| | |  |  | a semi-annual update from the Master of Community Planning Program | | MCP Students Develop Plans for Johnny Ray Rails-to-Trails | | Master of Community Planning (MCP) students in the CPLN 7600: Synthesis Studio this semester developed conceptual plans for the Johnny Ray Rail-to-Trail for their capstone project taught by Dr. Sweta Byahut. This project was undertaken as part of the Alabama City Year Program in collaboration with the Lee Russell Council of Governments (LRCOG), and coordinated by Daniel Wyatt and Benjamin McGarr from LRCOG. The goal of Johnny Ray Rail-to-Trail project is to convert 37 miles of decommissioned rails lines to ADA-friendly, non-motorized; multi-use trails connecting Chambers, Lee, and Randolph counties in Alabama. This investment is expected to produce many social, economic, and health benefits in the surrounding rural communities. The project will support connectivity between schools, trails, parks, points of interests and jurisdictions in the region. It will provide long distance multi-use regional trail amenity in rural and small towns of Opelika, Lafayette, Five Points, and Roanoke in Alabama. It will not just encourage walking and cycling for recreation and transportation, but also result in improved public health, bolstered community quality of life and safety, and strengthened local economies. Over the course of the semester, students have assured the LRCOG with the planning of the proposed trail for Opelika, Lafayette, Five Points, and Roanoke. Their objective was to develop a conceptual plan for the trail and surrounding area in each community, identifying a range of development proposals, and implementation strategies. At the end of the semester, students presented their final projects to stakeholders from the communities including the Executive Director for Lee Russell County of governments, the Mayor of Opelika, several council members and stakeholders from Roanoke, Opelika, Lafayette and Five Points. The presentations were organized by the LRCOG, and provided stakeholders an opportunity to see the ideas developed by students. | Learn more about AL City Year Program and the studio projects below: | | | | MCP at AL-APA Conference |  | MCP program set up a booth at the AL-APA and AARC Conference in Orange Beach, AL this past October. | Congrats to our AL-APA Award Recipients!MCP students Mark Aniadaga, Charles Jones and Benjamin McGarr were awarded the Distinguished Leadership Award for Outstanding Student Team by the Alabama Chapter of the American Planning Association for a Planning Student Team for their project titled ‘Renewing the Heart of Phenix City.’ They developed this plan in Spring of 2022 in Dr. Binita Mahato’s CPLN 7200 Urban Design Studio which worked with Phenix City, AL to create Downtown Revitalization Plans. | | Recipients with Tracie Hadaway, Planning Director, Phenix City, AL……………….Recipients with Mac Martin Jr., President of the AL-APA | The program also organized a one hour session where students were able to present their projects from different classes. Check out the student presentations below! |  | Nianchu Hou and Christopher Rush presented their team’s project “Affordable Housing 2040 PLAN Smiley Ct.” |
|  | Mark Aniadaga and Benjamin McGarr presented their team’s project “Renewing the Heart of Phenix City” |
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| | SPAAU Updates Congratulations to our new officers! President: Emily Hawkins Vice President: Kelsey Bousquet Secretary: Alyssa Albrecht Treasurer: Riley Dibble International Student Rep: Tianshi Xu |
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| Student Planning Association events for Fall 2022 | Lady Kassama Guest Lecture on Hazard Mitigation and Disaster Recovery Lady Kassama, AICP, is a senior planner for the City of Huntsville, AL, and serves as an ambassador for Hazard Mitigation and Disaster Recovery Division of the American Planning Association. Lady Kassama joined us in late September to deliver a lecture on Hazard Mitigation. |
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| Adobe Workshop with Johnathan Corona In October, we were joined by Johnathan Corona, Urban Planner and MCP alumni, for an Adobe Workshop. Corona taught students the ins and outs of Photoshop, InDesign, and Illustrator. |
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| Mr. Steve Foote Guest Lecture Mr. Steve Foote, Planning Director of the City of Auburn, AL shared with us his experiences from over 30 years of work in various planning capacities around the country, the challenges faced by planners and how to navigate them, and the nature of the planning practice. | | MCP at the Sustainability Picnic | | | Karington Allen (left) and Riley Dibble (right) at the picnic MCP had the opportunity to sponsor the Sustainability Picnic hosted by the Office of Sustainability in August. At the event, we were able to talk to event participants about the program as well as give out program merchandise. The evening was full of eating, talking, and live music with our peers! |
