NEOSCC and Vibrant NEO 2040 are largely funded by a highly competitive, first-of-its kind, $4.25M federal grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) as part of the Partnership for Sustainable Communities Initiative. The Sustainable Communities Initiative is an interagency collaboration among HUD, the U.S. Department of Transportation, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. So what is the Partnership for Sustainable Communities? Overview On June 16, 2009, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) joined together to help communities nationwide improve access to affordable housing, increase transportation options, and lower transportation costs while protecting the environment. The Partnership for Sustainable Communities works to coordinate federal housing, transportation, water, and other infrastructure investments to make neighborhoods more prosperous, allow people to live closer to jobs, save households time and money, and reduce pollution. Sustainable…
VIBRANTNEO BLOG
Translating sustainability and the triple bottom line into accessible concepts and actions has long been a difficult aspect of broadening the audience and stakeholders for sustainability initiatives. This has been particularly true in how everyone can take action. At its recent Sustainable Cleveland 2019 Summit, The City of Cleveland launched its new dashboard. The new tool includes performance measures that will help to capture progress made along the 10 year initiative: Measuring progress is essential to the success of Sustainable Cleveland. The performance indicators measure results, inform strategy, shine a light on what is working and they educate and inspire us through stories and metrics. The framework focuses on sustainability initiatives in the areas of business, personal/social, built and natural. Most importantly, the site highlights how you can affect these areas at home, work and in your community. While some of the measurements have yet to be published, it is definitely worth…
The spreading out of Northeast Ohio’s population has occurred in tandem with an increase in lower density development. The options for meeting the transit needs of residents from areas of low-density development are different from residents from high-density areas. Public transit is most effective and efficient when serving high-density areas. Transit in low-density areas requires more routes to reach fewer riders. As a result, lower density development leads to an increased dependence on private automobiles. Daily Vehicle Miles Traveled, 2000-2010 These maps show by county how the daily vehicle miles traveled (DVMT) by Northeast Ohio’s residents have changed from 2000 to 2010. DVMT increased sufficiently to move four counties – Medina, Wayne, Summit, and Stark counties – into higher categories of miles. In 2000, only Cuyahoga County experienced more than 15 million daily vehicle miles traveled. By 2010, Summit County had joined Cuyahoga County in the highest category of DVMT. Only Geauga…
NEOSCC Consortium Member, the Green City Blue Lake Institute has launched a wonderful new website: The new site is based on a three-step process: Explore: Until you experience Northeast Ohio and the natural systems that support life here the soils, the water, the plants and animals, the climate it’s hard to know how to take care of this place. So the first step is to explore the bioregion, root yourself here, learn to love your home territory. Live: Empowered with the intimate knowledge of place, you can begin to improve your own life. You can lead a healthier, more fulfilling life that has less environmental impact. Transform: Beyond the changes you can make in your own life, we all need to work together on big, complicated things like the design of more sustainable cities, buildings, and transportation systems. We need a sustainability policy agenda and projects that transform the region. What…
Throughout Northeast Ohio, different organizations are integrating sustainability into their approaches to planning, operations and decision-making. As part of a recent Energy Efficiency & Conservation Block Grant, Stark County Regional Planning Commission (SCRPC) created the Sustainable Planning and Zoning Handbook. Created in 2011, SCRPC developed a tool that provides principles, examples and approaches to planning and zoning. SCRPC describes the handbook as… The purpose of this handbook is to provide local communities with guiding principles to assist them in becoming more sustainable. Each section will briefly cover different steps that communities can take to achieve this goal. Examples and/or resources of what other communities are doing will also be provided in each section. The appendix of this document contains sustainability-designed, model zoning ordinances that can be tailored to conform to individual zoning resolutions. Please note that not every principle in this handbook may apply to every community. Do keep in mind, however,…
