Edgewater Environmental Plan finalist on 2010 Mayor Daley's Green Works Competion

On October 26th, 2010 the EEP will participate in the finals for the Mayor Daley's Green Works Competition.
Carmen Vidal-Hallett, EcoVidalDesign President is the co-chair of the transportation and planning and development team with architects Thom Greene and John Aquilina.

The Plan recognizes that individuals are part of a larger community and that the community is in turn part of a larger whole. Therefore it seeks to encourage individuals to shift behaviors toward sustainability with the belief that these shifts in practices are the groundwork for a larger transformation.
Through the development of a Comprehensive Neighborhood Master Plan (CNMP) using best practices in urban and architectural design the role of Planning and Development is to create a holistic vision and overall framework for all sustainable practices and future development in the Edgewater community in collaboration with community partners, residents, businesses and public officials. The CNMP will stimulate long-term, sustainable development in the community by incorporating current best practices in urban planning and architectural design.

Carmen Vidal-Hallett brought to the team her 12 years of experience as a planner for the City of Chicago Planning and Development as well as best sustainable urban development practices in Brazil to help create a truly environmental plan that could be a model for other neighborhoods in Chicago.

The idea is that eventually, the plan will inspire a City wide environmental plan that emphasizes land use related to transit oriented development (TOD), historic preservation, protect and create open space and bring a more pedestrian environmental environment. The vision of the plan includes from green and energy efficient buildings to storm water management through native perennial rain gardens, green roofs and bio swales that will help alleviate sewer overflowing and basement flood.

Design Evanston 2010 Award

Carmen Vidal-Hallett receives Design Evanston Award as part of the Urban Works Architeture team and with EDAW for the Evanston Lakefront Plan on October 14th, 2010.

Design Evanston identifies significant aesthetic and functional improvements in the Evanston community and recognizes them with our annual Design Evanston Awards. Specifically designed not to be self-serving for design professionals, the awards are presented to owners responsible for the design excellence of local projects.

These awards may be presented for new commercial construction, additions, adaptive re-use, multi-family structures, sensitive in-fill, or single family residences, among other categories. In addition awards may be granted in urban design, interior design, landscape design, signage/graphic design and merchandising design.

Green Festival in Chicago highlights Latinos

In the picture from left to right are Mitchell Posada, Manny Flores, Marisol Becerra, Rolando Acosta, Carmen Vidal-Hallett (me), Dennis Salazar and Carlos Chavez.
On Saturday May 22, 2010 I participated on a panel discussion with other Latinos in Green in the Chicago Area (all mentioned in the above picture). The panel was hosted by Mitchell Posada from Cafe Media. Mitchell asked everyone how they got involved in the Chicago green movement. I was the first to answer that question. I mentioned that back in 2002, the City of Chicago Department of Planning and Development (DPD) started to request from developers green features in their Planned Developments (PDs) and I was a Lakefront and PD Coordinator in DPD at the time having the opportunity to offer my own ideas about green development. Little by little all Departments were involved and I was suddenly part of the Mayor's Green Team. I also wanted to bring to Chicago my native country (Brazil) best green practices and I completed a research with a grant from the Graham Foundation comparing the City of Curitiba in Brazil and Chicago. Mark Hallett, my husband and I showed the research results to many organizations in Chicago and all the City Departments. I believe the results inspired Chicago in a very positive way. For example the Bus Rapid Transit for which Curitiba is famous for is now being considered in Chicago.

We also discussed how to bring more latinos into the green movement. More "Education" opportunities was highly recommended by all panel participants and Manny Flores made the strongest statement about it mentioning engineering and green technology careers for latinos. We were also asked about what we have all done in our personal lives to contribute to the reduction of the carbon foot print. I mentioned that our family has given up the car only using transit and the I-go car. A member of the public reacted very strongly against that idea and made me realize that there still a lot of people that can't see the benefits of living a life without the car. We can spent hours arguing about it but like Marisol Becerra pointed out, we had to agree to disagree. In my mind, changing old peoples' habits is difficult but it is not so difficult if we start with the youth and in fact without an environmentally conscious future generation the world will be lost. The latino community is the fastest growing ethnic group in America and their involvement is crucial.