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| | Student Spotlights | | Riley Dibble’s co-authored journal article titled "Expanding the Definition of Environmental Justice in Superfund Redevelopment: A Case Study of the American Creosote Works Inc. Site.", was accepted for publication pending minor revisions in the Environmental Justice Journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. Their article explores a deficiency in the USEPA pertaining to environmental injustice. In the article, the authors examine the American Creosote Works Inc. Superfund Site in Pensacola, FL. through site documents, planning engagements, and demographics, and determine the potential risk of gentrification-caused displacement. They argue that this process is a form of indirect institutionalized discrimination. |
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| Johnathan Demirci is beginning work as an Urban Planner at Kimley-Horn and Associates, an engineering and planning consultant firm in Midtown, Atlanta. He had the privilege of interning at Kimley-Horn over the summer and was offered to join them in a full-time position upon graduation. Kimley-Horn planning team works on comprehensive plans, small area plans, urban design projects, on-call contracts with municipalities, as well as grant funding support. |
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| | Chris Rush accepted a planning position with the Central Mississippi Planning and Development District (CMPDD). Chris also had an internship with the Wesley Foundation over the summer, where he worked along with Director Tony Jeck and Associate Director Paige Holaday on data management. |
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| | | Congratulations to our Fall 2022 graduates! |
| Avery Agostinelli Jonathan Demirci Riffat Farjana Mazah Grimes Christopher Rush |
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| We wish you the best of luck in your upcoming adventures! | | Alumni Highlight | | Valecia WilsonSenior Neighborhood Planner with DC Office of Planning MCP grad-2014 |
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| What position are you currently in and what does it entail? I am a Senior Neighborhood Planner with the District of Columbia Office of Planning. I manage projects across four of DC’s eight Wards, and focus primarily on equitable small area planning, community engagement, and interagency collaboration. I also engage developers of major planning projects in my geographies, and contribute to resiliency efforts led by partner agencies. During my tenure, I have supported the ResilientDC Strategy through my leadership of a public-private, multiorganization working group, and developed a citywide engagement campaign in support of the DC Comprehensive Plan. I also led the District’s first equity-focused area plan, and am currently managing a small area plan in one of the District’s oldest Black enclaves, Ivy City. Describe your planning journey since graduating from Auburn MCP. After graduating from Auburn, I stuck around for a couple months supporting design education in the College of Architecture, Design and Construction for underserved high school students! My first fulltime job was as a Community Planner for Prince George’s County, Maryland, a predominantly suburban jurisdiction just east of Washington, DC. My work included zoning analysis, plan development, and design in support of urbanizing communities. I worked there for three years before moving on to DC, where I currently live. I have been working for DC for five years. I also now serve as a Program Manager for the Association for Community Design, and have worked with the organization to plan their annual convening and develop strategies for organizational development over the last several months. What advice do you have for current MCP students? Take full advantage of the opportunities you have as students to prepare for your next step into the profession! Use electives and open-ended projects, reports, and analysis assignments to really dive into topics and geographies you’re curious about. Go to every conference that catches your eye while it’s cheap and build rapport with professionals as peers, not just potential resources. Be open to making substantive connections with people around the country; don’t just hand your business card out. I also recommend getting involved in activities and organizations at Auburn outside of the program—while I was at Auburn, I took dance classes in AU’s Department of Theatre and Dance and was part of graduate student organizations. I visited nearby cities and beaches with new friends and explored the area. It is easy to take on a “get in, get out” approach to graduate school, but if you are committing 2+ years in a place, embrace it like you plan to embrace living wherever you go next!
