2009 Awards

The 2009 PAW/APA Washington Joint Planning Award winners, with selected juror comments, are presented below.

Physical Plans

Merit Award

City of Leavenworth

Downtown Master Plan Comments: This Master Plan is truly comprehensive in its approach and is very thorough, detailed and deliberative. The project definitely made excellent use of an iterative process that constantly re-evaluated its goals, decisions, recommendations and programs. It was a pleasure to read of the detailed and thought-out planning process and the eventual success.

Honorable Mention Award

Walla Walla Urban Area Comprehensive Plan

Comments: The Plan made excellent use of a wide variety of public participation techniques to involve many stakeholders. The process made good use of technology. The plan was very clear and a very readable document. The walkabouts contributed greatly to the success of the Plan. It was nice to see the plan also address important sustainability issues.

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Rural/Small Town Planning

Merit Award

Ground Mound Development

Plan Comments: This small town project is an outstanding example of how a planning process can be used to develop consensus and build effective relationships among multiple parties representing a wide range of interests. The use of partnerships is quite impressive, especially bringing in Tribal representatives. This Plan is a unique multi-jurisdictional planning effort that went to great lengths in all areas of governmental and agency cooperation.

Honorable Mention

City of Orting Downtown Vision Plan Comments: This small town Vision Plan is a great example of how a community really understands small town planning concepts and what will actually work. It really used the prototypical development feasibility approaches to future development. The use of charettes, and techniques for citizen involvement is to be commended.

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Citizen Involvement

Merit Award

Envision Midway, Cities of Kent & Des Moines

Comments: Outstanding multi-jurisdictional approach to a complex issue with a unique and innovative citizen involvement program. The plan is articulate and innovative and crosses many disciplines. The “Guidebook” is excellent. The project has a good “sense of place” for “in between land” that is so often overlooked in the land use planning process. Envision Midway truly demonstrates an outstanding combination of advertizing techniques and computer technologies to involve citizens in an important planning program. This is especially impressive in light of the complexities introduced through the multi-agency aspect of the program.

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Sustainability

Merit Award

City of Shoreline Environmental Sustainability Strategy

Comments: Shoreline’s Sustainability Strategy is an outstanding example of the application of state-of-the-art planning, policy development and communication techniques to the rapidly evolving topic of environmental sustainability. It is particularly impressive for being comprehensive in scope and yet focused on strategies where there is consensus. Good implementation methods and techniques. A well organized and clear strategy that is certainly transferrable to other jurisdictions. This has lots of energy and is an exciting strategy that will inspire others to follow. It also contains an excellent process with the “green bucks” exercise and use of the “Green Infrastructure Map”.

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Transportation Plans

Merit Award

Bellingham Multi-Modal Transportation Concurrency Program

Comments: Traditional transportation concurrency programs sometimes work at odds with the goal of developing compact development centers served by a variety of mobility options. Bellingham’s transportation concurrency program directly addresses this tension in an innovative and comprehensive manner. The project definitely suggests a paradigm shift from the traditional LOS System in the way projects are evaluated. This project is quite innovative, creative, and is a unique evaluation system. It’s a real educational tool in itself.

Honorable Mention

Upper Valley Regional Trails Plan, Leavenworth

Comments: Excellent Example of multi-stakeholder collaboration. The trails plan is very strong on planning process and partnering. The effort developed good connectivity for non-motorized transportation users. It has an excellent evaluation process used to reach a real consensus on many difficult issues.

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Implementation

Merit Award

City of Burien Town Square Comments: This is an outstanding example of a planning process “staying the course” over time. It obviously had strong leadership throughout. It’s exciting to see the project “on the ground”. Inspiring, daring and obviously creates a new identity for Burien’s Town Center.

Honorable Mention

Oak Harbor Windjammer Waterfront/Downtown Redevelopment Program

Comments: Excellent Program for smaller community with great web-based tools. They really engaged the business community with active participation and quality involvement. The project shows great community leadership.

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Student Projects

Merit Award

Planning for Access to Transit: A Proposed Multi-Criteria Evaluation Matrix for Sound Transit’s System Access Program – Katherine Lichtenstein of UW

Comments: Excellent application of a refined multi-criteria evaluation method to bring transparency and accountability to decisions that can sometimes seem to come from a “black box.” Adaptable to different governmental situations. The Matrix has “implementability” and shows great maturity from a planning student with a grasp of the issues. It also passes the common sense test for workability.

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