First Nolen Medal is Awarded to the TCRPC

Dan Cary, Michael Busha, and Marcela Camblor

The Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council influenced many planning professionals and elected officials to think more creatively about how to transform Florida's cities and towns into more livable places, said Jim Murley, CNU Board Member at the national level and past Secretary of the Florida Department of Community Affairs (DCA), charged with overseeing statewide growth planning.

Sculpted by artist Roberto Santo and cast in bronze, the medal features a likeness of John Nolen. Nolen, a pioneering town planner during the early twentieth Century, called the Sunshine State a laboratory for town and city building and advocated settlements that showcase the beauty of human work.

This major award provides the opportunity to recognize an outstanding body of work, holding up examples of performance and achievement to which all New Urbanists may aspire, explained the award's jury foreman Rick Hall, president of Hall Planning & Engineering, Inc. (HPE) and vice-chair of CNU Florida.

The Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council received the medal in recognition of two decades of diligent, courageous work to bring walkable community design to the four counties (Indian River, Martin, St. Lucie and Palm Beach counties) and numerous municipalities within its jurisdiction. TCRPC, more than any individual or organization, measured up to the Medal Nominating Committee's five benchmarks:

• Innovation
• Transferability
• Quality
• Implementation
• Comprehensiveness

TCRPC has an extensive history of quality urban design in the region. In 1984 in Martin County, Dan Cary came to the Treasure Coast as an environmental planner, but soon rose to the position of executive director of the TCRPC. During this time, the Treasure Coast region, like much of South Florida, began to feel the effects of explosive growth. As Cary reviewed Developments of Regional Impact (plans required by Florida's new growth management law), he began to realize that the state's comprehensive planning process looked independently at issues, such as land use, transportation, employment, and the environment, which in reality were interrelated but did not consider the affect one area had upon another.

In 1987, Cary found a solution to his frustration with the current planning process. He had been reviewing a development proposal in west St. Lucie County calling for 20,000 dwelling units, the equivalent of a small town. After reading an article about Andres Duany and his firm, DPZ, Cary called Duany and began to work with him on an alternative plan for the proposed development. Cary discovered that all the independent pieces mandated by a comprehensive plan could be addressed together through traditional town planning. He soon began to guide the TCRPC into an aggressive role of encouraging development plans based on these concepts. This practice continues today under the leadership of TCRPC's current Executive Director, Michael Busha.

During this time several events occurred that served to intensify South Florida's burgeoning New Urbanism movement. The passage of Florida's Growth Management Act in 1985 put into place a comprehensive, statewide framework to plan for and manage Florida's future growth at the state, regional, and local levels. What emerged was a growth management framework that promoted and rewarded innovative planning approaches. This included the provision of funding for regional planning councils to publish and distribute New Urbanism educational materials, sponsor charrettes, and engage in special New Urbanism studies for towns and cities under various initiatives.

Sponsored by TCRPC under Cary's leadership in 1988, the Downtown Stuart Charrette kicked off the revitalization of downtown Stuart. The National Trust for Historic Preservation's Main Street Program shepherded the plans into reality. The plan's success was measured by the town's lowering of its millage rate thanks to an increase in downtown commercial activity. The Stuart charrette provided a precedent for a series of charrettes run by TCRPC applying the principals of New Urbanism to the redevelopment of existing centers, including Lake Worth, Boynton Beach, and Fort Pierce. Leading urban design firms collaborated with TCRPC on many of these charrettes. Eventually, TCRPC formed its own in-house design studio which has been led by a succession of University of Miami School of Architecture graduates and faculty, including Ramon Trias, Geoffrey Ferrell and Marcela Camblor. Trias is now the planning director in Fort Pierce, Florida.

Many of the CNU Charter principles were worked out and pre-tested in the Treasure Coast Region long before there was a CNU and before New Urbanism even had a name, said Victor Dover, Principle, Dover, Kohl & Partners and Chair of the new CNU Florida Chapter.