With a proposed federal transportation bill sparking intense debate in congress, one Otak professional decided to lend his expert opinion to Capitol Hill. Curtis LaPierre flew from Washington State to Washington, D.C. and advocated for active transportation programs such as transportation enhancements, complete streets, safe routes to school and scenic byways in the transportation bill. He spoke to legislators from his home state about how these programs would expand travel choice, strengthen local economies, manage stormwater runoff and improve the quality of life for communities across the country. 

To learn more about the benefits of active transportation programs, please click here.

Otak received the American Planning Association’s (APA) National Excellence Award for Best Practice at the APA’s National Conference in Los Angeles. Otak planners received the award for their work on Cool Planning: A Handbook on Local Strategies to Slow Climate Change. This handbook embodies Otak’s commitment to building sustainable communities, and winning such a prestigious national award for this project is a proud moment for all of us at Otak. We thank the APA for this honor and congratulate everyone who worked on this project.

To learn more about Cool Planning, please click here.

To view the Cool Planning handbook, please click here.

Volunteers from Otak’s Lake Oswego and Vancouver offices planted trees as part of an Earth Day celebration with other volunteers from throughout the Portland area. It began on Saturday morning near the I-205 Multi-Use Path in the Gateway area of Portland where volunteers were taught tree-planting basics. Then the volunteers set to work lugging trees and tools up the steep incline, digging holes in the rocky soil, setting trees in the holes, covering the soil around the trees with burlap sacks, securing the sacks to the ground with stakes, and driving wooden poles into the ground on the sides of the trees. After four hours of work, the volunteers had planted 180 native species, making it the largest-ever planting in over three years of planting along the I-205 Multi-Use Path.

The event was organized by Friends of Trees, a group which aims to bring people in the Portland-Vancouver and Eugene-Springfield metro areas together to plant and care for city trees and green spaces. The Otak volunteer group worked with Friends of Trees through EarthShare.

To learn more about Friends of Trees and find out how you can get involved, click here.

Otak’s

Rudayna Abdo spoke at the Oman Affordable Housing Development Summit in Muscat, Oman, which opened on April 16. Rudayna spoke about revisiting urban planning and development codes to promote development in North Wathba and Al Gharbia in the United Arab Emirates. The summit brought together an array of eminent regional and international experts to discuss strategies and solutions to the region’s housing challenges.

Otak’s Kate Schwarzler delivered a presentation at the 32nd Annual National Recreation Resource Planning Conference in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, from April 16-20. During her presentation, Managing New Impacts from Energy Development, she discussed preserving the scenic values of our western landscapes for future generations in the face of growing demand for land uses. Communication sites, linear rights-of-way, recreation, private development, as well as energy and mineral development have the potential to alter the character of the landscape and impact the user experience of our parks, trails, recreation areas and scenic byways, if not carefully planned and designed. Kate’s presentation provided an overview of different methods for documenting the visual environment, evaluating the visual quality of the landscape, understanding how proposed changes may alter scenic qualities and strategies to mitigate potential impacts.

The conference, held by the National Association of Recreation Resource Planners (NARRP), aims to educate attendees about current outdoor recreation planning efforts and features dozens of presentations that share outdoor recreation planning best practices, trends and success stories. About 200 professionals from federal, state and local agencies, the commercial sector and academic institutions typically attend the NARRP conference.

Congratulations to Amr Azzazi on passing his LEED Green Associate exam! Amr is an architect working out of our office in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Otak’s LEED-Accredited professionals in Abu Dhabi ensure that our commitment to sustainability is being implemented overseas. Good job Amr!

Otak has won the 2012 American Public Works Association’s Public Works Project of the Year Award for the Burnham Street Improvements project! This national award puts Otak in a very elite group of winners, and Otak will receive a plaque at the APWA annual Awards Recognition Ceremony in Anaheim, California this summer.

Congratulations to everyone who worked on this project!

To learn more about the Burnham Street project, please click here.

Otak recently had the pleasure of hosting a delegation from Kosovo as part of the International Visitor Leadership Program. The visitors from Kosovo met with key Otak staff and discussed a wide variety of issues related to planning, development, and maintenance of public infrastructure. Few members of the delegation had visited the United States before, and the visitors remarked that they found the exchange “very useful and appropriate to their program objectives and individual questions.” The feeling was mutual at Otak as our participants benefited greatly from the lively discussion with our visitors.

We would like to thank the World Affairs Council of Oregon for this wonderful opportunity to exchange ideas with visitors from around the world! To find out more about the International Visitor Leadership Program, please click here.

Howdy from LA and the APA national conference. Attended really interesting sessions on healthy food planning, LA planning and city planning as viewed from literature, and an awesome master plan and implementation project in Fort Worth called Trinity Point (Texas attitude meets smart growth!). Visited Frank Gehry's Walt Disney Concert Hall and LA's Union Station/Olvera Street today. 

Joe

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Hi! The International Featured Presentation I moderated yesterday was fascinating. Dr. Aisa Kirabo-Kacyira, Assistant-Secretary General and Deputy Executive Director of UN Habitat from Kenya gave an insightful and challenging lecture to our audience of about 200 attendees. Lots of questions from the audience, and good marks all around! Sorry about no photo...couldn't take a photo of myself and Dr. Kirabo  while doing the human-interaction thing. This page from the conference program will have to do!

Dave

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