2005 National Planning Award Winners

The American Planning Association's annual awards honor the most outstanding efforts in the art, science, and profession of city and regional planning. In 2005, more than 125 entries were received.

The 2005 recipients were honored at the National Planning Conference in San Francisco during ceremonies held Monday, March 21, and Tuesday, March 22. The winners are:

Outstanding Planning Award for a Plan
The Queen City Hub: Regional Action Plan for Downtown Buffalo (Buffalo, New York)
A decade in the making, The Queen City Hub: Regional Action Plan for Downtown Buffalo concentrated on making downtown an attractive place to work, live, shop and visit. Core elements of the plan include investing in strategic areas, utilizing the fundamental principles of good city building, developing downtown housing, and preserving and building on the basic framework and planning legacy of Buffalo.

Outstanding Planning Award for a Special Community Initiative
Atchison Riverfront Park (Atchison, Kansas)
The Atchison Riverfront Park, a new three-quarter-mile-long park along the Missouri River, provides riverfront access and information about Atchison and its role in the Lewis and Clark expedition. The park includes a veteran's plaza to honor local war heroes, a children's park themed after the Lewis and Clark expedition, improved access facilities and ramps to the Missouri River, space for community events and recognition of Atchison's connection to the river.

Outstanding Planning Award for Implementation
Extending the Vision for South Broad Street — Building Philadelphia's Avenue of the Arts in the 21st Century (Philadelphia)
Redefining South Broad Street as a world-class cultural destination was a civic goal for nearly two decades. The objective of "Extending the Vision" for South Broad Street was to encourage new activities and uses, as well as expand public and private investment in the Avenue of the Arts. This was achieved by promoting activity that attracts people day and night, enhancing passages between the Convention Center and the Avenue, ensuring continued accessibility and preventing further growth of automobile-oriented development through zoning mechanisms.

Outstanding Planning Award for a Program/Plan/Tool
City of Santa Cruz Accessory Dwelling Unit Development Program (Santa Cruz, California)
The program accommodates new residents by creating affordable housing while conserving the character of neighborhoods. Homeowners are encouraged to build Accessory Dwelling Units (ADU) in their existing home, garage or back yard. Thirty-five units were built the first year. The ADU program components include zoning changes, community outreach, design prototypes and technical and financial assistance. Within the next five years, estimates predict the city will average between 40-50 ADUs a year, equivalent to a 200-250 unit development.

The 2005 Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary's Opportunity & Empowerment Award
San Jose Housing Department (San Jose, California)
In 2000, San Jose, California, had nearly one million residents. The newly elected mayor, Ron Gonzales, publicly committed himself to help the city's Housing Department eliminate more than one-third of the city's 17,000-unit housing shortfall in five years. To accomplish the goal, housing officials used San Jose's 2020 General Plan to develop a comprehensive strategy that included neighborhood revitalization, infill development, rehabilitation, and inclusionary measures. The city also amassed more than $1 billion for implementation, raising nearly $4 in outside money for every city dollar invested. By June 2004 the city and its partners celebrated their success, having built 6,080 new homes, including 544 units for extremely low-income households. The accomplishment led San Jose officials to commit to producing another 6,000 units of affordable housing by 2009.

Current Topic Award: Safe Growth
The National Capital Urban Design and Security Plan (Washington, D.C.)
The National Capital Planning Commission developed a comprehensive plan to balance good planning and urban design with Washington's security needs. It proposes planning and design solutions that are tailored to particular precincts that enhance the pedestrian environment, allow for evacuation routes and maintain access for fire and emergency services. The plan has been used to guide more than 60 security projects by various federal agencies.

Public Education Award
The Green Valley Institute (Brooklyn, Connecticut)
The Green Valley Institute (GVI) works to improve the knowledge base from which land use and natural resource decisions are made, and build local capacity to protect and manage natural resources as the region grows. Volunteer boards and commissions often have little background on the issues when making land-use decisions. GVI provides them with technical assistance, outreach, education, and volunteer support.

