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Congratulations to the winners of the Environmental Protection Agency's 2005 National Awards for Smart Growth Achievement!
At EPA we are proud of the gains in environmental protection that have been made
over the past 35 years, but also recognize that 21st century environmental challenges
require new approaches beyond the old model of mandates, rules, and regulations. EPA
is developing new collaborative partnerships that will accelerate the pace of protecting
and conserving our nation's environment. Together, through these partnerships, we are
developing policies and programs that promote environmentally sound growth.
Protecting our shared environment is everybody's responsibility. EPA is pleased
to recognize these partner communities who join in our commitment to smart
growth. Through the use of innovative tools and technology they are improving
their environmental quality, creating transportation choices, and growing their local
economies.
Thank you to all of those who took part in the competition. We continue to be impressed
by the excitement about our National Awards for Smart Growth Achievement and in the
quality of the applications year after year. Effective, collaborative, and innovative-the
winners demonstrate the very best of smart growth implementation. Like previous years,
the 2005 award recipients will serve as examples for communities around the country as
we work towards a safer, healthier future for our children and grandchildren.
Stephen L. Johnson
EPA Administrator
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How our communities choose to grow affects our environment. Development that integrates smart growth principles can reduce air pollution and help protect rivers, streams, and drinking water.
Communities with homes, workplaces, stores, and other amenities nearby make
it easy for residents to walk, bike, take transit, or drive
to their destinations. Research shows that people who live
in this kind of neighborhood drive as much as 30 percent less
than those who live in spread-out developments.1
As a result, they generate fewer hydrocarbons and nitrogen
oxides, the chemicals that mix with sunlight to form ground-level
ozone. Lower ozone levels may reduce the incidence of asthma
attacks. Studies suggest that efforts to reduce driving in
Atlanta during the 1996 Olympic Games not only reduced traffic,
but may also have reduced the number of acute care asthma
cases by 11 to 44 percent.2
Efficient, less spread-out growth can also reduce the demand for and cost of clean drinking water. Households in compact communities that are near water treatment facilities tend to use and lose less water, and require less infrastructure investment than more distant, dispersed developments.3 Research from Utah suggests that the cost of supplying water to households in close-in communities could be as much as 20 percent less than the cost for communities on the edge of developed areas.4 Using existing infrastructure wisely and encouraging growth in already-developed areas can help communities continue to grow within their water supplies and their budgets.
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1 Hotlzclaw, J. Explaining Urban Density and Transit Impacts on Auto Use. January 1991.
2 Friedman, M. et.al. "Impact of Changes in Transportation and Commuting Behaviors During the 1996 Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta on Air Quality and Childhood Asthma." Journal of the American Medical Association, vol. 285, no. 7, 2001.
3 Van Lare, P. "How Thirsty is your Community?" Zoning Practice, vol. 22, no. 5,
2005.
4 Envision Utah. Quality Growth Strategy and Technical Review. January 2000.
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OVERALL EXCELLENCE IN SMART GROWTH
Highlands' Garden Village
Denver Urban Renewal Authority
Denver, Colorado
BUILT PROJECTS
Belmar
City of Lakewood and Lakewood Reinvestment Authority
Lakewood, Colorado
POLICIES AND REGULATIONS
Central District Specific Plan
City of Pasadena Planning and Development Department
Pasadena, California
SMALL COMMUNITIES
Gilbert & Bennett Wire Mill Redevelopment
Town of Redding
Redding, Connecticut
MILITARY BASE REDEVELOPMENT
Baldwin Park
City of Orlando
Orlando, Florida
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 EPA created the National Award for Smart Growth Achievement in 2002 to recognize outstanding approaches to development that benefit the economy, the community, public health, and the environment. Over the past four years, EPA has received 375 applications from 43 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.
Each award winner has successfully used the principles of smart growth to improve existing communities or to build new communities that foster economic development, protect the environment, and enhance quality of life. Using innovative ideas and public involvement, the winners crafted policies and projects that significantly improved their communities and the environment.