| | Fall 2022 Faculty UpdatesWhen they’re not teaching, they’re… | | Dr. Megan Heim-LaFrombois, as Secretary/Treasurer of the Faculty Women’s Interest Group (FWIG) of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning (ACSP), helped organize several workshops and events at the ACSP conference in Toronto this November, including a Feminist, Anti-Racist, Decolonial Futures Zine Workshop; a Feminist Anti-Harassment Body Map Story Telling Workshop; and the annual FWIG Participatory Luncheon and Business Meeting. She is currently working on, along with Dr. Jay Mittal, putting together an edited book, The Routledge Handbook of University-Community Partnerships, which should be in print late next year. |
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| Dr. Jay Mittal presented a paper at the ACSP conference this Fall in Toronto, Canada on “Enhancing Land Readjustment with Additional Public Funds and Public Spaces utilizing Density Bonus, Privately Open Public Spaces (POPS), and Business Improvement Districts (BIDS),” He was also invited to conduct Strategic Planning Workshop for Greenburgh Housing Authority of New York, and a “Redevelopment Option Analysis for Affordable Housing site on Maple St.” along with MCP adjunct professor, Mr. Damon Duncan. |
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| | Dr. Becki Retzlaff published several works during the semester, including a new edition of her co-authored book, Ohio Planning and Zoning Law, published by Thomson Reuters. She also co-edited a book, Justice and the Interstates: The Racist Truth About Urban Highways, published by Island Press. In that book, she wrote two chapters, one with Montgomery Urban Design Planner Jocelyn Zanzot titled “The Interstates, Racism, and the Need for Peace and Reconciliation: The Case of Highway Routing in Alabama,” and another with Ryan Reft and Amanda Phillips de Lucas titled “How can a Highway be Racist?” Becki also had a journal article on voter registration and planning accepted in the Journal of Planning Education and Research with Professor Binita Mahato and Ph.D. student Xi Chen. Becki presented papers on neighborhood planning and school segregation at the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning conference in Toronto, Ontario, as well as the World Planning Schools Congress in Bali, Indonesia. In addition to publishing and presenting, Becki also contributes monthly to the Auburn Sustainability Blog: https://sustain.auburn.edu/our-blog/ |
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| Dr. Binita Mahato has recently received a grant from the Small Business Anti-Displacement Network (SBAN), a project by the University of Maryland’s National Center for Smart Growth Research and Education, for conducting a case study on the Formalization of the Informal Sector through Unionization in Kolkata, India. She has been conducting interviews with the hawkers in Kolkata in the Fall of 2022. Dr. Mahato presented her initial case study findings at the online Inaugural Small Business Anti-Displacement Network (SBAN) Conference: Keeping BIPOC- and Immigrant-Owned Businesses in Place in November. Dr. Mahato also presented the paper, Informal Public Spaces: A Spatial Ethnography of Urban Informality in Central Kolkata, India, at the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning (ACSP) Conference in Toronto, Canada. |
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| | Dr. Sweta Byahut presented her paper “Textual Content Analysis of Climate Action Plans in the US” at the 2022 Annual Conference of Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning (ACSP). She was also a panelist in the Open Space Matters symposium on urban and landscape planning organized by RVCA, Bangalore, where she gave a talk entitled “Development Regulations for Public and Private Open Spaces in Indian Cities”. Byahut’s CPLN 7600: Synthesis Studio class developed conceptual plans for the Johnny Ray Rail-to-Trail for their capstone project this semester in collaboration with the Lee Russell Council of Governments. |
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| | | Newsletter compiled and edited by Emily Hawkins (MCP student and Graduate Assistant) | Get in touch for more program info and send us your updates to be featured in the next newsletter! |  | |
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