I pointed out in the discussion that another important way to participate on the Climate Climate Action plan is to get involved in your community. I personally strongly support Edgewater, my neighborhood and helped to create the Edgewater Environmental Plan 2020 www.edgewater2020.org. This very diverse community has a strong latino population that we need to attract and involve to make a strong difference in Chicago. There are hundreds of latinos involved in construction and landscaping for example. Just imagine this work force highly trained to perform energy efficiency retrofitting in your neighborhood and creating rain gardens alliviating the storm water management on our sewer system and contributing to reduce the heat island effect planting native perennials and building rain gardens!

UN Habitat World Urban Forum in Rio

In Rio de Janeiro from 22 - 26 March 2010, UN-HABITAT and the Government of Brazil hosted the Fifth Session of the World Urban Forum – “The Right to the City - Bridging the Urban Divide” - a unique event where people from different backgrounds shared ideas on how to cope with the challenges of urbanization. One of the most open and inclusive gatherings of its kind on the international stage, the Fifth Session of the

World Urban Forum brought together government leaders, ministers, mayors, diplomats, members of national, regional and international associations of local governments, non-governmental and community organizations, professionals, academics, grassroots women's organizations, youth and slum dwellers groups as partners working for better cities.

On Monday, 22 March 2010 and Tuesday, 23 March, 2010, as a member of the Partners of the Americas delegation, I attended the event, which, in retrospect has been hailed as the most successful World Forum ever staged. According to available statistics, some 13,718 participants from 150 countries around the world attended the Session. The success of the World Forum could be gauged by the fact that on opening day, thousands of people waited in line to get security clearance and admitted into the venue, and on most of the days during the event, participants were turned away from some of the meeting rooms because they were fully packed.

The World Urban Forum Exhibition area showcased some of the world's many innovations in urban development. Among the many organizations I visited were:

Cooperative Housing Foundation (CHF) International, United States of America

Cities Alliance, Brazil

Coca Cola, Brazil

Bureau of International Organization Affairs - U.S. Department of State, United States of America

Caixa Econômica Federal, Brazil

Companhia de Habitação do Estado do Pará, Brazil

Convention on Biological Diversity / SCBD, Canada

Eco Citizen Programme, Brazil

Ecocity World Summit Montreal 2011, Canada

Global Urban Development, United States of America

Heritage Strategies International, United States of America

Paranapiacaba: a rain forest ghost town in Brazil finds hope

Paranapiacaba (which means ‘the place from were you can see the ocean’ in Tupi Guarani), a charming historic vila, is now a town paralyzed in time. The English built it in the 1860’s as a railroad stop to connect São Paulo’s inland coffee plantations to the international port of Santos. The presence of the railroad in town is the strongest visual impact with abandoned rusted trains in the yards and a wide railroad right of way between “parte alta”, the Portuguese original colony and “parte baixa”, the English town area. The English part of town was built mainly with wood structures and with a very organized grid street pattern including alleys for service. On the other hand the existing Portuguese vila built of brick and mortar, has a much more urban organic pattern around a small chapter in a hill top. Coincidentally, I discovered that the English Vila has a very similar street design to Edgewater Glen residential neighborhood of Chicago where I currently live with my family for 12 years and it was originally built in the late 1800’s.

The town has a microclimate with foggy mid days, limited sunshine and showers almost everyday and is surrounded by a beautiful rain forest vegetation water springs and trails. The town presently has only 1,200 inhabitants although it was built to house 5,000 people. The sewer and drainage system was built above the capacity with a large section, underground ceramic pipes, to allow for the rain to clean the flow before it reaches the water shed again.

I arrived in Paranapiacaba on March 26th, 2010, with seven other colleagues to perform a technical workshop with the community, local professional experts, academics and Municipal representatives. The workshop was mainly sponsored by Illinois-Sao Paulo Partners of the Americas and all of us professionals. Mare de Campos in São Paulo and I in Chicago had been heading the organization of this 3-day event for more than a year with many difficulties and oppositions, threats and discouragement based on political fears but the group believed in the cause and we finally made it successfully to the event.

