American Planning Association honors four Fort Worth District projects

Photo By James Frisinger | The American Planning Association honored the Fort Worth District's new Whitney Lake Master Plan, which remapped the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers lands with a new system of classifications. Dark blue, for instance, indicates Environmentally Sensitive Areas. These can include special viewsheds, cultural resources or habitat, such as the oak-ashe juniper woodlands preferred by the endangered golden-cheeked warbler in Central Texas. Graphic: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers  

UNITED STATES

04.12.2017

Story by James Frisinger 

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Fort Worth District

FORT WORTH, Texas – The American Planning Association this month singled out four U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Fort Worth District projects for honors in the 2016 Federal Planning Division Awards. They will be presented at the annual awards banquet May 4 in New York City.

The APA contest honors achievements in the development and implementation of comprehensive planning and land management policies, techniques and procedures on federal properties.

“The broad scope of these awards speak volumes to the planning expertise in the Regional Planning and Environmental Center,” said Col. Calvin C. Hudson II, commander, Fort Worth District. “From developing sustainable energy planning technology, to Army installation design, to lake master plans, to charting Johnson Space Center’s future – our team is leading the Nation into new frontiers.”

Winning a Citation Award for Outstanding Federal Program was the Integration and Demonstration of CAMPS Dashboard with Net Zero Planner Tool. It featured demonstrations at two pilot sites: Fort Hood, Texas, and Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii. The project developed and demonstrated integration of sustainability software that reduces the cost and time for energy planning. The honored team included the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center, Construction Engineering Research Laboratory and contractor Ecology and Environment Inc.

The Honor Award for Outstanding Area/Site Development Plan was for the Fort Polk Warrior Plaza Area Development Plan, Fort Polk, Louisiana, in support of U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Headquarters, with contractor The Urban Collaborative. The team developed a planning vision to create a downtown that focuses on recreation, shopping and housing services for the base community.

The Merit Award for Outstanding Environmental Planning Project was given for revising the Whitney Lake Master Plan, which had not been updated since 1972. The Fort Worth District team executed a new Corps Headquarters process that was measurable, practical, found efficiencies, sped the revision, reduced the cost and made future lake master plan revisions routine. It included a new set of land classifications to guide the managers for this Corps of Engineers-managed facility in Central Texas. A new Environmentally Sensitive Area zone will help protect designated cultural resources, viewsheds and critical habitat for the endangered golden-cheeked warbler.

The Merit Award was given the team for Outstanding Collaborative Planning Project for its NASA Johnson Space Center Master Plan Update. It laid out long-range plans for JSC Main, JSC Ellington Field and Sonny Carter (Clear Lake, Texas) and White Sands Test Facility (Las Cruces, New Mexico) with contractor The Urban Collaborative. The team utilized newly developed sustainability software tools to update the JSC Master Plan to cope with new challenges of tight capital budgets, climate change, energy conservation and greenhouse gas emission reduction.

• Date Taken: 04.12.2017
• Date Posted: 04.12.2017 16:07
• Story ID: 230174
• Location: US