Partnership for Action Learning in Sustainability (PALS)

Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/21474

The Partnership for Action Learning in Sustainability (PALS) is administered by the National Center for Smart Growth at the University of Maryland, College Park (UMD). It is a campus-wide initiative that harnesses the expertise of UMD faculty and the energy and ingenuity of UMD students to help Maryland communities become more environmentally, economically, and socially sustainable. PALS is designed to provide innovative, low-cost assistance to local governments while creating real-world problem-solving experiences for University of Maryland graduate and undergraduate students.

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    Four Corners (re-sestablisher)
    (Partnership for Action Learning Sustainability (PALS), 2023-12) Ajaero, Ucheya; Bullock, Abigail; Perkins, Abigail; Rahming-Williams, Nichelle; Riffle, Brianna; Boland, Margret; Gomez, Jose; Gross, Hannah; Mora, Adrian; Watson, Omari; Deist, Chase; Demircan, Zeynep; Garcia, Aylin; Jones, Amory; Mulé, Maya; Hernandez, Kevin; Hussien, Abdureuf; Merino, Sandra; Pipatpongsa, Chayaporn?; Bell, Matthew; Matthews, Georgeanne?
    The ARCH 700 Urban Design Graduate looked at the Four Corners site and the Arts District area in Hyattsville with the intent to understand what problems each of these communities had and how to apply best practices in urban design to each. At Four Corners, the focus was on creating a sense of place and community along University Boulevard where little of that kind of experience existed previously, and at Hyattsville, how to reimagine the urban design of the Arts District and the vacant County Service building so that a more vibrant town center could emerge. Students explored issues such as multi-modal circulation, the city grid, densification through the addition of various building typologies, community place-making, and ‘complete street’ design. All of the proposals sought to integrate new residential and other developments and create a framework for parks and urban spaces that embrace diversity and maintain historic cultural assets.
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    Urban Design Proposals for Four Corners and Hyattsville Arts District?
    (Partnership for Action Learning Sustainability (PALS), 2023-12) Ajaero, Ucheya; Bullock, Abigail; Perkins, Abigail; Rahming-Williams, Nichelle; Riffle, Brianna; Boland, Margret; Gomez, Jose; Gross, Hannah; Mora, Adrian; Watson, Omari; Deist, Chase; Demircan, Zeynep; Garcia, Aylin; Jones, Amory; Mulé, Maya; Hernandez, Kevin; Hussien, Abdureuf; Merino, Sandra; Pipatpongsa, Chayaporn?; Bell, Matthew; Matthews, Georgeanne?
    The ARCH 700 Urban Design Graduate looked at the Four Corners site and the Arts District area in Hyattsville with the intent to understand what problems each of these communities had and how to apply best practices in urban design to each. At Four Corners, the focus was on creating a sense of place and community along University Boulevard where little of that kind of experience existed previously, and at Hyattsville, how to reimagine the urban design of the Arts District and the vacant County Service building so that a more vibrant town center could emerge. Students explored issues such as multi-modal circulation, the city grid, densification through the addition of various building typologies, community place-making, and ‘complete street’ design. All of the proposals sought to integrate new residential and other developments and create a framework for parks and urban spaces that embrace diversity and maintain historic cultural assets.
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    Maryland’s Missing Middle Housing
    (Partnership for Action Learning Sustainability (PALS), 2024-05) Eldadah, Samaa; Carter, Niambi; Dawkins, Casey
    As Maryland localities struggle to meet the demand for a diversity of housing types at a range of income levels, the predominance of detached single-family zoning constrains available land for building new housing and limits the expansion of the housing supply. In this context, local governments have considered zoning change in detached single-family neighborhoods to better accommodate missing middle housing. As of May 2024, however, there have been no significant zoning changes to accommodate missing middle housing in single-family neighborhoods. However, counties are planning for future upzoning initiatives to increase density in residential neighborhoods through comprehensive plans. This report compiles lessons learned from four counties—Montgomery, Frederick, Anne Arundel, and Howard—about successes and challenges in preparing for upzoning to accommodate missing middle housing. These counties employ a range of strategies to address the market and political challenges to upzoning. Lessons learned from counties include using small area planning and zoning overlays, building political will through extensive stakeholder engagement, and offering incentives to developers to build missing middle housing.