This year's rotating category highlights the redevelopment of former military base properties. The 2005 Base Realignment and Closure process will close bases in many communities, presenting economic, environmental, and social challenges. The winner in this award category provides a model for how communities near closed bases can turn the loss into an opportunity. They can strengthen their economy, while restoring and protecting the environment, by redeveloping the base to provide jobs, homes, recreation, and civic services.
The award winners were chosen through a multi-step process. A panel of external experts representing a broad range of constituencies assessed the entries. An internal EPA review panel provided additional comments. EPA's Associate Administrator of Policy, Economics, and Innovation made the final award determinations.
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Smart Growth Principles
- Mix land uses.
- Take advantage of compact building design.
- Create housing opportunities and choices for a range of household types, family sizes, and incomes.
- Create walkable neighborhoods.
- Foster distinctive, attractive communities with a strong sense of place.
- Preserve open space, farmland, natural beauty, and critical environmental areas.
- Reinvest in and strengthen existing communities, and achieve more balanced regional development.
- Provide a variety of transportation choices.
- Make development decisions predictable, fair, and cost effective.
- Encourage citizen and stakeholder participation in development decisions.
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Highlands' Garden Village
Denver Urban Renewal Authority
Denver, Colorado
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When Denver's Elitch Gardens amusement park relocated in 1994, it left behind a 27-acre site just five miles from downtown. On this site, the Denver Urban Renewal Authority (DURA) helped facilitate the vision, design, financing, and economic development of Highlands' Garden Village, an innovative, compact, mixed-use community that has become a model for developments throughout the Denver area.
Early in the process, design workshops engaged citizens and community leaders in the redevelopment. The resulting neighborhood reconnects the street grid with innovative "skinny streets," creating a great place to walk around. To blend in well with existing neighbors, commercial buildings and apartments are sited across from existing commercial blocks, and single-family homes front their counterparts in adjacent neighborhoods. The buildings reflect traditional Denver architectural styles, further integrating them into the historic neighborhoods around them.
Despite its small size, Highlands' Garden Village offers a wide variety of home choices-single-family houses, mixed-income and senior apartments, town homes, live-work lofts, carriage houses, and co-housing condominiums-all built with recycled or recyclable materials. The neighborhood also includes shops, a school, and community gathering places, as well as gardens, a carousel pavilion, and a restored, historic theater preserved from the original park.
The project's innovative design required nontraditional approaches to financing. DURA created an Urban Renewal District and provided tax increment financing and direct equity investment in the project. The public investment has paid off. Both residential and commercial property values have increased at faster rates in the project area than in the region as a whole. The project has also spurred development on adjacent streets, raising the area's sales tax revenue by 20 percent during a period of regional sales tax decline.
By taking advantage of its distinctive character and convenient location, Highlands' Garden Village has turned a once-vacant site into a thriving, attractive neighborhood and shown that a small site can give a community a big boost.
Highlands' Garden Village's narrow streets, higher densities, variety of homes, and mix of uses required new zoning allowances, which the city has since modified and adopted to create its first mixed-use overlay zone.
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Belmar
City of Lakewood and Lakewood Reinvestment Authority
Lakewood, Colorado
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In communities across the country, aging shopping centers are losing business to larger and newer competitors. The decline of these retail centers may leave holes in the community fabric, but it can also provide opportunities to reuse these sites to meet other community needs. Facing the decline of its Villa Italia shopping mall, the City of Lakewood worked with citizens, civic groups, and a local developer to transform the property into Belmar-the real, walkable downtown that this Denver suburb had lacked.
Belmar is located across the street from the city's government center. A traditional grid of narrow streets and small blocks replaces the footprint of the old mall. When complete in 2007, these new, pedestrian-friendly blocks will have one million square feet of shops, restaurants, and other services. The development will also include 1,300 new homes, including town homes, loft apartments, and live-work units. Belmar will have 700,000 square feet of the first new Class-A office space built in the area in over a decade. Nine acres of parks and plazas will give people a place to get together, relax, and enjoy festivals and other entertainment.
