Atlanta West End LCI Plan Update

City of Atlanta, GA

The Collaborative is providing planning consulting services to the City of Atlanta on behalf of its Department of City Planning for a major update to the West End Livable Centers Initiative (LCI). The Atlanta Regional Commission’s Livable Centers Initiative Program seeks to prepare and implement plans for the enhancement of existing centers and corridors consistent with regional development policies. The goals outlined in the LCI are to provide access to a variety of travel modes including transit, roadways, walking and biking, encourage mixed-income residential neighborhoods, employment, shopping and recreation options and develop an outreach process that promotes the involvement of all stakeholders.

The Collaborative is leading a team of consultants in the development of the West End LCI Update. Key areas of focus include the creation of safe roads, improved connectivity, affordable workforce housing, economic development, job creation, parks, public art, and historic preservation.

Atlanta’s historic West End neighborhood is currently undergoing rapid growth and gentrification. A thorough public outreach process outlined the community’s desire for increased access to services and amenities, mixed-income housing and the preservation of existing residential and commercial areas. Improving streets and expanding existing multi-use trails in an already-dense urban environment required multi-disciplinary collaboration. The end product was the development of alternative options, which included section-elevations, GIS maps, and realistic renderings. The Collaborative organized four stakeholder meetings and four public meetings with the community. In addition, the firm organized bi-weekly conference call meetings with the client and Project Management Team.

Atlanta BeltLine Master Plan Updates

City of Atlanta, GA

In Spring 2020, the Collaborative completed master plan updates for Subareas 9 and 10. The BeltLine is the most comprehensive transportation and economic development effort ever undertaken in Atlanta, ultimately connecting 45 neighborhoods via a new transit network, multi-use trails, and parks.

Making use of an abandoned railroad corridor that encircles Atlanta’s urban core, the BeltLine will consist of 22 miles of rail transit, 33 miles of multi-use trails, 1,300 acres of parks, 5,600 units of affordable housing, and the remediation and redevelopment of 1,100 acres of brownfields. Already beginning to transform Atlanta, the project’s economic impact is estimated to be $20 billion.

The Collaborative led a team of consultants in the development of plans for two subareas on Atlanta’s west side. Key areas of focus include the creation of affordable workforce housing, economic development, job creation, public health, streetscapes, public art, environmental clean-up, and historic preservation.

Durham City Center Plan

City of Durham, NC

Publication of Ed Shoucair’s plan for revitalizing downtown Durham, NC, in the Durham Morning Herald is considered one of the turning points in the revitalization of the city’s center. As reported in the “Durham Morning Herald,” “The plan envisions the whole downtown a civic center.”

Shoucair’s plan called for applying a mixed-use approach, including revising zoning ordinances to permit the creation of housing and artist lofts above downtown retail, investment in new commercial uses, implementation of pedestrian-friendly urban design guidelines, and construction of programmed small and large outdoor spaces to enliven downtown day and night. A range of subsequent public-private redevelopment initiatives have today made downtown a desirable place to live, work, dine, shop and recreate.

Planning, Visioning, and Community Development

City of Sandy Springs, GA

Since 2011, the Collaborative has managed the Departments of Community Development, Economic Development, and Communications for the City of Sandy Springs. The firm oversees comprehensive planning, zoning, board of appeals process, land development, landscape architecture, and building department. Additionally, staff led a highly participatory downtown master plan process with the goal of creating a unique, vibrant, and walkable city center. Subsequently the City committed $275-million to create a new City Hall, 1,000-seat performing arts center, large city center green, and structured parking. This investment has since triggered significant housing, retail, and office development downtown.

Recently the firm’s principals Joe Brevard and Ed Shoucair led a visioning process to revise the City’s comprehensive plan, including designing an online survey and facilitating public meetings. Leaders of Sandy Springs civic associations also participated a focus group to share their thoughts on the challenges and opportunities facing the city. Eva Galambos, Former Mayor of Sandy Springs noted, “The Collaborative provides thoughtful expertise and creative thinking as they assist the city in our community development and communications programs, working with us from the development of our city center to community relations.”

Pine Hills Planned Unit Development

Town of Plymouth, MA

The Town of Plymouth’s bylaws provided for an “open space and planned unit development” project on one of the state’s largest privately owned parcels. The Greene Company, a residential development firm, prepared a planned unit development for the 3,000-acre site that proposed the creation of a new town of approximately 2,000 homes and 2 million square feet of retail and commercial development. The Collaborative, working with Earth Tech engineers, led a comprehensive review of the Greene Company proposal and behalf of the Town of Plymouth. The size of the project, its proximity to the town’s geographic center, and its historic and ecological features made this project the focus of much community concern. The town used this review for negotiations with the developer and ultimately approved the plan.

Nicholas Filla, Chairman of the Plymouth Planning Board remarked, “You and your colleagues were instrumental in helping us tread the line between a diverse set of community interests, provisions of the by-law, and the economic interests and creativity of the developer’s team. Thank you for your extra efforts in site buffers, public trails, open space, wildlife connections, and ‘Community Green’ area designs. Your firm’s experience with landscape design, public participation, environmental planning, and planning were all useful during this review.”

