ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (Could 8, 2023) – The Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council’s twenty ninth annual Way forward for the Area Awards honored 13 organizations for notable achievements and contributions which have led to regional profit. The Awards had been introduced throughout the third Tampa Bay Regional Resiliency Management Summit on Friday, Could 5.
This yr, Pinellas County Commissioner Chair Janet C. Lengthy acquired the Herman W. Award for Regional Management, which is called for the founding father of the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council. The award honors an individual that encourages future imaginative and prescient for his or her group and continues to implement motion.
Lengthy has devoted her 42 years in public service to advancing Tampa Bay’s resiliency, sustainability and preservation for the present group and future generations. She’s additionally pushed the usual ahead for public transportation and different regional alternatives for development. Beforehand, Lengthy served as chair of the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council, within the Florida Home of Representatives, Seminole Metropolis Council, and on various native boards.
The Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority, Pinellas County’s public transit supplier, acquired the 2023 One Bay McIntosh Award for the SunRunner, a first-of-its type bus speedy transit system that started service in October 2022. PSTA’s SunRunner system makes use of quiet, low-emission, hybrid electrical autos to shuttle residents, staff and vacationers round densely populated areas and mitigates site visitors congestion.
The One Bay McIntosh Award is among the Way forward for the Area Awards’ highest honors. The award is introduced to a corporation that embodies the rules of the One Bay Livable Communities Imaginative and prescient, which outlines priorities for accountable land use, mobility, financial, and environmental sustainability for inhabitants and employment development.
As well as, the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council introduced Way forward for the Area Awards in 5 classes.
Constructed Setting demonstrates finest trade practices in selling compact improvement and redevelopment whereas preserving historical past, beautifying public areas and contributing to a novel regional identification.
• The City of Indian Shores created the Tocobaga Memorial artwork set up to beautify a public house whereas preserving and honoring the group’s earliest residents, the Tocobaga tribe. Consultants from native universities, the Weedon Island Protect, the Seminole Tribe of Florida, and the Bishop Museum labored with native officers to create a plaza that conjures up guests to mirror on the native tradition and historical past.
• The Hillsborough County Aviation Authority’s Tampa Worldwide Airport accomplished a number of key elements of its Grasp Plan II that assist sustainability. The airport’s new Blue Specific lanes double capability and enhance air high quality, a brand new central utility plant will increase power effectivity, and its SkyCenter One industrial workplace achieved the Platinum degree LEED certification.
Neighborhood Preparedness and Resiliency improves the area’s capability to guard life and property from hurricanes, different coastal excessive hazards, rising sea ranges and will increase the general public’s information and entry to details about pure and artifical disasters.
• Candy Sparkman Structure and Interiors labored with Eckerd School on a Resilience Framework Plan to adapt to the stressors of sea degree rise and growing rainfall for the waterfront campus. The versatile framework guides short- and long-term planning course of to establish potential adaptation tasks and set up pointers for priorities.
• Madrid CPWG labored with the Metropolis of St. Pete Seaside to develop a planning software for flood mitigation. The software aids in analyzing coverage choices primarily based on the extent of flooding, depth and period of flooding, and a planning degree capital finances for pumping flood waters.
Neighborhood Service enriches the lives of Tampa Bay residents.
• Plan Hillsborough-Tampa Heights Junior Civic Affiliation’s FLiP summer time management improvement program creates consciousness of city planning and conjures up future planners and group advocates. By this system, highschool college students achieve expertise land use rules, transportation methods, financial improvement, civic engagement, sustainability and fairness by means of hands-on actions.
• The Metropolis of Holmes Seaside launched a marketing campaign referred to as Islanders 4 Clear Water to lift consciousness of points that affect water high quality. Its 10 water-smart actions inspired residents to think about the ways in which they may positively affect the world’s water of their each day selections.
Economic system & Vitality diversifies the regional economic system, attracts high quality companies and job creation, helps small-and medium-sized native companies and entrepreneurs as a supply of innovation, whereas investing in power conservation applied sciences or different power sources.
• Pasco County Authorities, Pasco Financial Improvement Council, Welbilt, Inc., and College of Florida Extension Service partnered to satisfy a group want for industrial kitchen house and entrepreneurial coaching. The Pasco County Business Incubator Kitchen now helps 30 new companies within the meals trade, and most of these companies are minority and/or veteran owned.
• Pinellas County Board of County Commissioners and Pinellas County Financial Improvement’s Worker Websites Program gives funding to beat market and website improvement constraints which have traditionally stalled industrial and workplace improvement. This system leverages private- and public-sector investments to facilitate new infrastructure and construct the subsequent technology of contemporary properties.
Pure Assets and the Setting improves group connectivity to the surroundings.
• The Tampa Bay Estuary Program’s Little Manatee River Wild Scenic Designation and Conceptual Restoration Plan created partnerships and layers of safety to method conservation and water high quality enchancment for our area.
• The Ecosphere Restoration Institute and Metropolis of Tampa’s Ignacio Haya Dwelling Shoreline and Wetland Restoration Venture applied a residing shoreline to handle erosion from boat wakes. Whereas major goal was stabilizing the riverbank, using a residing shoreline is extra resilient, reduces sediment, and improves water high quality.
• The Metropolis of Dunedin’s Gladys E. Douglas Protect is the biggest remaining undeveloped land in Pinellas County. The Metropolis of Dunedin and Pinellas County moved rapidly to allocate $5.5 million in land preservation funds to protect for future generations to get pleasure from.
Concerning the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council
The Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council brings collectively governments to coordinate planning for the group’s future and supply a chance for sharing options among the many native authorities jurisdictions within the Tampa Bay area. The TBRPC works with six counties and 21 municipalities as they make long-range plans associated to the way forward for the Tampa Bay area. The Council’s work focuses on resiliency, planning for local weather change and sea degree rise, environmental administration, water high quality, emergency preparedness planning, safety and restoration of the Tampa Bay estuary, financial evaluation, coastal zone administration, housing and infrastructure evaluation, native authorities complete plan evaluations, cross acceptance, dispute decision and evaluations of transportation plans. Be taught extra at tbrpc.org.