Putting time and effort into a high quality redevelopment of this site has been a great investment for Lakewood. Belmar brings a new sense of vibrancy and prosperity to the area. The redevelopment would not have been possible without a strong partnership between the city and the developer. The inclusive process transformed citizens' concerns about losing the mall into civic pride for their new downtown.
Belmar's first phase has been a success. Its retail income is comparable to higher-end malls. Belmar's office space is fully leased and rental and for-sale housing are outperforming the local market. Upon its completion, the city estimates it will add $952 million to the local economy and will directly create over 7,000 permanent jobs.
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Central District Specific Plan
City of Pasadena Planning and Development Department
Pasadena, California
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A popular town in the Los Angeles region, the City of Pasadena wanted to maintain its unique sense of place and give its residents choices about where they live and how they get around. Through its Central District Specific Plan, the city is encouraging housing in the downtown, near transit, and above stores. Design guidelines ensure new development fits in with community character.
The Planning Department engaged residents with a variety of tools to visualize changes in the city plan. On the low-tech end, planning staff used Play-Doh and cardboard boxes to show how development might look in a neighborhood. Taking advantage of more modern technology, the planning department made its Geographic Information System data available to the public; people printed maps of where they lived or worked with notes illustrating planned or existing projects. Planners used the maps to talk with citizens about what they valued and what changes they liked and disliked.
The plan has already shown success. Over 85 percent of all building permits
new housing in Pasadena are in the Central District, and most
are within one-half mile of a light rail station. Although
it allows up to 5,095 units of housing, the plan is expected
to reduce the projected traffic growth in the Central District.
The growing downtown population means more customers for stores
and businesses. As people stroll Pasadena's streets, stopping
at its shops and restaurants, they are seeing the fruits of
a plan for growth that respects historic buildings, capitalizes
on its convenient transit stations, and encourages development
in places where it makes environmental and economic sense.
When built out as planned, the Central District will occupy 10 percent of the land in Pasadena while generating an estimated 25 percent of the property taxes.
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Closure of the Gilbert & Bennett wire mill in 1989 left a 55-acre, contaminated, industrial site in Redding's Georgetown section, the primary commercial zone for this town of 8,400 residents. By 2002, the facility that was once a major source of tax revenue had accrued unpaid taxes of over $1 million. To revitalize the area and protect public health, the town partnered with a developer who not only paid the tax lien in full, but also cleaned up the contamination and is redeveloping the site into a mixed-use neighborhood. This partnership has been good for the town and the developer-each benefits from the new homes, businesses, services, and revenue.
In a week-long public workshop, over 1,000 stakeholders from the town and from regional, state, and federal governments developed the design for the new neighborhood. A key component of the plan is a lively diversity of uses, including 416 homes in a wide variety of styles, 109,000 square feet of shops and restaurants, 113,000 square feet of office space, a performing arts center with a black box theater, and a health facility with a public pool. To honor the mill's heritage, 15 of the site's historic buildings will be rehabilitated, and 21 new buildings will be designed in a historically sensitive manner.
Pedestrian-friendly design features such as trails, wide sidewalks, short blocks, and narrow streets encourage people to walk around the neighborhood. To give residents more transportation choices, the developer is building a commuter train station that will provide easy access to Manhattan.
The Gilbert & Bennett wire mill redevelopment is a model for complex reuse projects. The strong public-private partnership invited community input in the design process, facilitated the remediation plan, and expedited adoption of the master plan.
When the neighborhood is complete, the Town of Redding expects that it will create over 1,700 permanent jobs and provide the town with $4.7 million in new, annual property tax revenues.
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When the U.S. Navy announced in 1993 that
it would close the Orlando Naval Training Center, the City
of Orlando saw an opportunity to build a vibrant, mixed-use
neighborhood that would make the base property once again
part of the community. The city formed a Base Reuse Commission
of 150 community leaders and organized meetings to plan the
property's future. In 174 meetings, citizens helped devise
and refine a plan to redevelop the base. At a visioning workshop,
citizens described what they wanted: a variety of housing
types, a vibrant main street, public access to lakes, and
linkages with existing neighborhoods.