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    Montgomery County Department of Environmental Protection Customer Journey Mapping & Information Workflow Improvement
    (Partnership for Action Learning Sustainability (PALS), 2024-05) Carpio, Elissa; Chandrashekar, Dharini; Gupta, Priyanka; Hao, Hilda; Niemeier, Claire; Lutters, Wayne
    The Montgomery County, Maryland Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is responsible for trash and recycling services across the county including the management and distribution of trash and recycling bins and carts. Requests for new or replacement bins and carts are first processed through the county’s service desk operations (MC311) and then provided to the team responsible for product delivery. This information must then be manually manipulated and outputted to staff members and contractors to organize, schedule, and process deliveries and pickups. The manual workflow processes and limited technology integration create process inefficiencies leading to suboptimal customer satisfaction.
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    Town of Kensington Inventory Management System Final Report
    (Partnership for Action Learning Sustainability (PALS), 2023-12) Chen, Jiahao; Garcia ,Sebastian; Gill, Jasmit; Nguyen, Jimmy; Schmidt, Alden; Rainsford, TJ; Bae, Yunbin
    The project’s goal was to develop an online inventory management system for the Town of Kensington that could collect and index information about public assets. The specific use case outlined in the scope of work was to categorize the different types of trees in the town’s parks. With this collection and management system, volunteers could survey parks to determine the location and types of trees to send this information to Montgomery county.
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    Best Practices for Modernizing a Municipal Charter in Maryland: Recommendations for the Town of Brookeville
    (Partnership for Action Learning Sustainability (PALS), 2024-05) Binder, Rachel; Navarro, Rebecca; Weisman, Morgan; Wertheimer, Caroline; Clark, Patrina
    Outdated and underdeveloped charters are commonplace among small municipalities, and the Town of Brookville’s charter is both outdated and underdeveloped. To address these issues, the project team conducted a comprehensive literature review and comparative case study analysis to create a framework that the Town of Brookville and other similarly-situated municipalities may use to ensure their charters reflect good governance practices. Key elements of the project’s findings include a lack of clear roles and responsibilities for municipal civic leaders, and unclear guidance on shifting norms and community needs. This report also provides specific recommendations for the Town of Brookeville, including creating a charter review committee, conducting comparative analysis specifically using Glen Echo as a case study, and using the Maryland Municipal League’s guidance in the charter amendment process.
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    Small Forest Protection Program
    (Partnership for Action Learning Sustainability (PALS), 2023-12) Anderson, Danielle; Brumagin, Taylor; Flores, Alessandra; Garrett, Shannon; Rios, Anabella; Sennewald, Kaitlin; Veopradith, Tiffany; Carroll, Mark
    The Montgomery County Planning Department asked our team of Environmental Science and Policy capstone students at the University of Maryland to create a set of deliverables that would support the creation of Montgomery Planning’s Small Forest Protection Program. This program will allow owners of small, forested properties to help developers meet offsite forest retention requirements under the Forest Conservation Law. A reinterpretation of the County’s Forest Conservation Law limits the availability of offsite forest credits available for purchase by developers seeking to meet their forest-retention requirements. The new small forest program being launched by Montgomery Planning will meet the need for additional forest availability for developers to meet offsite retention requirements. The project’s deliverables are an informative webpage outline and application process for prospective program participants; an attribute table of potentially eligible property owners and their contact information, identified via spatial analysis using Geographical Information Systems; and a draft letter of solicitation to property owners informing them of how they can be involved in the program. These deliverables were founded primarily on research into Montgomery Planning’s website and its previous initiatives. Existing webpages were analyzed to determine the features that contribute to their current success. To identify property owners for the program, a GIS map was constructed by conducting a spatial analysis of various layers provided by Montgomery Planning. From this map, potentially eligible property owners were identified to be contacted with the letter of solicitation. In our final webpage guideline, we include a program overview, requirements for property owners, how they can apply, and information for developers. Additionally, we include Frequently Asked Questions and a section of contact information for department staff. Finally, the application form layout includes all the information property owners need to be considered for inclusion in the program. Using the GIS map, almost 10,000 potentially eligible properties were identified. Several specific areas from the initial property list are recommended for closer attention due to the community benefits and ecosystem services that they provide. These properties may be considered for future contact by Montgomery Planning as they launch the new small forest program.
