APA-PA Southeast Section Blog

LIVE EVENT IN PHILADELPHIA/CAMDEN, PA

1 Day | 8 AIA SD/HSW CE Hours

Provider: GreenCE, Inc.Learn from the experts at GreenCE, backed by decades of combined experience in the field! With this course and accompanying study materials, you’ll gain the confidence, knowledge, and strategies you need to take and PASS the LEED Green Associate Exam. We’ll help you add this reputable credential to your resume. Includes:

• 1-Day LEED Green Associate Exam Prep Course
• Direct Access to Green building Experts
• Comprehensive 250-page Study Guide
• Hundreds of Interactive Online Practice Questions
• Quick Study Sheets
• Certificate of Completion to take Exam

WHEN: Thur. May 31, 2012

7:30am - 5:00pm (ET)

Last week the US House of Representatives passed a bill that contained the elimination of the Census Bureau’s “American Community Survey” (ACS).  This week, that bill will face the Senate.  As the ACS replaced the previous “long form,” it plays a significant role at the federal, state, and local level in helping to determine how resources are allocated as well as allowing us to recognize rapidly shifting demographics.  The APA is encouraging members to contact their representatives to express the importance of holding on to this critical planning tool.  Jason Jordan, Director, Policy & Governmental Affairs for APA is asking members:

• Have your chapter join the national letter
• Encourage your members to visit the APA online legislative action center to email their Senators on this issue (www.planning.org/policy and click on action center)
• Spread the word about this issue. The APA policy blog has an article detailing the recent developments. (http://blogs.planning.org/policy)
• Ask your state partner organizations and local governments to get engaged on this issue.

What Planners Should Know About Green Building in the Delaware Valley

Monday, June 18, 2012

8:30 (registration and breakfast)
8:45 to 12 noon (program)

Where: Energy Efficient Buildings Hub, 4747 S. Broad St., Building 101, Suite 120, Philadelphia, PA 19112

$25 for members & students, $35 for nonmembers
3 AICP CM Credits Anticipated

Click here to Register!

Green building is the practice of increasing the efficiency with which existing and new buildings and their sites use energy, water, and materials and reducing their impacts on human health and the environment. The Delaware Valley is an emerging center of the national green building movement. Located at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, the Energy Efficient Buildings Hub (EEB Hub, formerly the Greater Philadelphia Innovation Cluster or GPIC) was established through a $122 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to develop innovative energy efficient building technologies, designs, and systems. On June 18 the EEB Hub will host a unique opportunity for planners to learn about green building planning, policies, and programs at the regional, state, and federal levels from a panel of leading experts in the field--including an opportunity to tour the Navy Yard's Building 661, where the EEB Hub will be doing a comprehensive energy retrofit.

Congrats, grads! This one's for you.

1) Neighborhood Advisory Committee Coordinator/Program Administrator - South Kensington Community Partners - Philadelphia

2) Planner - Chester County Planning Commission - West Chester, PA

3)  Part-time Residential Field Sales Agent - Green Mountain Energy Company - Philadelphia

4) Philly4Philly Fellow - Citizen Effect - Philadelphia

5) Web UI/UX Designer - Azavea - Philadelphia

6) Full-Year VISTA: Community Engagement, Leadership & Stabilization - New Kensington Community Development Corporation - Philadelphia

7) Neighborhood Advisory Committee Coordinator/Program Administrator - South Kensington Community Partners - Philadelphia

8) Assistant Director - Grassroots Campaigns, Inc. - Philadelphia

9) Executive Director - Pennsylvania Immigration and Citizenship Coalition (PICC) - Philadelphia

10) Communications Associate - Public Interest GRFX - Philadelphia

11) Design Associate - Public Interest Network - Philadelphia

12) CEO Assistant - BFW Group - Philadelphia/Ardmore

Full descriptions after the jump!

We are looking for volunteers to join the team producing Plan It Newark!, an exhibition and video to help Newark residents understand how development happens and provide tools to advocate for their neighborhood and city.

WHAT'S GOING ON?

May 14-18, there will be a model workshop at NJIT to assemble the central piece of the City Hall exhibition: a large-scale model of the entire city, 14 by 14 feet!

Workshops will be held everyday in two daily sessions, 10 am-2 pm and 2 pm-6 pm at New Jersey Institute of Technology.

