I'm at the Design for Livability: Sustainable Cities Forum being hosted today by Cascade Land Conservancy and AIA Seattle at the University of Washington.
Right now we're hearing about local ecology markets from Bobby Cochran of the Willamette Partnership. He's discussing the use of habitat and species mitigation banks and wetland mitigation banks in various watersheds in the Willamette Valley. This is a policy area that Cascade Land Conservancy is familiar with, as they have used a tool known as TDR (Transfer of Development Rights) to conserve rural landscapes, including forests and farmland.
We also heard from some of the folks from Friends of Third Place Commons who manage the Third Place Commons community space in Lake Forest Park. They provided a break from the more technically-focused presentations by leading a discussion on community-building.
The first session this morning featured presentations on "ecodistricts," which are essentially communities designed from the ground up using sustainable principles. Olympic Village in Vancouver and Portland's South Waterfront development were discussed. For more on those presentations, check out the excellent live-blogging of today's event by Ben Schiendelman at Seattle Transit Blog.
This afternoon the conference moves from UW's Gould Hall to the HUB, where there will be discussions on converting streets into places, integrating bus rapid transit into neighborhoods and creating walkable neighborhood business centers.
Be sure to check back next week for a feature story on the forum and Cascade Land Conservancy's Cascade Agenda!
