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Dear Smart Growth Supporters,
Thank you! 2009 was a successful year because of you and your involvement, leadership, and financial support.
This year, you joined with people from around the region to:
- Send over 9,000 emails to decision makers
- Add more than 1,200 signatures to our Metro Funding petition
- Attend our forums and walking tours from Capitol Riverfront to Shirlington
- Talk to us on Twitter
- Contribute to us monthly and annually online
- Help make our communities even better places to live
2009: Year in Review
Our nation’s recession has shown that smarter growth policies are more important than ever. Outer suburbs have suffered particularly from high foreclosure rates. Household and government budgets everywhere are strained. We have always promoted communities that provide safe, affordable and convenient places to live and work for people of all incomes. The smart growth and equitable development solutions we offer help save governments money by building where we already have infrastructure – and help save families money by providing a range of housing and transportation options near jobs.
For over twelve years, we have been the leading non-profit organization addressing where and how the Washington region grows, partnering with communities in planning for the future, and offering solutions to the interconnected challenges of housing, transportation, energy and the environment.
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| The Coalition for Smarter Growth Team: Cheryl Cort, Stewart Schwartz, Lauren Campbell, Rebecca Perring, and Chris Orvin |
We have been recognized for our effectiveness again this year: our Executive Director, Stewart Schwartz, was a finalist for the Washington Business Journal’s Green Business Awards – and we received the inaugural American Institute of Architects Northern Virginia Chapter Award.
Our reach in the media is as powerful as ever. We were featured in the PBS Frontline Documentary “Poisoned Waters” showing that compact development will consume less land and help to save the Chesapeake Bay. In print and blogs, and on radio and TV, we foster common understanding of the challenges faced by our region.
We are out in the community nearly every day, helping residents and officials with planning, transportation and community design. This year we made over eighty major powerpoint presentations and speeches on smart growth issues. Our significant investment in online communications and advocacy offers in-depth information and inspires public action on important issues.
Read on to find out how busy we were in 2009.
- Cleveland Park Giant: With our support, a mixed-use transit-oriented redevelopment for the old grocery store finally won approval.
- Comprehensive Re-Zoning: We continued to help overhaul the city’s (very!) outdated zoning code.
- Affordable Housing Policy Victory: Our years of advocacy finally resulted in the adoption of inclusionary zoning, a critical housing tool.
If you attended any of our D.C. walking tours this year, you know that despite the real estate slowdown, the city is becoming more vibrant by the minute... Read More >>
- 15 Metro Stations: We kept up a major push for redevelopment of the County’s fifteen largely underdeveloped Metro stations.
- Addison Road Metro: A standing-room-only forum kicked off a campaign to for community involvement in planning the future of the station area.
- Front Page of the Metro Section: We showed that Beltway traffic results in large part from the east-west jobs divide, earning a great story in the Washington Post.
Prince George’s fifteen Metro stations are keys to economic growth in the county, which has been hit harder than other regional jurisdictions by the recession... Read More >>
- Tysons Corner: The new Tysons Corner plan is close! It consumed our time as we worked with planning commissioners, conservation leaders and community members to make sure the plan gets the details right.
- Route 1: Our new Richmond Highway Corridor map and public outreach put us in touch with hundreds of Richmond Highway voters, who shared their thoughts on revitalizing this crucial corridor.
In Fairfax County our efforts have been focused both on the redevelopment of Tysons Corner and the revitalization of the Route 1 corridor... Read More >>
- White Flint Metro: We helped to improve and promote a great plan for a walkable, transit-oriented neighborhood.
- I-270: Our transit alternatives to widening I-270 gained traction with elected officials.
- Gaithersburg West: we raised questions about the scale, location, jobs/housing imbalance and transportation problems created by the Gaithersburg West/"Science City" plan.
