. And in the meantime? Opponents of the plan continue to peddle platitudes about the importance of affordable housing.You can read the full thing here:Meanwhile, four people who apparently have nothing better to do have been stalling Vail’s planned Park City lift upgrades. Per the Park Record:The PCMR project would replace the current Eagle and Eaglet lifts with a high-speed, six-person detachable lift. The resort also wants to upgrade Silverlode Express from a six-person to an eight-person, high-speed lift, which would make it parent company Vail Resorts’ first chair of its kind in North America.The people who filed the appeal, Clive Bush, Angela Moschetta, Deborah Rentfrow and Mark Stemler, argued the proposal should’ve been exempt from receiving a staff-level administrative conditional-use permit because the upgrades would exceed PCMR’s comfortable carrying capacity (CCC) and should be voted on by the Planning Commission instead. They also argued the application should not have been approved due to inadequate parking mitigation or conditions of approval for peak ski days.A staff report from the Park City Planning Department recommended denying the appeal because a section of a 1998 development agreement with PCMR, which outlines growth at the resort base, states, “development of the skiing and related facilities as identified in the mountain upgrade plan is a conditional use within the city limits and is a subject to administrative review” as long as the projects are identified in and compliant with the mountain upgrade plan. Planning Department staff said the agreement requires lift upgrades to be reviewed administratively if six criteria are met, which they say are.However, the appeal claims criteria one and six – which call for consistency with the mountain upgrade plan and a sufficient parking plan – are not met. The group also made 11 arguments in the filing to support their appeal.On Wednesday, much of the discussion was centered on whether upgrading the lifts would increase visitorship and surpass the resort’s comfortable carrying capacity. Mike Goar, who until recently was the chief operating officer at PCMR and remains at Vail Resorts, said the improvements will help reduce crowding by moving people up the mountain faster and that lift upgrades don’t lead to more skiers and snowboarders.The maximum carrying capacity is 13,700 and PCMR’s current comfortable carrying capacity is 12,570. The proposed upgrades would increase the comfortable carrying capacity to 12,860 and would not cause a significant increase in parking demand, according to a staff report.But Moschetta argued that “fuzzy math” caused the numbers to be manipulated. She presented a series of comfortable carrying capacity numbers that differed from the findings of outside consultants hired by the resort and argued the upgrades will increase the figure to 13,980.“The miscalculated and already exceeded CCCs confirm absolutely that this application violated the [mountain upgrade plan], and therefore the [development agreement], and therefore violated the [Land Management Code], and therefore never met conditions for administrative review,” she said. “On this basis alone, our appeal must be upheld and the decision of the planning director overturned.”Her argument was compelling to most of the commissioners, who asked PCMR and its consultants to explain the discrepancies. Planning Commission Chair John Phillips said he trusted the specialists and supported denying the appeal while Planning Commissioners Sarah Hall and Bill Johnson indicated they would side with Phillips if the comfortable carrying capacity discrepancy was clearly explained.“The appellants have the burden of proof and they’ve not presented experts, facts. We have. Two experts on CCC, and mountain planning. We’ve worked through this in great detail. Lastly, the planning director’s decision should be upheld on appeal if it is supported by substantial evidence on the record, which is what we presented originally,” Goar said.After repeated back and forth, and several unsuccessful attempts from the resort’s experts to clarify the numbers, the majority of commissioners were not satisfied.More than four hours in, the commission adjourned, to meet again on Wednesday, June 15, as Rock and I discuss in the podcast.What, really, is the point of all this? Must we fight about everything? Housing? Chairlifts? Not even new chairlifts. Upgrades. Four more seats on a mountain with 41 lifts. Do larger lifts draw more skiers? Maybe at Jiminy Peak or Ragged Mountain, where a six-seater really is a regional curiosity. But this is Park City. Most tourists don’t even know what kinds of lifts the mountain has while they’re riding them. Chairlift tourism is not really a thing.I suspect the appellants know this. Multiple sources throughout the West described a prevailing atmosphere of frustration with Vail Resorts throughout this past season. Staff shortages led to inadequate or inconsistent grooming and terrain and lift openings, skiers at multiple resorts said. Many Park City residents are apoplectic over the coming paid parking plan. There seems to be an element of spite, then, in the actions both of the Park City foursome and the Vail Town Council.I can’t decide if they are bringing a knife to a tank fight, or a tank to a knife fight. In both cases, the non-Vail parties are both overmatched and over-armed. It’s like they assembled an army to invade an apple orchard. One that’s defended by a fire-breathing dragon. Like, you can just get apples at the grocery store.If this all seems like an enormous waste of time, money, and energy, it’s because it is. The hostile parties may well halt both projects. But to what end? What better ideas do they have? And what happens when, in some not-so-hard-to-imagine future, this insistence on saying no to everything yields to new sets of rules – driven by frustrated middle-voters who put rampant Free Market Bros in charge of the world – in which we can’t say no to anything?Questions I wish I’d askedFrankly, I would have liked to have had a completely different conversation. The Storm is, first and primarily, about the skiing. Rock oversees a half dozen of the best ski resorts in America. I would have liked to have talked deeply and only about the resorts.But the moment demanded a different sort of conversation. Part of this is the NIMBY-mania I referenced above. Part of it was because Vail kind of blew it last year in multiple markets and had to roll out a big oopsie plan to draw more employees for next season.But even with the focus mostly on that plan and those people, we still ran long. I didn’t have time to get to questions about Vail’s diversity initiatives, or the fact that an incredible five of Rock’s six resorts are run by women. I also didn’t get to the Breckenridge lift upgrades.What I got wrongI made the comment to Rock that it had been years since Vail had sold or repurposed a lift. While Vail has indeed not sold a lift to an out-of-network ski area in years, the second part was flat wrong. And I knew this. Here’s an Instagram post I published six months ago after riding and extensively documenting Okemo’s former Quantum 4 in its new location replacing the mountain’s summit triple:I regret the error.This podcast hit paid subscribers’ inboxes on June 14. Free subscribers got it on June 17. To receive future pods as soon as they’re live, please consider an upgrade.The Storm publishes year-round, and guarantees 100 articles per year. This is article 65/100 in 2022, and number 311 since launching on Oct. 13, 2019. Want to send feedback? Reply to this email and I will answer (unless you sound insane). You can also email skiing@substack.com. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe

In our third episode we sit down with now retired City of Seaside Planning Director Kevin Cupples. Seaside, Oregon, built largely on tourism in the late 1800s and its close proximity to an abundance of outdoor recreation, is situated in the Pacific Northwest and along the shores of the Pacific Ocean. Seaside has a year round population of approximately 7,000 that can swell to as much as 40-50,000 during busy summer weekends and events.