The Auburn University Community Planning graduate program received a $150,000 grant from the City of Montgomery Department of Planning and Development to provide a state-of-the-art land development and traffic forecasting tool to enable local planners and elected officials find solutions for the growth and development of the city and surrounding communities.

This grant is renewable annually for three years, totaling $450,000. The grant enabled the Community Planning program to purchase new computers and provide salaries for the seven graduate students that will work on the project along with professor Michael Clay.

“We are all tremendously excited to have this opportunity,” Clay said. “This puts Montgomery on the forefront of planning and development. This has the potential to save the taxpayers and the city hundreds of millions of dollars by enabling the city to target the most efficient and effect infrastructure and local economic and land development policies. Montgomery will really find itself a decade ahead of the curve nationally.”

Montgomery Mayor Bobby Bright and Montgomery Planning and Development Director Ken Groves attended a reception opening the new Community Planning lab where the research will take place.

Montgomery Mayor Bobby Bright and Community Planning graduate student Lindsay
Wallace check out the new computers in the planning lab.

“We are very proud to partner with Auburn University and the Community Planning program,” Mayor Bright said. “The quality of work being done by the faculty and students here are second to none. As an Auburn graduate, it is a dream come true to be able to work with the University to create sound methods of development that will provide a better quality of life for the people of this community.”

Clay, who was recently named a Research Fellow by the Mineta Transportation Institute, and the graduate students will be working with an integrated economic, land use and traffic model called PECAS, which stands for Product Exchange Consumption Allocation System.

This method allows planners to create models that show the consequences of various community development initiatives.
“If there is a plan to expand a road to four lanes, or even create a road to connect existing roads, the PECAS model will show the effects of that plan.” Clay said. “It will show the potential increase of traffic in that area along with residual factors such as businesses or housing sprouting up along that road.”

Clay added that the PECAS model will also take into account economic factors and show how a development proposal would affect low, middle and high income families.

The Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) awarded Auburn University Architecture professors David Hinson and Stacy Norman with the ACSA Collaborative Practice Award for their work on the DESIGNHabitat2 house with Habitat for Humanity and Palm Harbor Manufactured Homes.

“It is deeply gratifying to be recognized by our peers on a national level,” Hinson said. “This reinforces the community focus that we as a school and a college hold so strongly as being important, not just on a local level, but nationally.”

The award was presented for the best practices in school-based community outreach programs.

“This award is the most recent of several honors and citations that David and Stacy have received from numerous local and national organizations for their work on the Habitat House,” Dan Bennett, Dean of the College of Architecture, Design and Construction, said. “This success, and that of many of our faculty and students involved in similar venues, distinguishes the Auburn program from our peers across the region and nation. It is a point of pride for everyone at the university and I could not be more pleased for their success”

The house was the product of a unique partnership with the modular housing industry aimed at exploring ways for Habitat to build more homes with fewer volunteer resources in the wake of the housing demand resulting from the Gulf Coast hurricanes of 2005.
The modular sections of the DESIGNhabitat 2 House were produced by Palm Harbor Homes in Boaz, Ala., and transported to the project site in Greensboro, Ala. The students then completed the home on-site in two weeks as part of the Habitat volunteer based mission.

The home was built for Dorrinda Crews and her three children in Greensboro. The Crews family was displaced from their home as a result of Hurricane Katrina. The home was completed in June 2006.

The students designed the 1,100 square-foot home with a strong eye towards energy efficiency. The students used alternative siding and roofing material that are more durable but still provide energy efficient benefits. Great care was taken in the placement of the home to minimize the amount of heat generated from direct sunlight while still taking advantage of natural light from the sun.

The ACSA honors architectural educators for exemplary work in areas such as building design, community collaborations, scholarship and service. The award-winning professors inspire and challenge students, contribute to the profession’s knowledge base and extend their work beyond the borders of academe into practice and the public sector.

The ACSA is non-profit membership association founded in 1912 to advance the quality of architectural education. Members consist of all college and universities that offer accredited degree programs in architecture in the United States and Canada.
The School of Architecture is housed in the College of Architecture, Design and Construction. The components of the CADC are annually regarded and ranked among the best in their respective disciplines nationally for the quality of education and quality of students.