FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 29, 2001

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21 U.S. Communities Selected To Test New Community Planning Software;

Vermont-based Foundation Aims To Help Communities Shape Their Futures

Washington DC and Alpine Township, MI - The Orton Family Foundation announced Wednesday on Capitol Hill the 21 communities chosen to participate in a pilot program for its state-of-the-art community planning software. Alpine Township is one of the communities selected to participate in this program.

CommunityViz™  will allow users to create and manipulate a virtual representation of a town and explore different land use scenarios. Professional planners, citizen planners, land owners, and interested citizens can use this software to make informed and collaborative decisions about possible changes in their community. Communities will be able to visualize and evaluate different land use patterns, and make informed decisions on issues specific to their own communities.

“Visualization is the common language for communication. Up until now, we have not had the tools to fully utilize the power of visualization. We intend to harness this power to allow to help planners and citizens work together to shape their communities,” said Foundation founder Lyman Orton.

Vermont Sens. Patrick Leahy and Jim Jeffords of Vermont were on hand Wednesday for the announcement. The senators strongly support the Vermont-based foundation’s mission to help citizens of rural states like Vermont define the future, shape the growth and retain the character of their communities.

CommunityViz™ has been developed by The Orton Family Foundation as the latest in its arsenal of community planning tools. The Foundation is an operating foundation, founded in 1995. Working from its offices in Vermont and Colorado, the Foundation develops, tests, and works with partners to deliver tools and programs for community planning across the country. The announcement of this release of the CommunityViz™ software suite follows on release of several other Foundation programs/products including the highly acclaimed book Hands on the Land, the Community Mapping Program for middle school students, the Community Video program, Citizen Planner courses, and Centennial Hall, a 21st Century Town Hall in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. 

The Foundation plans to develop and deliver its revolutionary CommunityViz™ software to rural communities nationwide to facilitate collaborative decision-making at the local level. Communities in Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Iowa, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, Utah, Vermont, and Washington will participate in this release of CommunityViz™, which Michael Kinsley of the Rocky Mountain Institute has said “may revolutionize community planning.”

Foundation President William Shouldice said, “the Foundation is honored to have received the level of interest and quality of applications submitted to participate in this program. We look forward to working with these communities to further the use of the software, and particularly to see it used as a tool in helping to make real planning decisions in a variety of applications.”

Alpine Township will be utilizing the CommunityViz™ software in combination with REGIS data and the currently developed Decision Support System to further test the applicability of a Transfer of Development Rights (TDR) program within this community. 

As such, the Township will partner with The Orton Family Foundation, the Grand Valley Metropolitan Council/REGIS, the R.B. Annis Water Resources Institute at Grand Valley State University, area land developers, real estate agents, farmers, environmental specialists, and the general public.

The project will further research into development of a TDR platform within Alpine Township, which was initiated via a grant from the Michigan Environmental Council in early 2000.

While driven by technology, this project is at its heart a community planning endeavor. Many challenging land use issues will be examined via the CommunityViz™ software.

This project will be formally introduced to the media and public in June of 2001 via a "town hall" meeting at the Alpine Township Center. Details and a press release will be issued in due time.

CommunityViz™ is an extension of ArcView® Geographic Information System (GIS) software and analyzes information in new and powerful ways. CommunityViz combines three interactive components. The Scenario Constructor component provides users with the ability to build and evaluate a multitude of customized scenarios. Policy Simulator allows the user to explore a range of policy options, offering users the opportunity to make more informed decisions. Townbuilder 3D enables the user to visualize the impact of decisions in a real-time 3D environment.

This trial program will provide the Foundation with additional feedback on the software, training, documentation, and tech support functions for CommunityViz™, for general release in 2002. Each team will endeavor to complete a project within six months.
 
 
On the Web: www.orton.org ; www.communityviz.com

Grand Valley Metro Council