Visiting the town and meeting their leaders such as Zélia Paralego, Fábio Vital, Levi de Araújo, Eduardo Mendes and Jorge Guzo among others was very special and inspiring to me. I felt like I was finally filling a gap in my heart. São Paulo, although it is the economic center in South America, is a cruel city because of its out of proportion size of close to 20million people within the metropolitan area, the lack of green space and limited public transit options. Paranapiacaba, on the other hand is like an oasis outside the concrete jungle and is what urban planners consider the proper size for a smart growth neighborhood. Even though it has a lot of potential, the town is presently poor and depressed, youth at risk of violence and drug abuse for lack of work and job opportunities and more than half of the residential buildings are empty deteriorating with time and desperately crying for help.

We learned a lot from technicians, city representatives and inhabitants in our second day there including the fascinating stories about the English stablishing the first practice of soccer in the town, the creation of a music Lira Serrano Club, witches’ conventions and the invasive poorly planned music festivals that inundate the town during the month of July every year. Local architects have successfully protected the town with all levels of historic preservation protection since the English left in the 1980’s but these strong laws seem to also be part of the economic development impediment in town. The existing “posadas” in town, the heart of the town’s eco-tourism can’t have bathrooms inside the main buildings due to the preservations laws. The color of the homes has to be brown instead of the colorful original variety as some architects remarked and so on. The passenger train that used to stop at the Vila’s central station no longer comes on a regular daily basis and cars and buses invade the town on music and cultural event days.

Talking with City officials, we also learned that the Municipality of Santo André wants to create a technology center not far from Paranapiacaba and as part of the Santo Andre municipal boundary.

After listening to all points of views in town, on the third day we divided our group in two teams and started to brainstorm ideas to recover Paranapiacaba. One group started to look at opportunities to create a technology sustainable town along the railroad to the west of Paranapiacaba. The other group reviewed the town planning, social problems and physical needs, circulation, redevelopment and economic opportunities and historic architecture in detail. It was an intensive day and I wish that we had more time but the results were excellent in such short amount of time. The fresh brand look at the Vila’s problems from most of us was very helpful to find solutions with no political fears and in a completely independent manner.

We created the BIG IDEA concept and calculated a hypothetical budget of $5 billion dollars to construct the technology town, “Paranapiacaba West”, in 8 years creating a tax-financed increment mechanism to rebuild Paranapiacaba for the next 20 years. This plan will create jobs for the village inhabits as well as many other Paulistas in the area. And accumulate tax funds to rebuild Parnapiacaba.

“Paranapiacaba West” as we call it will be a sustainable green development with buildings that will be designed like “trees “and create a new community which will be part of the rain forest, respecting the delicate environment and reactivating the rail road as the main transportation method. Clean and green technologies will be the starting point of discussion as well as methods of smart growth and sustainable green development such as LEED ND and new urbanism that gives emphasis to the pedestrian, historic preservation, sustainable economic development and the human scale in harmony with nature.

For Paranapiacaba itself we proposed a master plan vision with circulation plan that receives visitors into specially redesigned public spaces to receive train riders, pedestrians, bicycles and controlled limited access for private vehicles, buses and tracks. The circulation plan will also include better connections between parte alta (portuguese town) and parte baixa (English town). We identified peripheral areas of parte baixa for sustainable redevelopment of condominiums and high class pousadas and the interior renovation of a large area of parte alta with mixed-use and eco-turism opportunities. The plan encourages music and film festival activities and reinforces the sports and arts activities that the population is already demanding and have an important historic role in town. We also encouraged in the plan the review and redesign of urban streetscape and the rehabilitation of the historic structures with the ability to incorporate modern life demands with appropriate interior renovation.

For the population needs we strongly reccommended environmental education and training in green technologies. The creation of a social and mental health assistance is imperative as it is the proper care of abandoned animals with a specialized veterinarian clinic and animal adoption society. Finally the richness and the surrounding fauna and flora should be protected and explored for eco-tourism opportunities and for potential Universities’ research or even International education exchanges like some that are already being encouraged by Partners of the Americas.

The proposed vision recommendations should be then transformed into a plan that should be incorporated into the revision of the Santo André Comprehensive Plan in 2010 and become the first economic-historic recovery example in the country.

