First California CNU Community Charrette

The California Chapter of the Congress for the New Urbanism (CCNU) will hold its first CCNU Community Charrette June 22 - 25 for the City of Livingston, California.  As an annual, volunteer event for deserving communities, the charrette will provide CNU members an opportunity to collaborate on community plans and form-based codes for specific areas or corridors.  We welcome your participation so please let us know, as soon as possible, whether you will participate on-site or remotely, and we will send a short form to complete.

The four day charrette team will produce a conceptual or schematic downtown plan with complete street and intersection design and conceptual form-based codes, economic/market strategies, environmental considerations, and illustrations.  So, we need quick-design charretters, though we welcome support staff that can photograph, blog, and entertain. 

To generate extra energy during the charrette, we will deploy Tactical Urbanism that could include re-striping a street(s) with temporary paint, installing temporary banners and signs made by local students or businesses, extending sidewalks using pallets and plywood to allow sidewalk dining or sales, or even creating an intersection rotary out of sand bags with a temporary sculpture to terminate a street, a piece of civic art.

This first CCNU charrette will set a precedent and kick off a tradition that demonstrates our value as professionals, as firms, and as CNU members do more than talk.  The City was recently awarded a CalTrans grant for the design of a corridor that connects Highway 99 and the downtown, so that work will coincide and connect with our effort.  With our assistance, the City received an AIA SDAT grant that will "propose revitalization strategies" for the downtown of the City but elected to commence in the fall so our work will help inform it.

The City will reimburse a pre-determined number of participants for travel and living expenses and donate $5,000 to the California Chapter to help us undertake future CNU events.  Direct your responses and any questions, comments, or suggestions to me; we'll update the event through www.cnucalifornia.org.

Thanks,

Steve

Stephen Coyle,  AIA, LEED AP
Treasurer,
California Chapter
Congress for the New Urbanism (CCNU)
www.cnucalifornia.org
℅
Town-Green
Resilient Design & Development
4148 Howe St.
Oakland, CA 94611
510.755.8551
http://www.town-green.com
www.sustainableandresilient.com
@stevecoyle