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    Analysis and Scenario Planning for Fairland and Briggs Chaney, Maryland
    (Partnership for Action Learning in Sustainability (PALS), 2021) Van Allen, Max; Gaunaurd, Pierre; Johnson, Nicholas; Kotzker, Sophie; Luna, Alondra; Reitman, Carter; Trowell, Khayla; von Stetten, Tim; Woldu, Marta; Irazabal, Clara
    This report is the output of the Fall 2021 Urban Studies and Planning studio at the University of Maryland, College Park. Through the Partnership for Action Learning in Sustainability (PALS), our class partnered with Montgomery County’s Planning Department to provide a planning sector analysis and scenario plans to aid in the development of the new Fairland and Briggs Chaney Master Plan, which is organized and guided by the draft general plan for the county, Thrive Montgomery 2050. The scope of work included analysis of existing conditions within the plan boundaries and the provision of three scenario plans ranging from no change to high levels of change. We concentrated our attention within three thematic areas of emphasis: climate change adaptation and mitigation, economic and community development, and housing. Moreover, our central guiding principle for this project was justice; it informs everything we present here, and we hope that our work will contribute to its achievement. The report is organized into two major parts. In part I, in analysis of existing conditions, we cover a wide range of planning topics, including the history of the plan-area and special considerations related to our thematic areas of emphasis. In Part II, we present three scenarios of alternative futures for the plan-area: status quo, reform, and revolution.
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    Garrett Park Arboretum Workflow Management
    (Partnership for Action Learning in Sustainability (PALS), 2021) Abdulmalek, Aliyah; Hough, Michael; Hurtado, Marzena; Mulugeta, Nur; Shaikh, Samrah; Rainsford, TJ
    In Fall of 2021, our team of five University of Maryland students enrolled in the Capstone Project course (INST490) led by Prof. TJ Rainsford, embarked on the consultancy assignment for the Town of Garrett Park. The focus of the project was the Town’s arboretum workflow management. The project proposal and requirements were determined under the patronage of the Partnership for Action Learning in Sustainability (PALS), the UMD’s campus-wide initiative to engage faculty and students in projects that help partnering jurisdictions address their real-world challenges (UMD NCSG, n.d.). After a comprehensive analysis of services and information needs related to arboretum management, we have researched and identified actionable insights and technology solutions that, as we believe, could bring significant improvements to the current workflow. The following report is a summation of our findings.
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    A Historic Context, Policy, and Theme Analysis to Inform Scenario Plans for the Fairland & Briggs Chaney Master Plan Area
    (Partnership for Action Learning in Sustainability (PALS), 2021) Lee, Samantha; Fuller, Sarah; Evans, Frankie; Resnick, Eric; Murtha, Devon; Bailey, Angela; Yee, Karen; Ursin, Nicole; Wells, Jeremy; Cargill, Winnie
    Through their work with the National Center for Smart Growth at the University of Maryland (UMD), the Montgomery County Department of Planning commissioned this report from the university’s Partnership for Action Learning in Sustainability (PALS). The client wished to understand the historical context of the Master Plan area and how heritage values would change over the future and be influenced by climate change. Broadly defined, the field of historic preservation is concerned with the identification, protection, and conservation of culturally and historically significant structures and sites. Preservation policy, then, is concerned with the laws, regulations, and rules which encompass and guide the field of historic preservation and preservation practitioners.