Daniel Burnham Award
The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy (Los Angeles)
The conservancy's strategic objectives continue to be guided by the goal of interlinking network of parks, trails, and open space for public use and wildlife habitat, ensuring future open space and recreational lands. Working with citizens, community-based organizations, federal, state and local government, and other park agencies, the conservancy has preserved more than 55,000 acres of public parkland throughout the Santa Monica Mountains and Rim of the Valley Trail Corridor and improved more than 114 public recreational facilities throughout Southern California.

Distinguished Leadership Award for an Elected Official
Commissioner Ron Stewart (Boulder, Colorado)
Commissioner Stewart is credited with helping to maintain Boulder County's quality of life. Since becoming a county commissioner in 1984, Stewart has helped develop the tools necessary to implement the county's plan. Stewart also has been instrumental in the development of the Boulder County open space program, authorization of a conservation easement program, transferable development rights and adoption of Intergovernmental Agreements setting urban growth boundaries.

Distinguished Leadership Award for a Professional Planner
Naphtali H. Knox, AICP (Palo Alto, California)
Naphtali Knox's experience spans nearly five decades in public and private sectors. He is credited with improving the way planning is conducted and how plan goals are achieved in California and across the country. His achievements include the growth management landmark 1987-2005 Petaluma General Plan and the creation of the first Santa Clara County Housing Trust Fund. His career has covered the gamut of city planning, from general plans to site details to design of urban streetscapes.

Distinguished Leadership Award for a Citizen Planner
Judith A. Corbett (Sacramento)
Judith Corbett founded and has served for the past 25 years as Executive Director of the Local Government Commission, a nonprofit membership organization committed to developing local government solutions to environmental, social and economic problems. Corbett previously helped plan and develop the 60-acre Village Homes resource-efficient neighborhood in Davis, California, that received international attention. She is a coauthor of three books on resource-efficient land use and building design and has coauthored multiple guides for policy makers on implementing sustainable land use patterns.

Distinguished Leadership Award for a Student Planner
Elizabeth FitzZaland (Cal Poly University, San Luis Obispo, California)
Elizabeth FitzZaland has demonstrated her comprehension of planning principles and processes by her academic success within the MCRP program at Cal Poly. Her sense of professionalism and her ability to work easily with others has repeatedly prompted peers and mentors to request her involvement and input in planning projects and related undertakings. FitzZaland works as an undergraduate instructor in the Planning Department at Cal Poly, a facilitator for the San Luis Obispo Council of Governments and a project leader for a low-income housing team.

National Social Advocacy Award (in honor of Paul Davidoff)
Women Resident Activists at Wentworth Gardens: Chicago Public Housing Development (Chicago)
Beleaguered by underfunding and poor management, Wentworth Gardens residents — African-American women representing more than 1,200 people, mostly low-income female-headed families — carefully and effectively took on the responsibility to create a better future for themselves and their neighbors. For four decades, the Wentworth resident-initiated collective actions have improved living conditions by engaging in sustained grassroots organizing to stop the deterioration of their buildings, grounds, services and programs.

National Social Advocacy Award (in honor of Paul Davidoff)
Thomas R. Knoche (Camden, New Jersey)
More than 25 years ago, Thomas Knoche chose to work and live in the poorest neighborhood in Camden. He focused on empowering the citizens to improve their lives and take charge of their community by helping develop an array of community based economic and development organizations with local residents in leadership positions. Community leaders focused on boarding up and rehabilitating housing and having local government deliver long overdue community infrastructure improvements.

National Women in Planning Award (in honor of Diana Donald)
Margarita Piel McCoy, FAICP (LaHabra Heights, California)
Urban planning is Margarita Piel McCoy's second career. For the past 30 years, McCoy has served as a role model for women entering the planning profession, especially those re-entering the job market or changing careers as she did. She has had a significant impact on planning schools throughout the United States, as well as shapes and models communities through her influence on the students she teaches. As a professor, she encourages and inspires women entering the planning profession and mentors women planning faculty members across the country.

