Urban, Community and Regional Planning Commons^™

Williamson County Building Safety Plan, Jack Combs

City and Regional Planning

My senior year at Cal Poly offered me a vast array of opportunities for enriching my knowledge of the field of city and regional planning. The most impactful of my experiences was the time I spent working for the facilities department of Williamson County, Texas. This department is responsible for constructing and maintaining all of the buildings owned and occupied by Williamson County; this includes more than 60 buildings and more than 2,000,000 square feet. Additionally, as the fastest growing county north of Austin with roughly 600,000 residents, this department had many pertinent development projects to attend to.

As an …

San Joaquin Parks And Recreation Site-Specific Strategic Plan, Ida Araghieyan, Jessica M. Gastineau Romero

City and Regional Planning

The San Joaquin Parks and Recreation Strategic Plan (SJPRSP) outlines a road to success for parks, open space, and recreational amenities. Areas of improvement are identified, and local assessments of opportunities and strengths of San Joaquin are examined to curate a site-specific plan of what could be implemented regarding local parks and recreation and open space.

Health Infrastructure Accessibility In San Joaquin, Ca, Vinson Lok Kwan, Trisha Phuong Tran

City and Regional Planning

The purpose of this study is to assess the health infrastructure and accessibility in San Joaquin, California through the existing conditions of the city, reviewing various cities facing similar conditions, and creating potential solutions or recommendations to be implemented into the city to accommodate growth and overall well-being in the community.

Health infrastructure and accessibility is important to every community since it has the ability to influence the quality-of-care individuals are able to receive. When it comes to infrastructure, it is important to determine the underlying health conditions the local population faces and whether the services provided are adequate in …

Objective Design Standards For The City Of San Luis Obispo, Wilfrido Amaya, Ian Madrigal

City and Regional Planning

The state of California has been facing a housing crisis for several decades (Buhayar & Cannon, 2019). The state, along with other municipalities have been enacting laws to help mitigate the issue such as SB 35 (2017) and AB 2162 (2018). In recent years, cities and other municipalities have been using different methods of integrating missing middle housing into their planning practices. Missing middle housing is defined as being the “range of house-scale buildings with multiple units - compatible in scale and form with detached single-family homes” (missingmiddlehousing.com). There are different methods of implementing missing middle housing, however, in the …

An Analysis On The Future Of Parklets In San Luis Obispo, Reid Crandell, Aidan Lebow

City and Regional Planning

Currently, the parklet program in San Luis Obispo is a temporary program that utilizes encroachment permits to allow businesses to utilize sidewalks and a portion of the street for outdoor dining. With the emergence of parklets around the country due to COVID-19, commercial uses have been able to stay in business while adhering to the social distancing guidelines. Another added benefit has been the overall public enjoyment of utilizing parklets. Specifically in San Luis Obispo, the parklet program has made it easy for businesses to operate with added space. The question we asked in this project was whether or not …

San Joaquin Air Quality And Active Transportation Specific Plan, Samuel Robert Kuennen, William David Jarrett

City and Regional Planning

The focus of this project is to improve the overall air quality in San Joaquin. It will specifically focus on the PM2.5 pollutant, as this pollutant has the highest potential for change. Additionally, the PM2.5 pollutant poses major health risks to the community when there are high levels of it. The primary contributors of PM2.5 are automobiles, geography, and weather. This project will discuss methods that can reduce the reliance on single occupancy vehicles. These methods include the development of pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure as well as the improvement of the area’s regional transport services.

Expanding Housing Typology, Increasing Affordability: A Flexible Density Program For The City Of San Luis Obispo, Graham J. Bultema

Master's Theses

The City of San Luis Obispo faces an ongoing housing production shortage and housing affordability crisis that has been afflicting jurisdictions across State of California for a prolonged period of time. The City faces many of the same housing availability and affordability challenges as the rest of the State, but also has distinct characteristics that necessitate unique policies and strategies, such as the concurrent presence of both a large student and young professional population as well as a wealthy retirement community, which drastically drives up housing prices and demand.