In an area so close to Cubatao, which used to be one of the most polluted places in the world and as part of the inhumane Megalopolis of São Paulo this BIG IDEA for a small area seams to be the right thing to do.

After leaving Sao Paulo 20 years ago with our vision, I can now imagine living in Paranapiacaba, working in Paranapiacaba West and visiting the famous Pinacoteca do Estado close to Estacao da Luz without having to ever use a car. Taking the express trains from Paranapiacaba to Estacao da Luz I could be in the heart of Sao Paulo in 30 minutes perhaps reading a novel or simply enjoying the ride as I get there once in a while. If the trains reconnect also in the other direction I could go to Santos through the rain forest of Serra do Mar also in about 30 minutes and once getting to Santos perhaps rent a car to visit the paradise Atlantic cost.

I never though of coming back to the monster reality of Sao Paulo but this plan made with my colleagues help made my mind believe that it is possible to still think of perfect paradise life in the industrial area of Santo Andre and within the large Megalopolis concrete jungle of Sao Paulo City.

Edgewater Environmental Plan

Imagine coming to your home in Edgewater after taking a rapid transit bus (a 15 minute ride) or arriving at the train station and getting into a rented bike or car that would take you to your final destination without needing a private car. Or simply getting off the train and walking through beautiful rain gardens and bio swales along Broadaway with pedestrian lighting powered by the sun at your level not 30 feet above. As you walk down the street, instead of seeing big box retail establishments you see small store fronts with a variety of services and window displays instead of walking along blank walls and parking lots. You pass by your favorite restaurants and grab something to eat at an affordable price, being able to choose between several kinds of different cuisines. Let's say you do like to drive and get to the neighborhood by car, instead of parking in your garage you park at a community parking lot integrated with the Dominick's or other big box retail in the neighborhood that agrees to develop parking lots including community parking and store front retail. To afford the community parking you have been allowed to transform your garage into a "granny unit" which provides you with extra income and will bring "eyes on the alley" for more safety. You park your car on Broadway and walk just a couple of blocks to your home with your daily groceries without having to store so much food at home for the week. You get home after a nice walk appreciating trees, store front, green walls and green roofs, rain gardens and preserved old facades and say hello to your neighbors. Isn't that a wonderful image?

In 2009 EcoVidalDesign President Carmen Vidal-Hallett worked hand in hand with the Edgewater Environmental Project team to create a Vision for a Sustainable Comprehensive Neighborhood Master Plan CNMP which was presented to the community on March 12, 2010. As a co-chair of the Planning and Development and Transportation Committee, Carmen worked with the team to create a vision that uses new zones as appropriate, such as the local shopping and commercial zones. The CNMP will support historic preservation, a variety of housing demands and services, the preservation of open space, the creation of parkland (the last four miles), transit-oriented development, and adaptive re-use, all in a pedestrian-friendly community.

Carmen Vidal-Hallett, Thom Greene and John Aquilina, the three co-chairs of Planning and Development recommend commencing the vision not only with the CNMP but also with the redesign of Broadway from Devon to Foster. The urban design transformation of this corridor will substantially decrease the heat island effect in the neighborhood; provide a more pleasant pedestrian environment attracting development and services, higher demand for mass transit and subsequently more reliable and better CTA bus and train services.

In addition, a stormwater management plan focused on landscaping, green roofs, rain gardens, bio swales and permeable pavers would decrease substantially the heat island effect and alleviate the capacity of the neighborhood sewer system and provide a very pleasant walking environment.

The transportation plan envisions traffic-calming devices, a new Metra Station and better east west connections to enhance circulation including a trolley system. The idea of transit-oriented community centers with mixed-use services will bring more alternatives to the community and avoid car generated trips. Bicycle rentals and bike station could integrate with other modes of transit such as CTA and rental car services making attractive life without a personal car in the community.

Partners featured in La Raza

Carmen Vidal-Hallett,president of EcoVidalDesign and Illinois-Sao Paulo Partners of the Americas was interviewed by La Raza about environmental projects in Chicago and Brazil. It is wonderful to have this kind of exposure and to be able to inspire more Hispanics in the US and Latin America. Click here to read the article in Spanish.