Before rebuilding could begin, 256 buildings,
200 miles of underground utilities, and 25 miles of road had
to be dismantled and recycled. Asbestos and lead paint in
the buildings and arsenic and petroleum in the soil needed
to be cleaned up. Four hundred and forty days after demolition
began, one of the largest recycling projects in the nation's
history was complete, and the work of building a new community
began. Since the first model opened in 2003, Baldwin Park
has sold lots and houses faster than any comparable project
in the area. When construction ends in 2008, Baldwin Park
will be home to 10,000 residents living in 4,100 homes, ranging
from rental apartments to custom homes, all built in architectural
styles traditional to the area. In addition, 6,000 people
will work in offices throughout the neighborhood and in shops
in the Village Center. Everyone will be able to enjoy over
450 acres of lakes and parks, including over two miles of
lakefront property reserved for public use.
Baldwin Park's residents, workers, visitors,
and neighbors will also have many choices in how they get
around. There are 50 miles of trails and sidewalks on an interconnected
street grid for walking and biking. Traffic, once blocked
by the former base's security fence, can now flow through
32 new intersections that connect Baldwin Park streets to
surrounding neighborhoods, reducing congestion. The redevelopment
of this former naval base gave the citizens of Orlando what
they wanted and planned for: a thriving new community and
a legacy for future generations to enjoy.
Since it's an infill redevelopment project,
Baldwin Park can take advantage of existing power plants and
water and wastewater treatment facilities. At the same time,
the city will gain an additional $30 million in annual property
tax revenues.
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2004 Award Winners
Town
of Davidson, North Carolina
Overall Excellence in Smart Growth
City
of Greensboro, North Carolina
Built Projects
City
of Santa Cruz, California
Policies and Regulations
Sacramento
Area, California, Council of Governments
Community Outreach and Education
San
Juan Pueblo, New Mexico
Small Communities
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Select Achievements of 2004 Award Winners
City of Santa Cruz, California
Policies and Regulations
Thanks to the city's Accessory Dwelling Unit program, forty
permits for accessory units were issued in 2004, at least
five times more than the average issued per year before the
program was adopted. These homes will offer citizens new and
affordable housing options. The program continues to receive
national recognition, including a 2005 American Planning Association
Award and a 2005 Honor Award from the American Institute of
Architects.
San Juan Pueblo, New Mexico
Small Communities
San Juan Pueblo's award-winning master plan includes plans
for a two to three-block Main Street. The community is currently
conducting infrastructure planning for streets and utilities
in this area, with construction slated for 2006. In 2005,
the Ohkay Owingeh Housing Authority built five homes as part
of a home ownership project.
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2003 Award Winners
Metropolitan
Council, Minnesota
Overall Excellence in Smart Growth
Department
of the Navy
Built Projects
Georgia
Office of Quality Growth
Community Outreach and Education
Cuyahoga
County, Ohio, Treasurer's Office
Policies and Regulations
City
of Raleigh and Wake County, North Carolina, Public School
System
Public Schools
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Select Achievements of 2003 Award Winners
Metropolitan Council, Minnesota
Overall Excellence in Smart Growth
In 2004 the Metropolitan Council awarded 46 Livable Communities
Grants worth over $15 million to communities in the Minneapolis-St.
Paul metropolitan area. These efforts will result in over 400
new affordable homes, 4,400 new or retained jobs, and 140 acres
of reclaimed land. The grants will leverage an anticipated $1.88
billion in additional private and other public investments.
Department of the Navy
Built Projects
Through its partnership with Clark Realty Capital and Lincoln
Property Company, the Department of the Navy continues to
redevelop its family housing using smart growth principles.
The redevelopment of Gateway Village in San Diego follows
traditional neighborhood design and includes smaller blocks,
narrower and interconnected streets, sidewalks, and garages
that are either set back or alley loaded. When finished, the
new neighborhood for Navy and Marine families will feature
460 three- to four-bedroom homes and a variety of community
amenities. Over 100,000 tons of demolished material from the
redevelopment were recycled.