WHERE DO I GO?

New Jersey School of Architecture
Weston Hall Room 768
367 Dr Martin Luther King Jr Blvd at Warren Street (entrance on Warren)
map: http://bit.ly/IH8qjT

I was fortunate to be awarded the 2012 Irving Hand Award, which APA-PA awards annually.  Named after Irving Hand, FAICP and funded by Delta Development, the award funds a professional development activity for a planner.  My proposal was to use the funding for mediation training, and I recently completed the first portion of my training.  Mediation is defined as a process where a neutral third party without decision making authority assists parties in negotiating a mutually agreeable settlement.  The process attracted me because as a community planner I frequently feel like that third party, trying to get a community and its many interests to come to an agreement on an issue – should we inventory our historic resources?  should we regulate our historic resources? should we change the zoning in this area? should we be providing more active recreation area?  I found the training encouraging, enlightening, and also a reinforcement of good planning practice, and would recommend it to any planner.  To read my full write-up on the training, check out the APA-PA Spring 2012 Newsletter.

The 2012 NJ Historic Preservation Conference, “Sustaining the Past – Inventing the Future” is being held June 7th at Rider University in Lawrenceville, NJ.  The annual event is an opportunity to explore a historic community, learn from peers about architectural and planning preservation methods from real-life case studies, discuss stewardship models for historic sites, and discover new partnerships in session and through professional networking.  Educational classes and workshops are offered for architects and planners seeking continuing education credits, stewards of historic sites used for educational and community purposes, archeologists, cultural landscape specialists, historians, preservation planners and students, municipal historic preservation commission members and appointed officials, heritage tourism providers, and more.  CM approval of sessions is pending.

The conference welcomes keynote speaker Steve Mouzon, architect, urbanist, and photographer. Steve’s recent book, The Original Green, frames sustainability in common-sense, plain-spoken terms, and he will address sustainability and historic preservation using real life examples from around the country.

Exciting news! Greenbuild 2013, the world’s largest green building conference/expo and a program of the U.S. Green Building Council, will be held in Philadelphia from November 20 to 22 of next year. (This year’s conference will be in San Francisco from November 14-16.) The Delaware Valley Green Building Council (DVGBC) is the official USGBC host chapter for Greenbuild 2013, which is expected to attract over 30,000 attendees. DVGBC “works to inspire, educate, and connect people around green building practices that will transform our communities into healthier, more prosperous places for people to live, work and learn.”

In anticipation of next year’s conference, DVGBC has issued the Greenbuild 2013 Challenge. This challenge calls for organizations, companies, schools, and others to commit to specific action by November 2013 to advance sustainability. Examples of pledges made to date include: Lafayette College will implement a Climate Action Plan to reduce its carbon footprint by 20%; the Energy Efficient Buildings Hub (formerly GPIC) will support five full spectrum energy efficiency retrofits in regional commercial buildings; and the PA/DE American Society of Landscape Architects will challenge its membership to design 13 projects that qualify for the Sustainable Sites Initiative (a sustainable land development and management rating system) and institute a sustainability plan for its operations. Here at WRT we have committed to having “1,000 conversations – to broaden and diversify the base of sustainability.”

You are invited to view the Chester County Planning Commission’s Spring 2012 eNewsletter.  This edition, released on April 20th, covers discussion on the following topics:

• Planning for Sustainability
• New trends in open space planning
• The county trail inventory- Providing alternatives to the automobile
• Central Chester County Bicycle and Pedestrian Circulation Plan
• Anticipating growth- population forecasts 2010-2040

You can access the eNewsletter here.

Almost May, and new internship postings are still coming in!

1) Executive Director - City Parks Association - Philadelphia

2) Transportation Planner - Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission – Philadelphia

3) Marketing Assistant - Student Health Service (SHS), University of Pennsylvania - Philadelphia

4) Intern - B. DeMichele Inc. - Media, PA

5) Environmental Planning Urban Forestry Intern - Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission – Philadelphia

6) Membership Director - PlanPhilly – Philadelphia

7) Design Associate - Public Interest Network – Philadelphia

8) Manager, Philly Food Innovation - The Enterprise Center – Philadelphia

Full descriptions after the jump!