Awards/Recognition

Headlines – November 3, 2003

CRT names Blackman plan winner of initial growth award

Tennessee’s Cumberland Region Tomorrow (CRT) has named Murfreesboro’s Blackman Land Use Plan winner of one of its new awards for growth planning.
The award was presented in Franklin during the group’s inaugural meeting and awards ceremony.

Completed in December of 2000, the Blackman Land Use Plan sought to establish a future vision for the highest and best use of a primarily agrarian community that was in process of transition and which was facing significant future growth due to regional growth pressures, the group said.

“The Plan,” the group stated in its award comments, “while not a blueprint for what the Blackman Community ought to become, is instead a detailed vision for the optimal mix and patterns of development in the planning area and an assessment of the major public facilities and services necessary to support the envisioned growth.
“This is a good example of a community creating a plan before the community needs it,” the group continued, “(and) of actually planning for growth instead of responding to it after the fact.”

The review panel also responded favorably to specific design elements that included use of a traffic pattern grid and inclusion of traditional neighborhood development.
“The former addresses CRT’s guiding tenet calling for coordination of land use policy with sensible and efficient transportation,” the group stated. “The latter addresses CRT’s commitment to equitable access to quality housing for all residents.”
Prepared by Barge, Waggoner, Sumner and Cannon (BWSC), a Nashville engineering firm, the plan made extensive use of citizen participation in the form of a Citizens Advisory Committee made up of six landowners or residents, three members of the engineering industry and one representative each of the building, real estate or development and local manufacturing industry.

The CRT review panel found several design elements commendable, but “none more so than the thoroughness and thoughtfulness with which the citizens and civic leaders addressed the multiplicity of issues encompassed in impending growth,” the panel’s comments stated.

The panel was most impressed most by the education, research and discussion within the community the plan created, it said.