The Flexible Density Program is proposed by the City of San …

Examining The Ecological And Social Implications Of Parklets And Plazas Across Multiple Urban Scales, Joshua L. Muller

Master's Theses

Faced with population increases but stagnant capital improvements and impacts from global warming, cities around the world are experimenting with smaller-scale and cheaper strategies in order to accommodate the new influx of residents. New York City has led the way in converting low-efficiency intersection space into public plazas with a limited range of permanently installed elements and San Francisco has pioneered the concept of the parklet, which converts two to four street parking spaces into a modular and flexible pedestrian space. I seek to answer two questions about these spaces: What are common factors influencing the viability and successful implementation …

Environmental Cues And The Sociospatial Imaginary: An Examination Of Spatial Perception And Meaning-Making In A Gentrifying Neighborhood, Todd Levon Brown

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

What could be more ordinary or pedestrian than two people walking down an urban street and talking about what we see and what we make of it? Yet this simple, quotidian act of walking a street—seeing, perceiving and experiencing physical spaces, places and objects—and making meaning of what is encountered, is the basis of my dissertation. It is also my basis for claiming that I have learned a great deal—and much unexpectedly—about how differently different people see and interpret the urban streetscape. What are the various environmental cues that stand out to different individuals? What are the psychosocial imaginaries that …

Inevitable Associations: Art, Institution, And Cultural Intersection In Los Angeles, 1973–1988, Liz Hirsch

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Inevitable Associations: Art, Institution, and Cultural Intersection in Los Angeles, 1973-1988 considers alternative institutions and cultural intersections in bicentennial-era Los Angeles. I look at the spatial, social, and artistic convergence of Los Angeles artists rarely seen as allied, through close examination of alternative cultural infrastructure that came out of a federal jobs program called the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) and cohered around a building located at 240 South Broadway in downtown. I use the model of association—alliance through shared purpose—to demonstrate moments of convergence and interconnection. Through an analysis of the formation of Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE), …

Difficulties Building Low-Income Housing And The View Of One Company: A Case Study, Kyle Henriken

Construction Management

This case study investigates low-income housing and why it can be more difficult to build compared to other construction projects. Five individuals of PREMIER Design + Build Group were interviewed and gave their opinions on the subject. Each person interviewed has a different role in the company a market leader, project manager, superintendent, and a project engineer to gain a more diverse view on low-income housing. These interviews were semi-structured and open ended to create dialogue about their experiences in affordable housing. This paper investigates a single project called The Cottages located in Lake Elsinore CA. This process found that …

Open Spaces As Vibrant Places To Reduce Social And Physical Fragmentation. Case Of Beirut Cornish, Lebanon, Nehmat K. Karim, Ayman Afify

BAU Journal - Creative Sustainable Development

According to UN Habitat, as had been mentioned in The Journal of Public Spaces 2018 Under title “Lebanon Cities’ Public Spaces”, and based on the World Health Organization (WHO) recommendations regarding the minimum required area of Public spaces in the cities, the following had been noticed: Beirut city has few public spaces that are always rapist from the local government without having the ability to face. At the present time, the capital suffers from distinct lack of public spaces where the various population groups can meet and come along. Despite the fact that an open public space in Beirut would …

The Effect Of Straw Bale On Thermal Performance Of Buildings In Hot And Arid Regions, Riyadh City As A Case Study, Waleed M. Abanomi

Emirates Journal for Engineering Research

A huge amount of energy is consumed by buildings in Saudi Arabia to cool indoor spaces particularly during summer season. In this regard, attention should be given to the environmental design strategies in the design of buildings during the early stages in order to minimize the cooling load inside buildings. This research considered using straw bale as one of the passive solar design methods that could protect buildings envelope from the harsh outdoor environment. This research assesses the effectiveness of using straw bale as an insulator by conducting field experiments. Two experimental chambers were built to achieve the experiments. The …

