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ULI Celebrates Pride Month
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ULI Northwest Partners with Portland Public Schools to Teach the UrbanPlan Program
August 10, 2022
“After two years of planning and a substantial pandemic pivot, UrbanPlan Portland is finally here. We are thrilled to finally have momentum at the high school & university level, collaborating with students & contributing to our local community in a meaningful way.”
– Jenny Jenkins, UrbanPlan Committee Chair
This past spring the UrbanPlan Committee launched a partnership with the Career & Technical Education Program of Portland Public Schools to teach the UrbanPlan program at Grant High School.
UrbanPlan is a realistic and engaging exercise in which participants learn the fundamental forces that affect development in our communities. Participants experience challenging issues, private and public sector roles, complex trade-offs, and fundamental economics in play when proposing realistic land use solutions to vexing growth challenges.
Students in Shelah Kelso’s Accounting class were given one of five roles: City Liaison, Financial Analyst, Marketing Director, Neighborhood Liaison, and Site Planner. The goal was to work collectively to respond to a Request for Proposal (RFP) from the fictional Yorktown Redevelopment Agency.
Quincy Jones, Director of Programs for Neighborhood Preservation Inc. in Memphis, TN, was the lead instructor virtually, while local UrbanPlan committee members and trained volunteers supported the instruction in the classroom.
After students broke into teams, they were challenged to work through their first draft of vision statements, site plans, and financial models before ULI volunteer facilitators provided feedback on each group’s progress. After the opportunity to refine their models, the program culminated in the students presenting their proposals to a mock City Council comprised of volunteer ULI members.
The City Council was very impressed by all of the groups and after careful deliberation, the council chose a winning team, and awarded them a prize. After the City Council presentations, Kevin Cavenaugh, owner of Guerilla Development led an open discussion about local development and Kevin’s unique approach overall.
ULI Northwest would like to thank all of the ULI volunteers and the UrbanPlan Committee for their time and dedication to launching this program. Due to the success of the PPS program, we have additional local area teachers (within multiple school districts) interested in bringing the program to their classroom over the 2022-2023 school year. In addition, we have interest within Portland State University to bring the UrbanPlan program to their real estate development program. UrbanPlan cannot exist without volunteers and the time commitment is minimal.
If you are interested in being an UrbanPlan volunteer, Please reach out to Adrianne at [email protected] or Jenny Jenkins at [email protected] to get more information.