RE Seminar: the planning in the development process
Cornell Program in Real Estate Industry Seminar
Date: Thursday, September 4th
When: 4:30-6:30 with reception to follow in the Regents Lounge in the Statler Hotel
Where: Beck 198
Attire: Business
The Cornell Real Estate Industry seminar focuses its attention close to home this Thursday as Ann Forsyth, Professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning, and Mina Amundson, University Planner for Cornell, team up for a look at the planning in the development process in general and Cornell’s master planning process specifically. Forsyth, the newest member of the Cornell Real Estate Field Faculty, will present a proactive planning process to create viable development projects that include affordable housing options along corridors that meet city and neighborhood interests. Prof. Forsyth’s comments will draw from her Corridor Housing Project, which won the American Planning Association’s (APA) National Planning Excellence Award in 2007 and that was a finalist for the Innovations in American Government Awards in 2005.
Trained in planning and architecture, Prof. Forsyth’s work focuses on the social aspects of physical planning, urban design, and urban development. From 2002-2007 she was a professor in both architecture and landscape architecture at the University of Minnesota, directing the Metropolitan Design Center. She has also taught at Harvard Design School (1999-2002) and at the University of Massachusetts (1993-1999) where she was co-director of a small community design center, the Urban Places Project. Forsyth has done work on walkability funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and National Institutes of Health. She has won over fifty awards, citations, and fellowships for individual and collaborative professional and research work. Her publications include articles, reviews, and chapters in planning, geography, and design. She has written three books: Constructing Suburbs: Competing Voices in a Debate Over Urban Growth (Gordon and Breach/Routledge, 1999), Reforming Suburbia: The Planned Communities of Irvine, Columbia, and The Woodlands (University of California Press, 2005), and Designing Small Parks: A Manual for Addressing Social and Ecological Concerns (with Laura Musacchio, Wiley, 2005). She is a certified practicing planner in the Planning Institute of Australia.
Ms. Amundsen is the University Planner for Cornell University since 2002. She directs the Campus Planning Office and is responsible for leading and overseeing physical planning on the Ithaca campus, including University-wide master planning, area and precinct plans, college plans, as well as the planning associated with specific projects, landscape, transportation, or utilities issues. She also represents the University to the community on all planning matters. She has led, with Vice Provost, John Siliciano, the recently adopted Campus Master Plan. She will present the campus master plan and, in the process, highlight the process and challenges in projects of this scope. Ms. Amundsen has Master’s degrees in city planning and architectural studies from MIT and has previously worked as a planner on two other campuses - with the MIT Planning Office and with Harvard University’s Planning and Real Estate Office. Mina’s professional interests are the various issues concerning the conservation of historic urban environments with the integration of new development and the role of planning in sustainability.