Creating Sustainable Places

SEPTEMBER 2012

Community Conversation on Sept. 29: Social Equity and Sustainable Development

As we work together to create more vibrant, connected and green places in our communities, how can we ensure that both reinvestment and new development benefit everyone?

Join the Creating Sustainable Places Equity Partners and the Mid-America Regional Council for a community conversation and work session to tackle this important issue. The event will be held from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 29, at the Kauffman Conference Center, 4801 Rockhill Road, Kansas City, Mo. There is no cost to attend, but registration is required.

The Creating Sustainable Places Equity Partners will facilitate this work session, with presenters from areas across the country where social equity has been successfully integrated with development projects.  Participants will discuss the Market Creek (San Diego) and Dudley Street (Boston) developments and the Partnership for Southern Equity (Atlanta) initiative.  The first part of the meeting, from 9 a.m. to noon, will focus on applying an equity lens to development. The second part, from noon to 2 p.m., will focus on building a regional equity network and agenda.


Digital engagement tool launched

A key element of Creating Sustainable Places is enhancing local and regional capacity for robust community engagement. This includes traditional public engagement, such as community meetings and open houses.  However, only a small segment of the public is typically reached with these meetings. Emerging digital engagement technology enables us to supplement traditional engagement through online forums.   

MARC and the CSP partners selected MindMixer as a digital engagement tool for the planning initiatives underway in our six focus corridors, as well as other initiatives. MindMixer allows anyone with Internet access to join for free and provide feedback on issues of interest. The site allows users to post comments, submit ideas, take surveys and participate in instant polling.

As a supplement to traditional public engagement, this online tool enhances our ability to reach a large audience and generates reports that capture user comments to better inform decision making.

MARC has launched two MindMixer sites — one specifically for the Creating Sustainable Places initiative and its six corridors and one for other MARC regional initiatives. More content will be generated on these sites as these projects progress.


Planning Sustainable Places applications under review

The Planning Sustainable Places (PSP) program and funding opportunity is well underway. Over the summer, an interdisciplinary oversight committee, with representatives from both the CSP Coordinating Committee and the Total Transportation Policy Committee, developed program guidelines and issued a call for projects. A total of 38 applications were submitted in late August, including:

  • 9 projects in the CSP focus corridors
  • 29 projects outside the CSP focus corridors
  • 31 projects with a local government as lead applicant
  • 7 projects with a nonprofit or other agency as lead applicant

Scoring and evaluation of these applications is underway.  The PSP committee will meet in September and October to finalize a recommended project list to be submitted to the Total Transportation Policy Committee, CSP Coordinating Committee and MARC Board of Directors for approval.


Corridor updates

Planning teams for each of the six focus corridors in Creating Sustainable Places — North Oak Trafficway, Rock Island, Troost Avenue, Shawnee Mission Parkway/Metcalf, State Avenue and U.S. 40 — have selected their consultants and begun introductory meetings. Public meetings were held recently for the U.S. 40 and State Avenue corridors, with more to come for the other corridors in the coming weeks. Feedback from these meetings, as well as online feedback through MindMixer, the digital engagement platform described above, will inform the work in each corridor going forward.

Members of each corridor group, including local government officials and nonprofits, have shaped their own planning processes.  Five of the six are focusing on land use and development opportunities at strategic locations along the corridors. The sixth (North Oak) is focusing on a study for future enhanced transit opportunities. Each corridor has a separate web page with key documents and updates, along with a MindMixer page that will be populated with questions and topics for public engagement.

We encourage you to stay informed through these web pages.