STARKVILLE - Eupora may not have to hand over any money for quality improvement plans.
Offering various angles for redesign, different groups of city officials, architects, landscape architects and engineers put their heads together Aug. 12 to come up with plans to enhance the appeal and sustainability of Eupora during a two-day conference on the Mississippi State campus.
Sponsored by the MSU President's Office, the Department of Landscape Architecture hosted the conference, "Leadership Through Sustainable Community Development." The conference took place at the Bost Extension Center auditorium on the MSU campus.
"It takes $24,000 minimum to have these type of plans made," said Sadik C. Artunç, professor and head of the Department of Landscape Architecture, referring to the caliber of plans being made around him.
And, according to Artunç, the university paid $21,000 to host this conference, which is designed for elected and public officials.
Eupora officials called Artunç for suggestive help on improving their town. The result was a workshop with six groups of professionals and officials working together to help put Eupora on the map.
Participants, who presented their plans when the workshop was over, spent the previous day hearing from successful developers and planners on how to implement sustainable and successful development for their hometowns and businesses.
"We wanted trained professionals, the few that were available, to explain in plain English without lots of jargon how these things are done," said Artunç, who brought the idea of the conference to MSU Interim President Vance Watson. "Our goal is to give them the tools they need; we want to show them how to fish, rather than feed them everyday."
Artunç is confident that officials have benefited from this two-day experience.
"There's been lots of sweat, but you know at the end there is light."
During the Aug. 11 seminar sessions, participants were told not to be afraid of being aggressive.
"Start talking about implementation that day," said Patrick Moore of Moore Planning Group LLC, and architecture and planning firm located in Alexandria, La. "It's two years light speed to try to find funding outside of your own coffers."
"Just do it. You don't have to create miracles."
Rachel DiResto, vice president of the Center for Planning Excellence (CPEX) in Baton Rouge, La., said that public and private partnerships were key in revitalizing areas that were affected by hurricanes Katrina and Ivan.
Of the many programs implemented by CPEX is Louisiana Speaks, which planners intend to be a long-range plan for sustainable development in southern Louisiana.
"This plan is for the next 50 years," said DiResto.
Chris Campany, assistant professor of landscape architecture, said during his presentation that good zoning and development laws are integral to orderly development.
"In absence of a planning and development laws or zoning laws, certain decisions can be hard to defend in court," said Campany.
Citing case after case, Campany said that the highest courts have consistently ruled in favor of development law based upon a well-thought-out plan in the interest of public health and safety.
It's up to the government to make sure development does not grow to be unsafe, he continued, using apartment buildings from the 1920s that were too tall as an example of harmful development. Sustainable and safe expansion is also up to planners and developers, said Campany.
"Green infrastructure is part of developers' responsibility to the community," he said.
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