Planners from across the country and around the world are coming to Las Vegas from April 27-May 1, 2008, for the American Planning Association’s 100th National Planning Conference. This will be the first time the association will hold its national conference in Las Vegas.
Mayor Oscar B. Goodman and Planning & Development Director Margo Wheeler, AICP, will be greeting the conference attendees, and Planning & Development staff is serving on the conference host committee. The conference features approximately 300 conference sessions, and local planning professionals have organized more than 60 unique mobile workshops, 22 of which were planned by city of Las Vegas staff.
The workshops allow conference attendees to explore the area’s communities, neighborhoods and unique destinations through the eyes of a local professional planner, and to see the innovative and sustainable practices that resulted in the city of Las Vegas being named the 2007 American City of the Year at the World Leadership Awards.
Some of the workshops include the Las Vegas Wash Trail Park sites, downtown redevelopment and Union Park, green building tour, a mock Planning Commission meeting, Fremont Street historic tour, Floyd Lamb Park at Tule Springs and the Las Vegas Springs Preserve.
City staff has also coordinated six conference sessions, including one on water resource management in the west featuring Patricia Mulroy, general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, Maureen Stapleton of the San Diego County Water Authority, Sid Wilson of the Central Arizona Project and Chips Barry of Denver Water.
“The most valuable lessons from these conferences are the best practices learned from other professional planners,” Wheeler said. ”As our city, the entire United States and the world grapple with diminishing and more expensive resources coupled with population growth, it is critical we learn and employ innovative solutions for our communities’ future.”
Event organizers anticipate more than 6,000 professional planners, elected officials, planning commissioners, citizens and students to attend the conference.
The conference’s programs are organized around multiple tracks including: Tourism, Leisure and Entertainment; Energy; Brownfield Revitalization; Green Communities; Partnerships and Intergovernmental Relations and Master Planned Communities.
