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A Blueprint for Action: Developing a Livable Community for All Ages
A Blueprint for Action was created to provide local leaders with tools to build the collaborations needed to create livable communities for people of all ages. The guide can be used as a quick-reference kit for practitioners looking for tools, resources, and best practices. It includes information based on community experiences in building local leadership and offers tools to prepare for the needs of a maturing America, drawing on the most innovative and effective practices of communities throughout the country.
Aging in Place
Aging in Place from the Atlanta Regional Commission and the Community Housing Resource Center is a tool designed to help local governments plan and prepare for their aging populations. It presents a series of programs and zoning practices that expand the alternatives available to older adults living in the community.
Arizona Smart Growth Scorecard
The Arizona Smart Growth Scorecard is a valuable tool for community self-assessment developed by a working group of the Growth Cabinet with input from public and private stakeholders. It is designed to strengthen the ability of local officials to plan for future growth and development and to adopt comprehensive strategies that address growth-related pressures. As Arizona continues to attract unprecedented population growth, all levels of government must play a role in wisely planning and managing both the challenges and opportunities that new growth and development present.
Recognizing that communities measure and track how well they are implementing smart growth and look for areas of improvement, the Growth Cabinet prepared this Scorecard to help communities assess whether they have the right tools in place to promote smart growth. Executive Order 2007-05, directed state agencies to identify how state discretionary funds might provide incentives to communities for growing smarter and technical assistance for those needing support. The intent is to provide communities, counties, and Tribal governments - small or large, rural or urban - with a simple, clear, usable means of evaluating how well prepared they are for the pressures of growth. In addition, the Scorecard can help spur action on local and regional approaches to address growth issues and provide incentives and assistance to communities wanting to effectively and efficiently manage development.
Cities, towns, counties, and Tribal governments will be evaluated by the set of smart growth criteria and indicators contained within the Scorecard.
Building Healthy Communities for Active Aging Assessment Tool
The U.S. EPA's Aging Initiative website provides a wealth of information about the Agency's efforts to protect the environmental health of older persons. The Initiative's Building Healthy Communities for Active Aging Assessment Tool consists of a series of questions that address concerns for an aging population in terms of overall health, quality of life in terms of accessibility within the community -- and how smart growth practices provide solutions to these questions.
CNU XIV Multimedia Toolkit
The Congress for New Urbanism offers the CNU XIV Multimedia Toolkit, a collection of materials from sessions and events at the 2006 CNU Congress. The Toolkit includes audio and video from nearly 50 Congress sessions, a similar number of slideshows, and reports from the correspondents who covered the Congress for the online Daily NUws.
Community Image Survey CD
The Community Image Survey from the Local Government Commission (LGC) is a tool for helping decision-makers and their constituents address community design, land use and transportation issues. It uses visual images to help participants evaluate their existing environment and envision their community's future. Tailored for the needs of each community, the survey provides a foundation for planning and implementation efforts.
CommunityViz® Software
CommunityViz® GIS software for land-use planning from Placeways is designed to help people visualize, analyze, and communicate about important land-use decisions. CommunityViz® community planning software provides a real–time interactive environment of 3D visuals, intelligent maps and dynamic analysis tools.
Designing Low Energy Buildings with Energy-10®
ENERGY-10® software analyzes and illustrates the energy and cost savings that can be achieved by applying up to a dozen sustainable design strategies, helping professionals deliver high-performance buildings that will operate with, on average, 20-30% lower energy costs.
Developing Housing for the Workforce -- A Toolkit
Developing Housing for the Workforce -- A Toolkit from the Urban Land Institute (ULI) looks at the problem of providing affordable housing for the workforce. This book describes the problem, includes case studies and examples of financially feasible, for-profit developments, and features a section on public and private programs that are being used to encourage the development of housing for the workforce.
Green and Growing Tool Box
The State of Connecticut offers the Green and Growing Tool Box, a website containing a comprehensive inventory of policies, plans, or programs administered by State Agencies represented on the Inter-Agency Responsible Growth Steering Council.
Green Globes Design Tool
Green Globes is an on-line auditing tool to guide integration of environmental performance in project delivery and to assess the design of green buildings against best practices and standards.
Green Living Toolkit
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) website offers a Green Living Toolkit, a listing of tips and tools to help to bring a little green into your life. These guides include information to help you save energy, protect your health, give green gifts, and more.
Green Playbook
The Playbook, a web-based resource, provides strategies, tips, and tools that cities and counties can use to take immediate action on climate change through: Green building, green neighborhoods, and sustainable infrastructure. The Playbook is designed both for communities that are considering making the first steps toward these, as well as for those who want to take existing efforts to a new level.
Green Roofs Tree of Knowledge
The Green Roofs Tree of Knowledge (TOK) is a full-featured database on research and policy related to green roof infrastructure. There is a considerable amount of work being done on the many socio-economic and bio-physical benefits that green roofs provide. This database is composed of detailed summaries of research and policy papers in English from around the world.