Neponset River Reservation Master Plan and Trail Design

State of Massachusetts

The Collaborative completed a Master Plan and Park Design for a four-mile long recreation corridor along the Neponset River in the Boston, MA for the former Metropolitan District Commission. The project included a market study to determine the area’s “recreational footprint,” community participation, park planning and design, and the creation of a river corridor brand. The brand identity, which celebrated the river’s history as a rich fishery Native Americans called “Neponset” or “Harvest River,” was used in communication materials and throughout the reservation. The Collaborative organized and lead more than 35 meetings and community-design events during the course of the project. Public acceptance of the plan led to the passage of a $40 million bond bill to implement the master plan recommendations. A key element was the design of a multiuse trail design that linked numerous new active and passive park areas. The plan received the Master Planning and Landscape Architecture Award from the Boston Society of Landscape Architecture.

The Neponset River is a river in eastern Massachusetts in the United States. Its headwaters are at the Neponset Reservoir in Foxborough, near Gillette Stadium. The Neponset River forms the southern boundary of the city of Boston, passing through the neighborhoods of Readville, Hyde Park, Mattapan and Dorchester, and forming with the northern border of the city of Quincy. The Neponset River is fed by a drainage basin of approximately 130 square miles, a watershed that includes numerous aquifers, wetlands, streams and surrounding upland areas. Some 250,000 people live in the Neponset River watershed.

Online information about the Neponset River Reservation:

• This Picturesque Park is an Undiscovered Oasis Just Outside Boston, Massachusetts
• Neponset River Reservation

Boston State Hospital Master Plan

Massachusetts Division of Capital Asset Management, Boston, MA

The Collaborative prepared a Master Plan Update for a 60-acre site located within a 175-acre property that previously housed a state mental hospital, surrounded by a dense mixed-use urban environment. Located in the Mattapan, Dorchester, Roxbury, and Jamaica Plain neighborhoods of Boston, the site lies adjacent to the 66-acre open space of the Massachusetts Audubon Nature Center, which presented attractive options for development. The Update defined a pattern of usage for the site that responded to the community’s vision of a development stimulus for the local neighborhoods as well as nearby retail districts.

The Boston State Hospital was founded in South Boston in 1839. By the 1880s, new ideas about the care of the mentally ill emphasized the importance of fresh air, hard work, and separation from the adverse influences (both social and environmental) of city life, an approach that was referred to as “moral treatment.” Almost all of the buildings from the former BSH have been demolished except for three cottages that have been restored and are now being used by the Mass Audubon Nature Center, and another old building that will be renovated by the University of Massachusetts Biologic Laboratory.

Military Housing Site Reuse

Town of Nahant, MA

Working with the Nahant Town Manager and attorneys from Sherin and Lodgen, LLP, the Collaborative evaluated the potentials for re-using a military site containing twelve single-family housing units. The housing was built and used by the U.S. Army and then the U.S. Coast Guard. The town was interested in a number of objectives, including recovering its $2,000,000 purchase price, providing for affordable housing, maintaining the character of the neighborhood, and minimizing environmental impacts.

Fort Ruckman was a U.S. Coast Artillery fort located in Nahant, Massachusetts. Originally called the Nahant Military Reservation, the fort was laid out in 1904-1907 and covered an area of about 45 acres just northwest of Bass Point, on the southwest side of the Nahant peninsula. The fort was decommissioned after World War II and the property was sold to the town and to private owners beginning in about 1947. Today, most of the area within the fort’s World War II boundaries has been converted into residential real estate, recreation, or park land for the Town of Nahant.

Master Plan

Town of Lynnfield, MA

Building on an earlier public participation process defining the town’s goals and objectives, the Collaborative prepared a comprehensive master plan for the Town of Lynnfield, MA.
Lynnfield had some specific issues with regard to the future of its development. First, Lynnfield is a town with very little remaining vacant developable land. Second, it is a town that wants to achieve a better balance in its property tax base. Third, Lynnfield has relatively large areas devoted to open space, some of which are important wildlife “core habitat” resource areas. Taking these specific concerns to mind along with other planning issues, the Collaborative created a complete plan for the development of Lynnfield, detailing the means and tactics to achieving sustainable development in the years to come.

This is best summed up by Richard O’Neil, Chairman of the Lynnfield Planning Board when he remarked, “You have presented us with a fresh approach to problems that seem to be descending on Eastern Massachusetts towns at an alarming rate. Your anticipation of these problems helped us greatly to foresee how to turn what may initially be perceived as problems into opportunities. The possibilities and solutions present in your report forewarned and informed townspeople as even now the realities are coming before us.”

Vision 2020 and Strategic Plan

Town of Lexington, MA

The Collaborative designed and facilitated a public engagement process for the purpose of defining a 20-year Vision and Strategic Plan for the Town of Lexington. The final products of this project included an overall Vision for the Lexington of 2020 that outlined a set of specific Vision Statements: (1) topic areas, including physical appearance, governance, economy, sense of community, environment, political well-being, etc., (2) issue areas, defined by the development, analysis, and examination of prominent issues of concern, and (3) implementation areas corresponding to the management structure of the town.

According to Candy McLaughlin, Assistant Town Manager for the Town of Lexington, “I would like to congratulate and thank the Collaborative for carrying off the community workshops so well. You really hit the ground running.”