Neighborhood Reinvestment: A Changing Community In The Urban South, Jackson Nutt-Beers

Master's Projects and Capstones

Since the mid-twentieth century, public and private actors across the country have been identifying sources of potential capital accumulation in the United States. Shortly after the passing of the Civil Rights Act by President Lyndon Johnson in the mid 1960s, many White families across the country fled the urban core for the suburbs leaving neighborhoods in the city center abandoned and without capital. During this period, Black families and other racial minority groups were forced to live in the blighted neighborhoods of the urban core due to a variety of racialized discriminatory housing practices that lead to the disinvestment of …

Planting Power Or Planting A Paradox? Urban Agriculture, Gentrification, And Community Development In Oakland, California, Elissa M. Mann

Master's Projects and Capstones

Urban agriculture has long been used as a tool for promoting food justice and urban sustainability in municipalities across the globe. From vertical and rooftop growing operations to community and residential garden plots, the idealistically transformative nature of urban agriculture is becoming an increasingly popular subject among scholars, city planners, policymakers, and activists alike. A handful of cautionary scholars, however, have begun to uncover the elusive role that food justice oriented urban agriculture projects can play in facilitating gentrification and displacement in low-income communities. My capstone project focuses on the relationship between urban agriculture and gentrification, specifically asking: How does …

Affordable Housing In San Francisco: A Historical Analysis Of Its Finances And Policies, Ricky H. Tran

Master's Projects and Capstones

The affordable housing crisis is not new to San Francisco. As it has been made clear several times, The Bay Area continues to face a crisis of a massive wealth disparity as housing prices continue to rise as incomes for the top earners have risen dramatically since 1999. In San Francisco, rents and housing prices are one of the highest in the nation, and people are facing rent burdens, in which a large portion of their income goes to rent, as for those with low and extremely low income are facing severe rent burdens, which take up more than 50% …

Revitalization: Crime Prevention Through Design Intervention, Jose Ricardo Leon Serrano

Hospitality Design Graduate Student Capstones

In a city populated by Luxurious Hotels, the streetscape is often neglected discouraging extended interaction of the pedestrian in the area. As a result, the topic of security in public spaces is being analyzed to bring to light the recent increase in violent offenses. Establishing additional principles of safety to the standard best practice guidelines will impact the image of our city promoting public safety. The issue arises as to the lack of urban squares and architectural features that allow for recurring criminal behavior. An increase in crime financially causes a loss in profit for the retail and hotels surrounding …

Integrated Stadia: Gambling On The Future Of The Stadium Experience, Mike Puga

Hospitality Design Graduate Student Capstones

Future stadiums need to become multi-functional built environments that maximize revenue and provide connections with the community that allow them to survive. Applying integrative and forward-thinking design negates the potential for cities to face decaying venues that become detriments to the community they serve.

Anthesis: The Blooming Of The Las Vegas Strip, David Navarrete

Hospitality Design Graduate Student Capstones

The diversity of thought throughout the HD Studio always produces great synergy between projects with overlapping areas of interest. Here, we see a question about why Las Vegas' public green space lags behind other cities' lead to more questions (and answers) about how the pedestrian experience along Las Vegas Boulevard could transform from a predominantly car-centric space into a sidewalk experience that extends the excitement of resorts' interiors to the outside. Like other theses that explore everything from public promenades to places for social media posts, the work of David Navarreto calls on lessons learned from urban planning, landscape architecture, …

Agricultural Urbanism: Sustainable Food Security In Urban Development, Diego Soto

Hospitality Design Graduate Student Capstones

Food insecurity is an unfortunate reality for far too many people. In this noble venture, a Master of Architecture candidate takes principles of hospitality design and applies them to residential and civic design such that the communal spaces of our neighborhoods and the homes of families become more hospitable. Diego Soto entered the HD Studio with a passion for helping people and a goal to address hunger. Conversations chronicled through his book take the reader on a journey that helps the wider audience appreciate the oath architects take... to uphold the life, safety, and welfare of the general public. Diego's …