2023 YEP Project Showcase
In honor of National Planning month, the APA Los Angeles Young & Emerging Planners (YEP) hosted a project showcase in Downtown LA on October 21, 2023. The goal of the event was to provide a platform for students and young and emerging planners to showcase the projects that they have been working on, get feedback, and practice their presentation skills. The showcase, held at the Stantec Downtown LA office, fostered an environment of networking, collaboration, and inspiration among attendees from the Greater LA area, and provided a comfortable space to promote the importance of young voices in the future of planning and urban design. In total, there were six presenters, covering a variety of planning topics relating to safety, art, climate resiliency, and housing (more details in the following section).
Along with the two 2023 YEP co-directors, Emily Huang and Amanda Nidelian, the project showcase was a success due in large part to committee members Brittany Montano, Lilly Nie, Aubrey Miller, and Morgan Hunlen. If you have any questions or comments regarding the project showcase, presenters, or YEP, please email young-emerging@apalosangeles.org.
Meet the 2023 project showcase presenters!
1. El Muro que Migra/The Wall that Migrates
Presenter 1: Brittany Montaño
Project Partners: Kevin Cruz Amaya, Tyler DeMassa, Houwei Fu, Rebecca Smith
Project Description: El Muro que Migra / The Wall that Migrates is an ambulatory mural that hopes to bring together the Westlake neighborhood of Los Angeles and the border city of Tijuana, Mexico. A product of UCLA’s Urban Humanities Initiative ( UHI ), our capstone project created a series of mural panels both virtual and in person that highlights the complex ways both sites function as centers of migration. Guided by the collective Dignicraft (José Luis Figueroa, Omar Foglio, and Paola Rodríguez) in Tijuana and Gaspar Rivera Salgado from the UCLA Labor Center in Westlake and under the direction of Gustavo Leclerc and Maite Zubiaurre of UCLA’s Urban Humanities Initiative, our group designed two panels based on our observations from the fieldwork we did in Westlake and Tijuana. In both, we hope to underline the many layers of meaning that a diverse migration hub facilitates and the way this seeming chaos, or lack of meaning, breaks down into messaging that makes migration, and the transportation networks necessary for the movement that migration implies, possible.
2. Female Perceptions of Parking Safety at the First/Last Mile: A Study of Cal Poly Pomona
Presenter: Jaden Oloresisimo
Project Partners: Nikole J. Sanchez
Project Description: Using Cal Poly Pomona campus parking for a case study, this quantitative methodology research study identified the physical and non-physical variables that can impact the fear of violence. The researchers surveyed 72 commuters on their perspective of public safety by analyzing their fear of victimization when commuters walked to and through campus parking. In the study, they identified which variables of the physical condition of the parking infrastructure made the most impact towards increasing the fear of victimization as well as identifying women-endorsed solutions that can reduce and/or omit the fear of potential violence.
3. Planning for Climate Resiliency in the Tahoe Basin
Presenter: Kamryn Kubose
Project Description: As part of the practicum requirement for my masters program, I completed an internship with the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA) during the summer of 2022. My capstone project deliverable was to write a report on best practices for implementing TRPA’s Sustainability Action Plan (SAP). I reviewed the TRPA SAP and Code of Ordinances, researched existing plans and ordinances in other jurisdictions, and synthesized research into recommendations. I conducted internal research by gathering input from TRPA and external research by surveying stakeholders in the region. This research informed my report and presentation to the Governing Board.
4. Missing Middle Housing – Santa Rosa
Presenter: Raini Do
Project Description: The purpose of the Missing Middle Housing Initiative is to amend or create policies, standards and fees to accommodate by-right construction, replacement or conversion of standard single-family homes and remodels to produce missing middle infill housing. The Initiative is intended to increase the production of housing units of varying types and affordability, and in areas currently planned for Medium Density (8-18 units per acre) or Medium Low Density (8-13 units per acre) residential development. Criteria for these new units would include form-based design standards that ensure a scale compatible with single family neighborhoods. The Missing Middle Initiative would be limited to sites generally within a ¼-mile walking distance to transit corridors with a 30-minute headway, a SMART rail station, a transit transfer facility; or to community shopping centers located throughout the City.
On October 16, 2019, the City Council of Santa Rosa adopted a Resolution to authorize the filing of the Planning Grants Program application, with three proposals to incentivize or accelerate the production of housing. The Missing Middle Housing Initiative is intended to provide a by-right process for infill housing on specified sites within the City.
