Smart Growth Awards 2013 Winners Announced

March 25th, 2013 by Elaine Clisham

Four innovative projects and three visionary plans comprise the list of winners of New Jersey Future’s 2013 Smart Growth Awards. Chosen from a pool of 23 entries, the winners are:

Category: Inclusive Transportation Policy
Winner: COMPLETE STREETS POLICY, State of New Jersey
Partners: New Jersey Department of Transportation, Parsons Brinckerhoff, The RBA Group
The NJDOT’s Complete Streets Policy is a comprehensive and rigorous set of guidelines for considering the needs of all users during the street design, engineering and building processes, and the department has done extensive training with counties and municipalities to help them adopt their own Complete Streets policies.

Category: Creative Adaptive Re-Use
Winner: HILLSIDE SQUARE, Montclair
Partners: Hillside Square LLC, Jack Finn & Co. Building Contractors, RHG Architecture & Design, Sionas Architecture PC
A large former church in a residential neighborhood is repurposed into a mixed-use facility including offices and community spaces, while retaining many of the singular features of the original building.

Category: Community-Driven Affordable Housing Plan
Winner: MONTGOMERY CORRIDOR CHOICE NEIGHBORHOODS PLAN, Jersey City
Partners: Jersey City Housing Authority, Montgomery Gardens Resident Management Corp., New Jersey City University
A planning process led by the community to identify and prioritize its needs is re-envisioning the neighborhood around an aging public-housing complex.

Category: Holistic Transportation Plan
Winner: MOVING PASSAIC COUNTY
Partners: County of Passaic, Parsons Brinckerhoff, North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority
The transportation element of Passaic County’s master plan makes a proactive effort to link with a variety of other plans at the county and municipal level, in order to maximize transportation choices for all residents.

Category: Innovative Land-Preservation Strategy
Winner: POMPTON RIVERWALK, Pequannock
Partners: Land Conservancy of New Jersey, Pequannock Township
A bold strategy to purchase properties subject to chronic flooding enables residents to relocate out of harm’s way and allows the town to create public space along its riverfront.

Category: School-Based Neighborhood Revitalization
Winner: TEACHERS’ VILLAGE, Newark
Partners: Brick City Development Corporation, Goldman Sachs, New Jersey Community Capital, Prudential Insurance Company of America, The RBH Group, TD Bank
A distressed 11-block area is being revitalized with a focus on schools and schoolchildren, including housing for their teachers.

Category: Transit-Oriented Infill Redevelopment
Winner: WHITMAN PARK, Camden
Partners: Camden Redevelopment Agency, Conifer Realty, Parkside Business & Community In Partnership
A former abandoned office building is the anchor for this redevelopment initiative, which includes remediation of a brownfield and development of senior and market-rate housing adjacent to a park and a PATCO station and near a major employer.

Judging the entries was a panel of eight jurors:

Pam Mount, New Jersey Future trustee and proprietor of Terhune Orchards in Lawrenceville (chairwoman);
Eileen Swan, New Jersey Future trustee and policy manager for the New Jersey Conservation Foundation;
Larry DiVietro, New Jersey Future trustee and president of Land Dimensions Engineering in Glassboro;
Rebecca Feldman, member of the Morristown Town Council;
John Hasse, chairman of the department of geography at Rowan University in Glassboro;
Daniel Hernandez, director of planning practice for Jonathan Rose Companies in New York;
Monique King-Viehland, president of Campus Gateway Development at the New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark;
Kevin Wilkes, principal of Princeton Design Guild.

This year’s recipient of the Cary Edwards Leadership Award, given to an individual who has done outstanding work to improve the quality of life in New Jersey, is Diane Sterner, the founding executive director of the Housing and Community Development Network of New Jersey.

The awards ceremony is June 6 at the Metropolitan Room at the Newark Club. Tickets are $125 if purchased before May 15, and numerous sponsorship opportunities are available.