Montgomery County planners and elected officials have been wrestling with big planning issues. The county supports smart growth and fighting climate change... Read More >>
- Purple Line: This critical transit link received final approval from the state of Maryland, thanks to emails to Governor O’Malley, and testimony at public hearings. The line will take 17,000 cars off the road each day!
- Federal Stimulus: We were a leading source of information on D.C. and Virginia transportation American Recovery and Reinvestment Act spending.
- High Speed Rail: We mobilized support for regional high speed rail proposals as part of the federal stimulus.
Transportation spending and project priorities have a profound effect on our quality of life and on where and how we grow... Read More >>
- Greater Washington 2050: Thanks to our involvement and that of key officials, the new vision for our region is a smart growth plan.
- Metro: We responded to safety and funding challenges by bringing together stakeholders and amassing grassroots support, including over 1200 petition signatures, for our region’s great transit system.
It’s not enough just to work at the local level... Read More >>
Our popular tour and forum series continued this year with ten events that hundreds of you attended. Our 2009 series included:
- Capitol Riverfront Walking Tour (twice!)
- Shirlington Walking Tour
- Prince George's Plaza and Columbia Heights Walking Tour
- How New Federal Transportation Policy Can Shape Great Communities Forum
- Unlocking Gridlock in Northern Virginia Forum
- Federal Dollars, Maryland Streets Forum
- Cycle Chic: Bike Culture and Policy in Denmark Forum
- Redeveloping Addison Road Metro Forum
- Visions for the Washington Region Forum
A big thank you to all of you who attend and support our educational events. Special thanks to our guest speakers and tour guides... Read More >>
We couldn't do our work without the help of our partner groups and volunteers. There isn't enough room to thank everyone, but we did want to recognize the contributions of these volunteers:
- Laidler Campbell: A Springfield, VA resident, Laidler has been the most successful at community outreach during the last two Election Days. Talking with passion about the need for revitalization and smart growth in southeastern Fairfax, she has signed up hundreds of new contacts for CSG.
- Pam Lindstrom: Pam has been a longtime volunteer community planner in Montgomery County. Her in-depth analysis of development and transportation issues has been of great assistance to CSG.
- Jake Aftergood: Jake’s fantastic GIS map of the Route 1 corridor in Fairfax County has proven to be a great tool for promoting both revitalization and environmental restoration.
- Marin Odioso and Bill Pugh: These transportation experts volunteered untold hours to research and produce data on transportation and climate change.
Special thanks also to our Steering Committee, including representatives of the Audubon Naturalist Society, Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Sierra Club, Piedmont Environmental Council, Action Committee for Transit, Arlington Coalition for Sensible Transportation, Southern Environmental Law Center, Montgomery Countryside Alliance, Clean Water Action, 1000 Friends of Maryland, Purple Line NOW!, Natural Resources Defense Council, WABA, Maryland League of Conservation Voters, Virginia League of Conservation Voters, Environment Maryland, National Trust for Historic Preservation, and Greater Greater Washington.
With your help, we work to make the Washington D.C. region the most sustainable in the nation.
We need to fight climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions generated from buildings and transportation. Our nation and households also face severe financial constraints and our older infrastructure including Metro, bridges, schools, water and sewer systems requires replacement. So, we need to create convenient and energy-efficient communities that are mixed-use, mixed-income, walkable, bikeable, and transit-oriented. By making redevelopment a priority we can use scarce resources to fix existing infrastructure. We look forward to working with you over the coming year to bring this vision closer to reality.
We are grateful for the continued support of
Morris & Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation, Community Foundation of the National Capital Region, Enterprise Community Partners, MARPAT Foundation, Meyer Foundation, Prince Charitable Trusts, Keith Campbell Foundation, Smart Growth America, Taproot Foundation, Woodbury Fund, our individual and corporate donors, and our fiscal agent, the Piedmont Environmental Council.
Sincerely,
Stewart Schwartz, Executive Director
Coalition for Smarter Growth
action@smartergrowth.net
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