APA Journalism Awards
Large Newspapers (circulation above 100,000)
Rocky Mountain News, Denver, Colorado
"The Last Drop," examining the dire effects of water shortages in Colorado's Front Range — and the jockeying over water rights owned by large urban water districts. Winning reporters Jerd Smith and Todd Hartman; winning photographer Ken Papaleo.

APA Journalism Awards
Medium Newspapers (circulation between 50,000 and 100,000)
Green Bay Press-Gazette, Green Bay, Wisconsin
A five-part series "Downtown: Beyond Perception" that exposed myths about downtown development and pushed the city council into adopting a riverfront plan. Richard Ryman and Karen Rauen are the winning reporters.

APA Journalism Awards
Small Newspapers (circulation under 50,000)
Lebanon Democrat, Lebanon, Tennessee
"Little Pink Houses," a three-part series that documented the close connection between on-site sewer systems and suburban sprawl. Reporter Brian Harville focused on three Tennessee counties that are booming — in part because of lenient land development regulations.

Journal of the American Planning Association Award
Best Article
"The Failures of Economic Development Incentives," by Alan Peters and Peter Fisher, Winter 2004.

AICP Student Student Project Award — Applied Research
"Conservation and Landscape Planning Heritage Trail, featuring Historic Places in Massachusetts"
Ann Chapman, University of Massachusetts
This master's thesis proposes a Massachusetts Conservation and Landscape Planning Heritage Trail. The inspiration for this trail comes from the life and work of visionary planner, Benton MacKaye, father of the Appalachian Trail.

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AICP Student Project Award — Demonstrating the Contribution of Planning to Contemporary Issues
"Food for Growth: A Community Food System Plan for Buffalo's West Side"
State University of New York, University at Buffalo
The Food for Growth project was a semester-long planning process undertaken by 11 students at the University at Buffalo in the fall of 2003. Under the guidance of Dr. Samina Raja, students in this studio prepared a food system plan for a neighborhood on Buffalo's West Side.

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AICP Student Project Award — Applying the Planning Process
"San Miguel 2025: Draft Community Plan"
California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
Two documents created by the students are a product of a six-month long community study designed to emulate the process of preparing a community plan and expose students to state-of-the-art technology, methods, and techniques used in "real-world" planning situations. The project incorporated all aspects of planning including data collection and analysis, community participation and surveying, goal and objective creation, visioning, development of alternative concept plans, and policy creation.

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AICP National Historic Planning Landmark Award
Billerica Garden Suburb (South of Lowell, Massachusetts)
Nominated by: Howard H. Foster, Jr., AICP, Rhode Island APA Chapter Historian
Incorporated June 30, 1914, the Billerica Garden Suburb represents the first attempt in the United States to provide affordable homeownership to workers employing Ebenezer Howard's garden city model as a site plan with a scheme combining a limited dividend corporation and co-partnership directed at workers earning $12-$20 per week. In 1914, the Board of Trade announced its intention to implement the recommendations of the Massachusetts Homestead Commission utilizing the skills of city planner, Arthur C. Comey, and landscape architect, Warren H. Manning, in developing a "Workers' Paradise" that is still recognizable today.

AICP National Planning Pioneer Award
Sherry Arnstein (Washington, D.C.) (posthumously)
Nominated by: John Gaber, AICP, Associate Professor, Auburn University (Auburn, Alabama)
Sherry Arnstein became an international household name among planners in 1969 when she wrote "A Ladder of Citizen Participation." The article has been reprinted 80 times and translated into Chinese, Japanese, Dutch, French, and German. Arnstein's professional work in the Model Cities program, desegregating hospitals in the South and planning publications changed the way planners, communities, and governments think about and conduct citizen participation. Arnstein's work influenced planning in three ways: planning practice, how planners go about participation as a way of sharing power with the community; theory, providing the theoretical framework for advocacy planning; and citizen participation, the touchstone for planners' understanding of participation as a way for citizens to shape programs and plans.

For more information, contact AwardsProgram@planning.org.