As a stakeholder in Northeast Ohio, you and your input can help to guide our region, to preserve and build upon the things we value most and ensure our communities thrive. Our organization, the Northeast Ohio Sustainable Communities Consortium (NEOSCC), which is a collaboration of 33 organizations from across the 12-county Northeast Ohio region, understands and shares this responsibility. To help Northeast Ohio leaders and residents ensure that our region is sustainable, resilient, and vibrant, we have created a tool to help us better understand the existing conditions of our region. This tool is the NEOSCC Conditions and Trends Platform, located online at cat.neoscc.org. The Conditions and Trends Platform is a groundbreaking, comprehensive compilation of research about economic development, the environment, housing and transportation in 12 Northeast Ohio counties: Ashtabula, Cuyahoga, Geauga, Lake, Lorain, Mahoning, Medina, Portage, Stark, Summit, Trumbull and Wayne. It helps Northeast Ohioans better understand the region’s…
With the weather, rainfall and flooding in the news, we thought it an appropriate time to discuss the Environment Work Stream findings. Are environmental conditions in Northeast Ohio getting better or worse? The answer to that question depends a lot on the type of environmental issue being considered. Here is a bit of a summary for rainy day reading. Since the 1970s, the region has made a lot of progress cleaning up what is typically thought of as “pollution.” Industry has reduced emissions from smokestacks and effluent pipes. Wastewater treatment plants are doing a much better job treating sewage. And some of dirtiest sources of industrial pollution have closed down or moved to places with lower environmental standards. As a result, the air and water are cleaner than they used to be. But other types of environmental issues have been harder to address. These are “nonpoint” sources of pollution —…
AMATS, the Akron Metropolitan Area Transportation Study, is one of the four Metropolitan Planning Organizations involved in Vibrant NEO 2040 that we discussed in our post last week. One of their many initiatives is the Connecting Communities program which “is designed to provide communities with funding to develop transportation plans that will lead to the identification of projects eligible for AMATS funds.” The Connecting Communities grant program was a recommendation from AMATS’s Connecting Communities Planning Initiative (link is to a large pdf file) in 2010. The purpose of Connecting Communities – A Guide to Integrating Land Use and Transportation is to promote a region that balances environmental, social and economic concerns by improving coordination between land use and transportation. Connecting Communities utilizes a regional planning process to explore strategies to increase transportation choices and accessibility, help communities make collaborative, informed decisions to coordinate development, reduce environmental impacts and improve regional connectivity….
As a partner, supporter and/or member of NEOSCC, you have likely heard us mention our new Conditions and Trends Platform (CAT), an online tool designed to help Northeast Ohioans understand, talk about and contribute to the future of our region. We are very excited about the potential of this tool, and we need your help to make sure it gets seen and shared. We are relying on you and your fellow NEOSCC supporters to help spread the word about the Conditions and Trends platform to your colleagues, friends and family across the region. We’ve made it easy for you; in the attached Toolkit, you will find several components designed to help you talk about and share the Conditions and Trends Platform with your networks, in person and especially online. Conditions and Trends Toolkit: What It Is and How to Use It NEOSCC’s Conditions and Trends Platform (CAT)…
A significant component of NEOSCC’s leadership are the four Metropolitan Planning Organizations in Northeast Ohio. What is a Metropolitan Planning Organization? You can find out in the following presentation – NEOSCC_Overview_101_What is an MPO. Here is some quick background: NEOSCC and the Vibrant NEO 2040 planning process includes the following MPO’s and their county jurisdictions: Akron Metropolitan Area Transportation Study (AMATS) – Portage and Summit Counties Eastgate Regional Council of Governments – Mahoning and Trumbull Counties Northeast Ohio Area Coordinating Area (NOACA) – Cuyahoga, Geauga, Lake, Lorain, and Medina Counties Stark County Regional Planning Commission and the Stark County Area Transportation Study (SCATS) – Stark County The two other counties Ashtabula and Wayne County that are part of the Vibrant NEO 2040 effort are covered through Councils of Governments. This is a topic that will be covered soon in the Vibrant Daily. As part of their planning process, the MPO’s…