Housing + Transportation Affordability Index
The Housing + Transportation Affordability Index, developed by Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT) and its collaborative partners, the Center for Transit Oriented Development (CTOD), is an innovative tool that measures the true affordability of housing.
Housing and Transportation Affordability Index
The Housing + Transportation Affordability Index, developed by Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT) and its collaborative partners, the Center for Transit Oriented Development (CTOD), is an innovative tool that measures the true affordability of housing.
Housing Development Tutorial
Enterprise offers a Housing Development Tutorial (formerly known as the Housing Developer's Support System, or HDSS), a comprehensive guide to affordable rental and homeownership housing development for nonprofit organizations.
Housing Policy Solutions Toolkit
Older adults face an array of housing challenges. Many live in homes that lack accessibility features, are unaffordable or energy inefficient, or are located far from important destinations and amenities. Others need various kind of assistance to maintain their independence and autonomy but cannot afford the supportive services that would allow them to age successfully in a residential environment.
This toolkit provides a detailed exploration of these and other challenges facing older adults and describes a range of promising policies that some communities are adopting to address them.
Housing Toolkit
The National Trust for Historic Preservation has created a toolkit that shares their work and the work of others in the three critical areas that affect Housing: Public Policy, Financing, and Housing Practices.
Massachusetts Smart Growth: Sustainable Design and Green Building
''Sustainable Development Design and Green Building Links'' is a section of the Planning and Housing Development Toolkit, produced by the Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD). DHCD encourages housing development that is consistent with smart growth, sustainable design and green building practices.
New York Land Use and Transportation Products
The New York State Department of Transportation's (NYSDOT) Smart Planning Program has developed a number of tools to help illustrate the link between transportation and land use planning and to educate communities about Smart Growth.
Park Equity and Public Health Toolkit
Many elements of a community's environment affect the health of residents, from air and water quality, to availability of transportation and markets, to walkability and access to parks and recreation opportunities. The Park Equity and Public Health Toolkit from the Trust for Public Land (TPL) is designed to engage and inform community leaders as well as parks and health advocates as they consider the built environment in their communities and its effect on a broad range of issues related to health, social justice, the environment, and quality of life.
Playbook for Green Buildings and Neighborhoods
The Playbook is a web-based resource that provides strategies, tips, and tools that cities and counties can use to take immediate action on climate change through: Green building, green neighborhoods, and sustainable infrastructure. The Playbook is designed both for communities that are considering making the first steps toward these, as well as for those who want to take existing efforts to a new level.
Policies that Work: A Governors' Guide to Growth and Development
The Governors' Institute on Community Design offers the online resource Policies that Work: A Governors' Guide to Growth and Development. This free resource lays out a systematic approach to smart growth policymaking at the state level. It is designed to provide governors and their staff and cabinet secretaries with hundreds of ideas about policies, administrative actions, and spending decisions that have actually produced smarter growth in other states -- ideas and outcomes that they may be able to replicate in their own states.
Quality Growth Toolbox
Cumberland Region Tomorrow (CRT) offers a Quality Growth Tool Box designed to help create quality growth strategies and projects in your community. Working with key regional leaders, local and state partner agencies, and professional consultants, CRT tailored the Tool Box to meet the specific needs of communities in the Cumberland Region of Tennessee.
Smart Growth Implementation Toolkit
The Smart Growth Implementation Toolkit, produced by the Smart Growth Leadership Institute, is a set of practical tools to help your community grow smarter. It will help you untangle the thicket of policies and procedures that get in the way of smarter growth and sustainable development.
Smart Growth Network Information Kit
The Smart Growth Network Information Kit is a set of resources that will provide you with a comprehensive introduction to smart growth. To make research easier, the publications are divided by topic area. You will also find presentations and fact sheets to share with others.
Smart Growth Readiness Assessment Tool
The Smart Growth Readiness Assessment Tool (SGRAT) is a set of online assessments for scoring how well a community is prepared to develop according to Smart Growth principles. The assessments provide communities with a baseline score, and can be used to measure progress.
Smart Growth Shareware -- v2
Version 2 of the Smart Growth Shareware cd-rom contains all the publications, presentations, and websites of version 1 plus more and is a great resource for anyone wanting to learn more about the smart growth field or educate others. Topics covered include public health, children and schools, land conservation and water, transportation and more.
Smart Growth Slide Shows
The State of Massachusetts' Smart Growth Tool Kit includes Smart Growth Slide Shows that illustrate the basic concepts of each smart growth technique, address some of the issues surrounding implementation, and provide summaries of the case studies that were developed.
Smart Growth, Smart Energy Toolkit
The Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EEA) provides a Smart Growth/Smart Energy Toolkit on its website. This Toolkit provides easy access to information on planning, zoning, subdivision, site design, and building construction techniques that can make smart growth and smart energy a reality in Massachusetts communities.
Smart Growth: A Toolkit for Realtors
The National Association of Realtors (NAR) has produced Smart Growth: A Toolkit for Realtors, a six-chapter publication that provides an overview of smart growth and its importance to the real estate community.
