The Washington State Department of Commerce has opened nominations for the 18th annual Governor’s Smart Communities Awards, a program that recognizes outstanding work by local governments and their partners on long-term community planning and development.
Donor Name: Washington State Department of Commerce
State: Washington
County: All Counties
Type of Grant: Awards and Prizes
Deadline: 05/15/2024
Size of the Grant: Not Available
Grant Duration: Grant Duration Not Mentioned
Details:
Nominations feature the best the state has to offer in collaborative community development and local comprehensive planning. Community leaders look to this award program to showcase their accomplishments and to learn from other stellar examples for achieving their own local planning goals.
Categories
The 2024 Nominations are available across six categories:
- Smart Vision Award for a comprehensive plan, subarea plan or countywide planning policies. Recognizing the successful achievement of a county, city, or town plan or policy for forming its local community vision, through an amendment to the comprehensive plan, subarea plan, or countywide planning policies, including robust community engagement and outreach.
- Smart Projects Award for Project implementing a Comprehensive Plan. Recognizing the successful achievement of a governmental project with implementing a local county, city, or town’s comprehensive plan. These may include, but are not limited to, adoption of implementing development regulations, infrastructure projects, community facilities, community-driven art installations, design implements, or parks.
- Smart Partnership Award for a joint public project that implements a comprehensive plan. Successful applicants will demonstrate the joint implementation of a local county, city or town’s comprehensive plan. These may include, but are not limited to, regional open space network plans, government-to-government long-term planning strategies, region-benefitting infrastructure projects, public/private partnerships.
- Smart Housing Strategies Award for creative plans, policies, programs and/or actions. Successful applicants will demonstrate innovation and creative strategies to address housing affordability through plans, policies, programs, development regulations and/or actions. For example, subarea plans that increase housing capacity, new housing element, policies with particular attention towards affordability, equity and displacement.
- Smart Equity Strategies Award for plans, policies, programs and/or actions addressing impacts to community equity. Successful applicants will demonstrate the use of planning tools or practices that create stronger communities for everyone by addressing disparate impacts and protecting vulnerable populations. Examples include, but are not limited to, plans, policies or implementation programs that mitigate inequitable land use policies and impacts or improve existing inequities such as displacement, gentrification, negative environmental health outcomes, or exclusionary zoning. Applicants should demonstrate equitable outcomes that resulted, such as increased housing stability for low-income residents or decreased exposure to harmful environmental conditions.
- Smart Climate Change Strategies Award for Plans, Policies, Programs and/or Actions Addressing Community Climate Impacts. Successful applicants will demonstrate innovation and creative strategies to address local-issues driven by a rapidly changing climate, such as a community with extreme temperature events, flooding, or fire hazards. This award recognizes that communities may address various climate challenges based on a their unique context and the different tools and strategies that they may deploy to mitigate them, such as wildfire prevention east of the cascades, or a coastal community where flooding and storm effects are the most prominent threat.
For more information, visit WSDC.
