Last Saturday, May 16th, I attended the 2009 Livable Neighborhoods Program, a day-long series of workshops at Hunter College. This annual, free event is organized by the Municipal Art Society of New York (MAS) which describes its mission as helping “communities plan for equitable and sustainable growth.” I met lots of great people who are involved community-based planning. Paco was also there, as was Lacey. I came away with a rekindled sense that democracy requires participation, as well as useful concrete knowledge!

I’d like to share some very brief observations from the four workshops I attended. All the spealers left ample room for question-and-answer and audience participation was HUGE!

• Zoning: led by Anthony Borelli, Director of Land Use, Planning and Development for the Office of Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer

FAR (floor area ratio) is the ratio of building floor area to lot area, also known as density. If the lot is 10,000 square feet and the zoned FAR is 2, then you can build 2 stories if you use 100% of the lot, 4 stories if you use 50% of the lot, etc. You can sell your unused density to the owner of an adjacent lotl allowing him or her to build higher – unless you are in a historic preservation district. In the generic case, no public notification or review is required. Under incentive zoning, developers can build bigger buildings in exchange for providing public plazas or inclusionary (permanently affordable) housing. 197C is the rezoning process. Special districts such as West Chelsea/High Line are governed by different rules.

• Economic Development: led by Sideya Sherman, MAS Senior Planner

The most successful economic development is community-initiated, collaborative, market-oriented, and sustainable. The basic steps are: outreach, creating a vision, gathering data, creating a plan of action. Business Improvement Districts are essentially in contract with the City and the Department of Small Business Services – they are private non-profits. As case studies, Sideya used the Lower East Side and the Imagining Flatbush project.

• Sustainability: led by Anne Pope, Founder of Sustainable Flatbush
  

Anne spoke about how moving into a co-op in Flatbush and discovering the building’s wasteful heating system started her on the process of creating Sustainable Flatbush. She spoke about community gardens, composting, reducing waste, Transportation Alternatives’ Park(ing) Day, Give Stuff Get Stuff Freemeets, Green Edge NYC (a supper club), Tree Tours, the emerging green career of Energy Auditors, and much more. Anne’s website, http://sustainableflatbush.org/, is an excellent resource: The site includes a calendar which culls events from many different organizations, including Green Home NYC, Solar One, and Transportation Alternatives.

• Using Data for Planning: led by Juan Camilo Osorio, MAS Senior GIS Analyst/Planner
  
  

To make a successful map, you should start with a question or a story you want to tell. During the workshop, we experimented with mapping tools at these terrific websites:

http://gis.nyc.gov/doitt/nycitymap/

www.mas.org/planningcenter/atlas/

www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/

www.oasisnyc.net

The other workshops were: Community Organizing, Historic Preservation & Preserving Cultural Assets, Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, Environmental Impact Statements, Affordable (AKA Below Market) Housing, 197a Planning.

For more info, visit:http://mas.org/cpa/lnp/