Upcoming Economic Development Planning Webinars

Registration is now open for two, free, CM 1.0, upcoming APA Economic Development Division webinars:

Friday, April 27, 2012 1:00 PM - 2:30 PM EDT
Preserving Affordable Housing in a Transit Corridor
Registration Link: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/603693154

In preparing for introduction of street car service along Columbia Pike, Arlington County is completing a new planning effort for existing multi-family communities. Increasing rents are already pricing out lower-income residents, and those pressures are expected to accelerate with the higher gas prices, highway congestion and that make living in transit communities so attractive. The plan’s goal is to preserve or replace all of the housing serving households with incomes up to 60 percent of the Area Median Income (AMI) and one-half of the housing serving households at 80 percent of AMI. Market and financial analysis is helping to guide the plan so that the density provisions for new units will support financial feasibility, increasing the likelihood that development will occur. The implementation plan incorporates a wide variety of affordable housing tools.

Friday, July 20, 2012 1:00 PM - 2:30 PM EDT
Town Centers: their conditions to success, economic opportunity, and preferences toward inviting, walkable places
Registration Link: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/335740826

The success of several town center developments during the late 1990’s/early 2000’s dispelled conventional wisdom regarding the superiority of enclosed suburban shopping malls, demonstrating in economically measurable ways a preference by many toward open-air, mixed-use, pedestrian-oriented places with attractive public space. What followed was a frenzy of town center and lifestyle center development—including well-conceived projects and poorly-conceived ones—that thrived, met expectations, or failed. Dismissed by some as artificial urban replicas, successful town centers nevertheless serve as value-adding catalysts for other land uses, such as office and hotel, and provide a model for a better-integration of uses than is found at conventional shopping centers and office parks. While typically found at suburban interchange locations, town centers offer valuable lessons for existing retail districts; further, town centers have, in some instances, been successfully integrated into urban environments. This session highlights many of the conditions (with emphasis on market analysis and urban design) that lead to viable town centers, primarily through case study of town centers across the country. Case studies of public/private partnerships will also be provided. The success of the town center strategy, which focuses on the creation of great places to create value premiums, has broad implications for planning, since it has provided market validation of a number of planning and urban design principles. That these successes have occurred, often in the absence of regional policies that support placemaking, could point to a broader cultural shift and future support for place-friendly policies.