The meeting began with a presentation from Diana Schoder, Senior Associate with the Building Healthy Places team at ULI, on the newly finished report: 10 Principles for Enhancing Equitable Access to Parks. Discussion focused on how the principles outlined in the report applied to the projects the cohort was undertaking, and how they could be implemented.
The cohort also recapped the status of all of the projects as a group. ULI Dallas-Fort Worth has completed their Technical Assistance Panel for the Stop Six neighborhood of Fort Worth and assembled the recommendations for presentation to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development earlier this week. ULI St. Paul is moving forward quickly, and will be partnering with Hack The Gap for a series of community engagement events designed to “mastermind” the Rondo Land Bridge project, which has taken a step forward, as Keith Baker, Executive Director of Reconnect Rondo, presented to the Minnesota State Legislature for a second time in as many months. ULI San Antonio is making progress on defining mobility hubs and identifying pilot locations for creating a more connected region. ULI Cincinnati recently hosted a successful 18-hour cities webinar on increasing housing affordability, and invited the cohort members to participate in an upcoming strategic planning session for implementing the proposed 34-mile trail loop. ULI Louisiana is now adding a Broadband Symposium to its overall plan, to be held in late May, with the aim of discussing key technical issues to help inform a later Technical Assistance Panel focused on the original Plank Road study area. Finally, ULI Toronto is undertaking workshops starting in June to look at four separate Transit-Oriented Community sites and collect feedback from participants on key issues.
The meetings of the Curtis first year cohort will continue on a bi-monthly basis until the winter of 2021, focusing on having discussion and building capacity and network among the local project teams, as well as a community of practice that can work together on shared challenges and opportunities. Future cohort meetings will continue to bring guest speakers to provide additional perspective to these meetings.
For more information, visit the Curtis Infrastructure Initiative website, or contact us here.
