In 2015, as Executive Director of Valley Advocates for Responsible Development, I was successful in securing grant funds from the Community Foundation of Teton Valley Youth Philanthropy Program to create a community parklet. A parklet is a sidewalk extension that provides additional space and amenities for pedestrians. Promoting vibrant communities is a fundamental tenet of VARD's mission, and buy-in from the valley’s youth was essential to create a vibrant, informal space to spark interest in Downtown Driggs, Idaho. VARD's outreach efforts gained wide public support for the project, as well as operational support from the City of Driggs.
I hired Vera Iconica Architects of Jackson Hole, Wyoming to provide an inspiring architectural design that would mirror the adventurous spirit of Teton Valley, and honor the memory of one its community lions, Rusty Cheney. A canvas cover fastened by carabiners evokes his love of the Idaho outdoors, while the intricate, tapered posts reflect his talent for woodworking. The bench seats are designed to encourage conversation, reading, or a place to pause and remember those that left us too soon.
Construction is slated for August 2016.
In 2014, the historic Rexburg Seminary Building was slated for demolition to make room for yet another parking lot in downtown Rexburg, Idaho. Local activists, led by the Daughters of Utah Pioneers (DUP), intervened and convinced the landowner to delay demolition so that DUP could pursue planning, funding, and ultimately, the preservation of the building.
DUP reached out to me as the Principal/Founder of Frontier Forward for assistance in order to identify adaptive re-use possibilities for the building. After initial site exploration, it became evident that the project context should be extended to the entire block, thereby creating opportunities for pedestrian connections between existing civic uses and the possibility for community gathering spaces.
Using the seminary building, the existing Madison County public library, and the historic Rexburg Tabernacle as anchors, I then threaded the block with pedestrian connections and utilized the intersections thereof to create a variety of public spaces befitting their immediate context. A wide, hardscape retail plaza abuts Main Street, with a more tranquil, tree-covered space adjacent to the tabernacle building. A small, landscaped amphitheater serves as both a temporary gathering space as well as a buffer to proposed infill residential development in the quieter areas of the block.
With this vision in hand, DUP has a initiated a community conversation not only about the importance of historic preservation, but also the social and economic opportunities that come with the thoughtful redevelopment Rexburg's core.
In 2013, the Jackson Hole Center for the Arts was awarded a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to create a public space for Jackson Hole and its 2.5 million annual visitors. As the Principal/Founder of Frontier Forward, my team led an iterative process with voluminous public input on on not only the design concept, but also the particulars of the site design. We began the process through stakeholder interviews geared toward the site's role within the downtown core, the distillation of experience in public spaces elsewhere, and the identification of appropriate intensity of site activity. From there, we led the selection process of landscape design firms, collaborating then with the successful firm to create a series of "community sandboxes," an experiential exercise where participants literally sculpted the landscape form scale model sandboxes. The sandbox exercise resulted in several scenarios included in an online public survey. By seamlessly combining stakeholder sensibilities, public opinion, and collective creativity, we were able to position the Center for the Arts for growth and its evolution toward the creative core of the Jackson Hole community.
As Principal/Founder of Frontier Forward, I joined the Harmony Design team to craft a public outreach plan for a trail and interpretive park along the shores of Lake Pend d'Oreille in the Idaho Panhandle. Though adjacent to the burgeoning resort communities of Sandpoint, Ponderay, and Kootenai, a busy freight rail line and decades of industrial pollution have long stymied community desire to embrace the lakeshore. In 2010, Friends of the Pend d'Oreille Bay officially incorporated and secured the resources necessary to bring the lake back to the people.
As the public outreach consultant, I designed a community survey to assess public opinion on a variety of design, planning, and thematic elements for the envisaged trail and appurtenant amenities. Survey themes were then distilled into public display boards utilized at various public events in the community. Survey results and other public comments were then incorporated into a final schematic prepared by the Harmony team, which I then assembled into a geographically kinetic Prezi presentation.
The Pend d'Oreille Bay Trail and Interpretive Plan was finalized in Winter 2015 and is currently under implementation by Friends of the Pend d'Oreille Bay Trail and its community partners.
As the Vice-Chairman of the Teton County Joint Housing Authority Commission, I conceptualized several different housing projects envisioned for vacant lands owned by local governments in Teton Valley. I then presented these concepts to the governing boards of the Teton County and individual cities in Teton Valley to obtain commitments to use these vacant, government-owned land for workforce housing projects.
Each concept responds to site conditions and housing needs as established by the 2014 Western Greater Yellowstone Housing Needs Assessment. The “Court Houses” concept is a 3-story townhome configuration utilizing a shallow, wide strip of land once slated for an expanded parking lot at the Teton County Courthouse. The Driggs LIHTC project envisioned a low-income project adjacent to a planned mixed-use development in the downtown core. The VVM concept was a vision developed with a local grocery store owner seeking to expand into a mixed-use project that provides deed-restricted affordable housing. The Victor City Hall project envisions 6,000 square feet of city offices on the street level, with a ramp to the “Civic Room.” 18-20 1 and 2-bedroom condos are located on the second and third floors.
