Community Design

Community Design

RPA is committed to strengthening the region's centers. The goal of redirecting much of the region's growth to centers is based on the principle that centers-places that provide housing, jobs, education, shopping, and recreation in close proximity-are the form of community that can deliver the largest number and greatest diversity of people. By providing for efficient use of land, energy, infrastructure, and other resources, centers also provide critical benefits to the region's economy and environment. Finally, the region's hundreds of city and town centers provide a permanent organizing framework for future growth in the region.

Physical planning and design is the centerpiece of this campaign. Design studies - models, drawings, "before and after simulations" - make it possible to test the physical capacity of the region's centers and to understand the impacts of new structures on the visual and natural environment. Even more importantly, design studies enable communities to understand the consequences of planning policy, and to articulate their own vision for how their communities should grow. In this way it is possible to link locally-based place-making with a regional smart growth agenda.

One of the centerpieces of our advocacy efforts for the Regional Design program is the New Jersey Mayor's Institute on Community Design, held at Princeton University to promote better planning and development in communities throughout New Jersey. RPA's work with the Civic Alliance to Rebuild Downtown New York has also featured the principles of the design program, most notably in the Planning and Design Workshop. In addition to these special projects, the Regional Design Program is built around four major initiatives, each of which combines research with place-based planning and design studies:

Featured Projects

Steps Toward Reform in Connecticut's Economic Strategic Plan

January 26, 2010

RPA submitted comments yesterday on the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development's draft Economic Strategic Plan. RPA applauds DECD's efforts but calls for explicit policy objectives to guide state actions, better assessment of long-term costs and benefits, ongoing measurement of indicators that can demonstrate progress toward the State's goals, and stronger commitment to regional planning and governance restructuring.

The plan, developed in response to a legislative mandate, describes a vision for a Connecticut with a "vibrant, diversified, and resilient economy" that promotes "responsible transit-oriented growth." Included is a proposal to sweep state discretionary municipal grant money into a "Responsible Growth for the 21st Century" fund which would award grants on a competitive basis to communities that plan for transit-oriented development. Other proposals would address the impacts of property tax dependence and would enable interagency policy consistency.

To read the Connecticut Economic Strategic Plan click here.

Click here for RPA's comments on the ESP

Bridgeport's Big Step to Becoming a More Livable & Green Community

December 2, 2009

After years of working through the relevant boards and councils, Bridgeport's new citywide zoning map was approved the evening of Monday, November 30.

Along with it comes the adoption of some of the most progressive transit-oriented development zoning for the city's downtown. Using aspects of form-based codes, these new rules for redevelopment will help downtown Bridgeport achieve its goals of being a walkable, livable community that reduces its carbon emissions by avoiding automobile trips and development on the region's fringes.

RPA completed the urban design component of the downtown master plan in 2007 and drafted the corresponding Downtown Village Districts.

Public Sessions for Bergen County Master Plan Announced

November 4, 2009

Regional Plan Association, the Bergen County Department of Planning and Economic Development and Maser Consulting today announced the schedule for a series of workshop sessions to garner public input for updating the Bergen Countywide Master Plan, the first such update since 1973.

RPA, Town of Kearny and NJ Transit Plan for Future Transit Service in NJ

October 21, 2009

The Kearny TOD Vision Plan, the result of an interactive, community-based planning process in the town of Kearny (NJ), presents a transit-oriented vision for an area of the town poised to receive NJ TRANSIT commuter rail service in the near future.

RPA + CDC = Healthy Community Design

October 20, 2009

Regional Plan Association president Bob Yaro joined other design and land use experts from around the country on September 21 and 22 at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta to help establish a practice of considering health impact when making land use, transportation planning and other community design decisions.

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