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2002 Award Winners
Arlington County, Virginia
Overall Excellence in Smart Growth
Town of Breckenridge,
Colorado, Planning Department
Built Projects
City/County Association
of Governments of San Mateo County, California
Policies and Regulations
Massachusetts Executive
Office of Environmental Affairs
Community Outreach and Education
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Select Achievements of 2002 Award Winners
Arlington County, Virginia
Overall Excellence in Smart Growth
Arlington County continues to bring smart, efficient development
to the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor, focusing on creating affordable
housing and preserving a distinct sense of place. In 2004 construction
began on 1,270 housing units, 8,900 sq. ft. of retail space,
and 911,000 sq. ft. of office space. A former church next to
a Metro station is being redeveloped into 116 apartments, 70
of which will be reserved for lower-income residents. The historic
central post office is being preserved as part of a new mixed-use
development, which will include about 85,000 sq. ft. of office
and retail space and 194 condominiums.
Massachusetts Executive Office of Environmental Affairs
Community Outreach and Education
The EOEA continues to fund community preservation grants.
In 2003-2004, it gave $1.5 million to help communities revise
their regulations to allow smart growth. In addition, it provided
$1.2 million to implement riverfront development plans in
seven communities. The agency has also implemented a Commonwealth
Capital Policy, which uses $500 million in state grants and
loans to encourage communities to adopt policies and codes
that create safe and convenient neighborhoods with homes that
people can afford.
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Review Panel
Laurence Aurbach, The Town Paper
Tara Butler, National Governors Association
Dan Emerine, International City/County Management Association
Steve Gallagher, National Association of Industrial and Office Properties
Kris Krider, City of Davidson
John Kuriawa, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Bob McNamara, National Association of REALTORS®
Robin Murray, American Institute of Architects
Arthur C. Nelson, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Michael Pawlukiewicz, Urban Land Institute
Robert Ritter, Federal Highway Administration
Scot Spencer, The Annie E. Casey Foundation
Ed Tombari, National Association of Home Builders
Photo Credits
Front cover: Lowry, CO. Photos courtesy of Lowry Redevelopment Authority.
How Smart Growth Protects the Environment: King Farm, Rockville, MD.
U.S. EPA, Development, Community and Environment Division.
About the Award: Market Common, Arlington, VA. U.S. EPA, Development,
Community and Environment Division.
Winners page: The Village at NTC, San Diego, CA. Photo courtesy of the
Department of the Navy.
Case study photos courtesy of award winners, except Pasadena Del Mar station
photo, courtesy of Art Cueto.
Continuing Achievements, 2004: Santa Cruz, CA. Photo courtesy of City of Santa Cruz.
Continuing Achievements, 2003: Gateway Village, San Diego, CA. Photo courtesy
of the Department of the Navy.
Continuing Achievements, 2002: Arlington, VA. U.S. EPA, Development,
Community and Environment Division.
Acknowledgements: Davidson, NC. Photo courtesy of Town of Davidson.
Back cover: San Juan Pueblo, New Mexico. Photo courtesy of Jamie Blosser.
National Building Museum
The 2005 National Award for Smart Growth Achievement ceremony was held at the National Building Museum in Washington, DC, on November 15. The National Building Museum, created by an act of Congress in 1980, is America's premier cultural institution dedicated to exploring and celebrating architecture, design, engineering, construction, and urban planning. Since opening its doors in 1985, the museum has become a vital forum for exchanging ideas and information about such topical issues as managing suburban growth, preserving landmarks and communities, and revitalizing urban centers. Its engaging exhibitions and education programs, including innovative curricula for school children and stimulating programs for adults, annually attract nearly 400,000 people, making the museum the most-visited institution of its kind in the world.
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For more information about the National Award for Smart Growth
Achievement and EPA's other smart growth activities, visit the Smart Growth home page.
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