APA STaR award winners.  From left to right: Sean Reiss, Dr. Kathryn Frank, Jana Rosenbloom, Michael Volk, Rong Zeng, and Kevin Bennett.

The Planning for Coastal Change in Levy County team is pleased to announce that four graduate students from the University of Florida’s College of Design, Construction and Planning, led by principal investigator Dr. Kathryn Frank and project manager Michael Volk, have received an American Planning Association (APA) Award for Excellence in Small Town and Rural Planning (STaR).

A portion of the larger Levy County project focusing on the small, neighboring coastal towns of Yankeetown and Inglis, Florida, was submitted to the APA for award consideration.  This part of the project, conducted during the summer of 2013 in partnership with Yankeetown and Inglis officials, town staff, and citizens, provides a technical foundation and recommendations for adaptation and planning for coastal change in the two communities. The Yankeetown-Inglis project began by establishing planning goals and principles, hosting a public workshop, and collecting and analyzing a variety of information, including geographic impacts of sea level rise, other hazards and coastal changes, and citizens’ preferences for adaptation. Based on these inputs, the project team recommended coordination of sea level rise adaptation strategies across the two towns and with economic redevelopment. The project team identified six “Adaptation Areas”, each representing a different section or corridor of the towns that had unique features, vulnerabilities, and roles in adaptation. Both the local leaders and the University of Florida researchers have expressed the desire for continuing the partnership as future funding and student learning opportunities come along.

The finalized Yankeetown-Inglis Adaptive Design Report was discussed on the blog in January 2014.