Nationally Renowned Panel of Land Use and Urban Planning Experts to Visit Area December 14-19

For more information, contact: Trisha Riggs at 202-624-7086

WASHINGTON (December 11, 2014) – A group of nationally renowned land use and urban planning experts has been convened by the Urban Land Institute (ULI) to make recommendations to the City of Norfolk on improving the resilience of the Fort Norfolk neighborhood, which is strategically important in the City’s plans for economic vitality as well as climate change preparedness.

Conducted through ULI’s advisory services program, the panel will be visiting Norfolk December 14-19. Panelists will be evaluating many aspects of waterfront resilience and redevelopment, including the best ways to use land that borders the waterways to ensure that the city can withstand tidal and storm flooding for the next 50 to 100 years. Among the factors to be considered are: the market potential of the area, given future demographic, population, economic and environmental shifts; preserving public access to the waterfront; land uses the promote long-term value of the development; the impact of flooding on site marketability; land use techniques to improve resilience and incentives to encourage use of the techniques; and using resilient development strategies to help address poverty and promote social equity.

Now in its 67th year, the ULI advisory services panel program assembles experts in the fields of real estate and land use planning to participate on panels worldwide, offering recommendations for complex planning and development projects, programs and policies. Panels have developed more than 600 studies for a broad range of land uses, ranging from waterfront properties to inner-city retail.

The ULI panel assignment for Norfolk is part of a series of advisory panels being supported by a generous grant from The Kresge Foundation to advance the institute’s pursuit of urban design and development practices that are more resilient and adaptable to the impact of climate change. The panel is being sponsored by the City of Norfolk.

With the support from The Kresge Foundation, ULI is leveraging the substantial expertise of its members to provide guidance on community building in a way that responds to inevitable climate change while helping to preserve the environment, boost economic prosperity, and foster a high quality of life.

The communities chosen for advisory panel assistance through ULI’s community resilience work are being selected on the basis of 1) the community’s long-range resilience challenges and vulnerabilities to severe weather-related events, and 2) the opportunity for the results to be applied to other communities with similar vulnerabilities.

The panel examining Fort Norfolk is being chaired by former ULI Senior Resident Fellow John McIlwain, who now serves as a senior advisor to the Garrison Institute on climate change. He is also a consultant on housing and urban resilience and a senior advisor to the Jonathan Rose Companies in New York City. “ULI looks forward to bringing the expertise of its members to Norfolk,” McIlwain said. “We are aiming to draw from our experience in Norfolk to demonstrate how communities can be built to be more resilient, and improve their economic, environmental and social well-being in the process.”

In addition to McIlwain, the other panelists are: Margaret Doyle, vice president, Development and LNG Solutions, USMRC, Maritime Simulation Institute, Middletown, Rhode Island; John Macomber, senior lecturer of business administration, Harvard Business School, Boston; Jonathan Miller, president and chief executive officer, Miller Samuel, Inc., New York City; Paul Moyer, director of planning, VHB, Vienna, Virginia; Chuck Schilke, senior lecturer, Edward St. John Real Estate Program, Johns Hopkins Carey Business School, Washington, D.C. and Baltimore; David A. Stebbins, AICP, vice president, Buffalo Urban Development Corporation and senior project manager, Erie County Industrial Development Agency, Buffalo, New York; and Juvarya Veltkamp, manager, Green Economy Initiatives, Vancouver Economic Commission, Vancouver, British Columbia.

According to Thomas Eitler, vice president of ULI’s advisory services program, the strength of the program lies in ULI’s unique ability to draw on the substantial knowledge of its 32,000-plus members, including land developers, engineers, public officials, academics, lenders, architects, planners and urban designers. “The independent views of the panelists bring a fresh perspective to the land use challenge,” Eitler said. “The advisory services program is about offering creative, innovative approaches to community building.”

ULI has a long history of advising communities on developing and redeveloping in ways that are environmentally conscious, economically sound, and which provide community-wide benefits. As recently as July 2013, ULI convened a panel of the nation’s foremost authorities on real estate and urban planning to evaluate local and federal plans for strengthening resilience in the Northeast communities affected by Hurricane Sandy, and to offer guidance on rebuilding efforts in those areas. McIlwain was a co-chair of that panel.

Candid insights and observations from these experts formed the basis for After Sandy: Advancing Strategies for Long-Term Resilience and Adaptability, a set of 23 recommendations focused on four areas — land use and development; infrastructure, technology and capacity; finance, investment and insurance; and leadership and governance.

NOTE TO REPORTERS AND EDITORS: The ULI panel’s recommendations will be presented at 9 a.m. on Friday, December 19, at the Nauticus Theater in Norfolk. The event is open to the public.

About the Urban Land Institute
The Urban Land Institute (uli.org) is a nonprofit education and research institute supported by its members. Its mission is to provide leadership in the responsible use of land and in creating and sustaining thriving communities worldwide. Established in 1936, the Institute has more than 32,000 members worldwide representing all aspects of land use and development disciplines.