SmartCode V9.0
The SmartCode is a model transect-based development code available for all scales of planning, from the region to the community to the block and building. The code is intended for local calibration to your town or neighborhood. As a form-based code, the SmartCode keeps towns compact and rural lands open, while reforming the destructive sprawl-producing patterns of separated use zoning.
Sustainability Planning Toolkit
The new Sustainability Planning Toolkit from ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability USA establishes for the first time the best practices to develop a local sustainability plan. With ICLEI’s toolkit, jurisdictions of all sizes can now follow a proven, straightforward, and flexible process to create long-term sustainability plans that bring together their individual environmental, economic, and social initiatives under one holistic vision.
The toolkit, which has been developed for ICLEI’s 600 U.S. local government members, is based on the planning model pioneered by City of New York for its renowned PlaNYC sustainability plan. The toolkit was authored by ICLEI and developed through a close collaboration between ICLEI and the City of New York’s Mayor’s Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability.
“ICLEI launched the first global initiative to develop the methods and tools for local
sustainability planning in 1992 at the United Nations’ “Earth Summit” in Rio de Janeiro. Since that time, ICLEI has supported thousands of local governments in scores of countries to develop their customized approaches for putting the complex goal of
sustainability into local practice,” said Jeb Brugmann, ICLEI Global’s founder and current Executive Director of ICLEI USA. “This toolkit draws from the most recent best practices in the United States to help cities and counties take their sustainability planning efforts to the next level. With a sustainability plan to guide their actions, cities like New
York, Minneapolis, Santa Monica, and many others have shown that they can more effectively combat climate change, green their buildings, update infrastructure, invigorate
their local economies, and improve public health and quality of life for their community members.”
“Our message to all local governments is that the secret to a successful sustainability plan is a rigorous planning process,” added Brugmann, “and this toolkit walks local
governments through what can be a very complex process.”
To reach their chosen sustainability goals, local governments can follow ICLEI’s Five Milestones for Sustainability process, which is the foundation of the toolkit:
- Milestone One: Conduct a sustainability assessment
- Milestone Two: Establish sustainability goals
- Milestone Three: Develop a local sustainability plan
- Milestone Four: Implement policies and measures
- Milestone Five: Evaluate progress and report results
By following this process, local governments can create plans with strong, measurable goals that can be tracked over time. The ability to measure performance has been a key to the success of PlaNYC.
Inside the toolkit, local government staff will find guidance on how to structure their
planning process, what types of strategies and measures to include in their plan, step-by-step guidelines to achieve each of the Five Milestones, best-practice examples, checklists,
templates, and guidelines for organizing a team to develop the plan.
Visit the link below to view the toolkit’s table of contents,
introduction, and related free resources. Only ICLEI member local governments, however, may download the complete toolkit.
Sustainable Communities for All Ages
JustPartners Inc. presents the ''Sustainable Communities for All Ages: A Viable Futures Toolkit.'' The Viable Futures Toolkit is a comprehensive, user-friendly resource that turns the challenges of an aging population into opportunities for all ages to thrive. It offers guidance to planners, policymakers, service providers, and funders about how to create solutions for older generations that simultaneously address needs of younger generations and their communities.
Sustainable Communities for All Ages -- Toolkit Highlights
JustPartners Inc. has added highlights of their Viable Futures Toolkit to the Sustainable Communities for All Ages website. The ''Toolkit in Action'' resource page includes links to case studies and feedback from communities who are using the Toolkit.
The Healthy Development Measurement Tool
The Healthy Development Measurement Tool (HDMT) from the San Francisco Department of Public Health is a comprehensive, online evaluation metric to consider health needs in urban development plans and projects.
The Public Official's Guide to Affordable Housing
The Public Official's Guide to Affordable Housing is a CD-ROM from the Michigan Municipal League designed to train local public officials in the issues, programs, and opportunities available in the field of affordable housing. It provides creative and effective solutions to the many problems and issues encountered by local units of government.
The Smart Growth Toolkit
There are many complex and technical issues involved in building smarter communities. The Smart Growth Tool Kit from Smart Growth BC provides an overview of key sustainability issues including an introduction to smart growth, smart growth tools, citizen involvement strategies and references on additional information sources for those who want to know more.
Toolkit for Affordable Housing Development
The Toolkit for Affordable Housing Development from the Washington Area Housing Partnership is a compilation of policies and planning tools local governments can use to preserve and promote affordable housing development in their respective communities.
USGBC Database of Public Policy Initiatives
USGBC's Database of Public Policies is an online tool that visitors can use to search for existing public policies based on numerous criteria, such as level of government, date of passage, location, type of building, LEED rating system, and whether it was incentive-based or mandatory.
Visualizing Density: Online Tool
The Lincoln Institute of Land Policy has created Visualizing Density, an online, interactive educational section of their website that provides users with a foundation for understanding how density benefits communities. This resource illustrates how appealing, livable communities can be created by using design techniques that combine varied building shapes and sizes, siting strategies, and open space principles.
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