October 2013

Florida Chapter ASLA & APAFL Newsletter Article Oct. 2013 Issue

Sustainability ‘Collaborative Conversations’ Conference Panels Held This Summer

By Ruth Hamberg RLA ASLA AICP, Co-Chair, FLASLA Committee on Sustainable Environments (CoSE) Oct. 4, 2013

Landscape architects and planners are concerned about protecting, creating and restoring sustainable environments, natural or man-made. Our professional organizations have established committees to focus on sustainability. What have these committees been doing and how does that work promote our professions as experts in sustainability? APAFL and FL ASLA have initiated a conversation about sustainability to collaborate and share what we are learning. This summer we also invited AIA FL and ULI FL to join us and talk about what they are doing on sustainability. We put together a panel of representatives from each organization for the 2013 FLASLA Annual Conference, July 18-20 in St. Petersburg and for the 2013 APA FL Conference, Sept. 11-13 in Orlando.

The APA FL Sustainability Committee was created in March 2012. The chair of our committee is Brian Smith, FAICP (retired and former planning director for Pinellas County). Members include: Brian Smith, FAICP – Chair; Merle Bishop FAICP, Brent Lacey AICP, Cary Hayo AICP, Henry Bittaker AICP, Rosanna Cordova P.E. AICP LEED AP, Bob Massarelli, AICP, Rebecca Brightbill and Tim Center.

The mission of the APAFL Sustainability Committee is to promote the integration of sustainability principles into planning policy and practice through relevant education and outreach. One of their projects is to put together a website clearinghouse on sustainability issues and resources. This is a web-based resource on sustainability for planners practicing in Florida that highlights sustainable practices and provides a "tool-kit" of best practices. The website is now "up" with a link from the APA FL home page, but it is still under construction. Here is the link: www.apaflorida.com. Check it out.

The FLASLA Committee on Sustainable Environments, or "CoSE", is a chapter committee initiated in 2006. CoSE’s mission is to promote the profession of landscape architecture as an integral partner in promoting and executing sustainable policy and development practices throughout Florida. Members include (all ASLA members): Ruth Hamberg PLA AICP & Christina Lathrop PLA Co-Chairs; Eddie Browder PLA, Lauren Colunga PLA CNU-A, Tammy Cook PLA, Mark Johnson PLA, Tom Levin PLA CEP, Joel Mieses, Robin Pelensky PLA and Ken Sussman PLA.

Also in the fall of 2012, the FLASLA Committee on Sustainable Environments (CoSE) reached out to APAFL sustainability committee members to initiate a meeting. Merle Bishop, FAICP, past president of APA FL, first reported on our cooperative initiatives in the Winter 2013 issue of Florida Planning. At that meeting, we decided to put together a multiparty panel for the conferences for summer 2013.

All together, CoSE put together three conference sessions for this year’s FLASLA conference in St. Petersburg.

• The Low Impact Development Tour -- The bus was full of eager participants who were shown three new low impact development projects where stormwater was captured and treated on site. The participants heard from the three expert landscape architects who designed the projects: Tom Levin ASLA AICP, Bill Waddill ASLA AICP and David Conner ASLA. This tour turned out to be a conference highlight.

• The Sustainable Sites 2013 (www.sustainablesites.org) update with David Yocca, a speaker provided with assistance from National ASLA.

• The Sustainability Round table with APAFL, AIA FL, ULI FL and FLASLA: This session included excellent panelists Carey Hayo of ULI, Merle Bishop FAICP of APA FL, David Hugglestone AIA of AIA FL and Ruth Hamberg RLA ASLA AICP of FLASLA. The session gave a great overview of what each group is doing in regards to sustainability.

Photo from the 2013 FLASLA Conference in St. Petersburg. From left to right: Carey Hayo, Ruth Hamberg, Merle Bishop, David Hugglestone.

We repeated the Sustainability Round Table at the APA FL Conference in Orlando on Sept 12. The executive director of national APA, Paul Farmer FAICP, joined our panel and it was a real treat to hear his perspective. He mentioned that APA (40,000 members) has been partnering with ASLA (15,000) and AIA (83,000) at the national level on a number of initiatives and advocacy efforts. Individually, our organizations are small when going up against giants such as the Petroleum Institute or the Home Builders Association about reducing green house gasses or sprawl. He noted that if our organizations could connect nationally, we might be able to make a real difference to shape policy. He encouraged our groups in Florida to create coalitions that might be replicated in other states. Our esteemed panelists also included Merle Bishop FAICP of APA FL Sustainability Committee, David Heap AIA of AIA FL, Cecelia Bonifay Esq. of ULI FL and Ruth Hamberg of FLASLA.

If you missed the 2013 APA Florida Conference you can see highlights from your mobile smart phone device. Download the APA Florida mobile app from the App Store or Google Play to access the conference schedule, speakers bios and PowerPoint presentations. The Sustainability Round Table PowerPoint is not on there yet, as of the date of this report. (Note: The PowerPoint presentations will also be posted on the APA Florida website shortly).

These panel discussions are just the starting point of efforts to collaborate with our sister organizations to promote sustainability at the state level. Feedback from the audiences indicated this is a good thing and there is interest in assisting.

Photo from the 2013 APA FL Conference in Orlando. From left to right: Cecelia Bonifay, Jedd Heap (behind the podium), Brian Smith, Paul Farmer, and Ruth Hamberg.

The session participants and audiences expressed interest in calling a meeting or "summit" of chapter presidents of all the organizations – and president-elects and maybe sustainability committee chairs – at the beginning of the year (each year) to discuss ideas in regards to collaborating on sustainability – promoting it to the public and advocating for it. We determined that each state organization should come up with their top five sustainability issues or topics and bring it to the summit so we can compare the lists, see if and what we agree on, and build consensus.

Our professional organizations are doing wonderful things, providing us with terrific tools to assist in our work to create sustainable cities and environments. Each group’s sustainability projects are described in more detail in the PowerPoint presentations from the conferences. The PowerPoint from our panel will be posted the APA FL website soon. Click here to find them. The slides are also available on Slide Share by clicking here.