As the Executive Director of Valley Advocates for Responsible Development, I have been deeply involved in the implementation of the Teton Creek Greenbelt Project, a multi-faceted effort to restore a 4-mile reach of Teton Creek in Teton Valley, Idaho. A collaborative effort between Friends of the Teton River, the Teton Regional Land Trust, Teton Valley Trails and Pathways, and Legacy Works Group, the project seeks to restore fisheries, enhance big-game habitat, redesign defunct subdivisions, and construct trails along the creek corridor. In 2014, the collaborative was successful in obtaining a $1.7MM grant from a local foundation to kickstart the project, and is currently engaged in a $3MM capital campaign to enable project completion in 2019-2020.
As the Executive Director of VARD, I am responsible for the planning, legal, and public policy components of the project, including public outreach. Most recently, I enlisted a local landscape architect to prepare a schematic landscape plan for an access park along the corridor that not only seeks to serve as an entry to the corridor, but also as a viable plan to reclaim riparian lands currently platted as subdivision lots. This plan and other visioning exercises will be used to leverage public, private, and NGO resources to transform the historically beleaguered Teton Creek corridor into a recreational and environmental jewel in the overall Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.
On the heels of a years' long, multi-agency Comprehensive Plan process, the Town of Jackson was confronted with challenge of absorbing much of the region's potential growth while maintaining its distinctive, small-town character. As the Senior Planner for the Town of Jackson, I managed the public review process for the Downtown zoning code overhaul.
The first task was to incorporate public opinion into the demarcation of the Downtown Lodging Overlay, a zoning district where lodging uses are permitted. In a tourist-heavy community like Jackson Hole, this means that literally millions of dollars at stake in the potential location of the overlay boundary. I hired a web designer to create a mapping application that allowed the public to toggle maps of existing conditions such as existing lodging establishments, walking distance to the town square, established residential neighborhoods, and other considerations. Users were then able to select various overlay alternatives or even draw their own to submit as public comment.
Though community consensus favored a denser downtown in exchange for the conservation of rural lands, the prescription of infill development required a great deal finesse, as the cherished character of downtown Jackson had long defined by single-story buildings and wooden sidewalks. My solution to this conundrum was the Public Studio exercise, a series of drop-in meetings where participants were able to offer specific urban design ideas in groups facilitated by design professionals. Facilitators then provided sketches illustrating participants' ideas. Due to the breadth and depth of public involvement enabled by the web app and the Public Studio process, the Town of Jackson was able to establish a clear consensus on desired form, allowing for a robust policy debate and the ultimate adoption of the Downtown zoning code in 2016.
As the Executive Director of Future West, I was hired by Navigate Housing Solutions to conceptualize housing concepts for remnant lands owned by the Teton County, WY School District. Teton County, WY is the wealthiest county in America and the median home price in the county is $2.9 million. Add the fact that land in Teton County is incredibly scarce - 97% of the county is comprised of pubic lands - and housing for teachers and school district employees is nearly impossible.
I completed a yield study that showed that if the school district developed unused lands (e.g. landscape strips, underutilized playing fields, oversized equipment yards), the development of over 500 units was possible. I then used Sketchup to create design concepts that matched the district’s housing needs with unit types. These concepts blended into surrounding neighborhoods and provided ample public amenities. In 2022, Teton County, WY voters overwhelmingly approved a $10 million tax initiative to fund these projects.
In 2012, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development awarded a $1.5MM Sustainable Communities planning grant to a 4-county region in Eastern Idaho and Western Wyoming. As the Principal/Founder of Frontier Forward, I led the public outreach effort for the Western Greater Yellowstone Housing Needs Assessment, which identified housing needs for each community in the region through the lens of sustainability and quality of life.
In order to obtain the widest and most statistically-significant sample possible, we created a dual survey outreach effort that targeted English and Spanish-speaking citizens. We recognized early on that the region's substantial and growing Spanish-speaking population lacked the dense institutional network of its English-speaking counterpart. In response, we established key connections with trusted community leaders in schools, churches, and nonprofit organizations from each of the 4 counties, and recruited volunteers to orally administer surveys at community events. In reaching out to the English-speaking population, we worked closely with local employers, business associations, and social media to field online and paper surveys.
Our methodical, yet personal, approach to public outreach produced over 4000 detailed survey responses in a population of 80,000 stretching over 7000 square miles. This voluminous data has not only informed housing needs throughout the region, but also the basis of many planning and public policy actions taken up by individual communities throughout the Greater Yellowstone area.
