“Creating the City We All Want: A Roadmap.”

The Municipal Art Society and the Community-Based Planning Task Force invite you to join us for a Spring 2008 Forum Series, “Creating the City We All Want: A Roadmap.” To mark the release of the Fifth Edition of Planning for All New Yorkers: the Atlas of Community-Based Plans, a resource that compiles all such plans undertaken in New York City since 1989, this Forum Series will explore the potential of neighborhood-led plans to shape equitable development and growth in the city, from the perspective of elected officials, community advocates, and planners. RSVP to rsvp@mas.org or 212/935-2075.

Monday, March 24: “Elected Officials Respond to Communities That Plan for Themselves”

This forum serves as the official launch of the new Atlas of Community-Based Plans, which illustrates that New Yorkers are increasingly pro-active planners – there has been a 40% increase in the number of community-based plans in New York City since 2004. Still, the Atlas also uncovers a disconnection between public consensus and allocation of public funds. How do our elected leaders plan to get the city on track toward a real planning and development partnership between government and communities?

Panelists: Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer; City Council Member Tony Avella (invited); and City Council Member Gale Brewer

Moderator: Ron Shiffman, Director Emeritus, Pratt Center for Community Development

Monday, April 14: “PlaNYC 2030 Post-Bloomberg: Using Community Plans to Achieve a Sustainable City (No Matter Who’s in Office)”

Mayor Bloomberg will leave office 20 years before his sustainability plan is fully realized. But there’s hope—many neighborhoods were planning for sustainability long before the Mayor even took office. Neighborhood plans typically recommend precisely those initiatives the Mayor supports: adding and improving parks and open space; securing affordable housing; improving neighborhood mobility; addressing inadequate infrastructure, etc. Implementing these plans will secure a sustainable future for all New Yorkers and will shore up community support for citywide sustainability goals. Neighborhood advocates and planners discuss their experiences working within a sustainability framework, both from within PlaNYC 2030 and outside of it.

Panelists: Tom Angotti, Hunter College Center for Community Planning and Development and editor of Gotham Gazette’s Sustainability Watch; Miquela Craytor, Deputy Director, Sustainable South Bronx; Jeanne DuPont, Executive Director, Rockaway Waterfront Alliance; Yolanda Gonzalez, Nos Quedamos/We Stay; and Paul Steely White, Executive Director, Transportation Alternatives.

Moderator: Amy Zimmer, Metro New York

Wednesday, May 14: “David vs. Goliath: Neighborhood Planning in the Face of Large-Scale Development”

Many observers opine that community-driven plans—official and approved through a city process or unofficial but widely recognized—are no real hedge against unwanted development. But in the cases of West Harlem, Midtown East, and Atlantic Yards, would developers have had carte blanche without community plans? How do community planners believe alternative plans can be more effective? How can alternative plans guarantee that future development will fit consensus-based neighborhood visions? We’ll look at some recent cases—West Harlem, Midtown East, and Prospect Heights/Fort Greene—where developer-driven plans threaten to undermine community vision, and examine the place of community-based planning in these struggles.

Panelists: Anthony Borelli, Director of Land Use, Planning, and Development for Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer; Marshall Brown, Architect/planner for the UNITY Plan for Atlantic Yards; Candace Carponter, Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods; Jordi Reyes-Montblanc, former Chairman, Manhattan Community Board 9; and Ed Rubin, Land Use Chair, Manhattan Community Board 6.

Moderator: Alberto Vourvoulias-Bush, Executive Director, El Diario/La Prensa.

All three will take place at The Urban Center, 457 Madison Ave., at 6 p.m. Refreshments will be served. Funding for the Campaign has been provided by the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation.

Background:

The Community-Based Planning Task Force, convened by the Municipal Art Society in 2001, is a coalition of grassroots community organizations, citywide civic groups, community boards, elected officials, planners, and academics. Based on the premise that the people who live and work in a neighborhood are among the best-equipped to plan for the future of that neighborhood, the Task Force is laying the groundwork for the formal adoption of community-based planning as official New York City policy.

Learn more at http://www.communitybasedplanningnyc.org