CUES was honored to receive two awards from the Gold Coast Section of the American Planning Association as part of their 6th Annual Planning Awards. The awards program was developed to recognize those planners, developers, architects, landscape architects, project owners or other design professionals who have exemplified outstanding planning studies or urban design and development projects for the Gold Coast area. CUES received two awards: one for “Outstanding Publication” for Charting the Course: Where is South Florida Heading? and the other for “Outstanding Strategic Planning Project” for our work with the South Florida Regional Planning Council on the Marine Management Strategic Plan for Monroe County.

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In most of South Florida, as well as in Florida, student enrollment in public schools (PK-12) was significantly less than what was projected for the 2006-07 school year. Statewide, 48,400 new students were expected in 2006-07, but only 477 showed up. South Florida public schools saw 14,383 fewer students than anticipated. This trend was found in five of the region’s seven counties. The core counties showed the biggest gaps between projected and actual enrollment, with Broward having the biggest difference of almost 6,000 students. Miami-Dade and Broward had already been experiencing a decline, but this year it was much larger than expected. In Palm Beach County, an increase was expected. Instead there was a decline of almost 3,000. In contrast, student enrollment in St Lucie and Indian River counties grew more than expected. In fact, St. Lucie County had a large gain from the year before, almost 2,600 students. For more information on this issue, including expert interviews, see www.soflo.org.

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As reported in the October 2006 issue of this newsletter, CUES is again partnering with the South Florida Regional Planning Council (RPC) to implement the Monroe County Marine Management Strategic Plan, which the RPC and CUES completed last year and recently received an award for from the Gold Coast Section of the American Planning Association (see above. The report is available online at http://www.sfrpc.com/mcmmsp.htm. For the current phase of the project, CUES has submitted draft amendments to Monroe County’s 2010 Comprehensive Plan and Land Development Regulations in response to recent legislation aimed at preserving working waterfronts throughout the State of Florida. In addition, CUES is collaborating with the RPC on a Marina Siting Plan and a Working Waterfronts Preservation Master Plan. This research is part of an effort to address waterfront redevelopment issues and the retention of marine facilities in Monroe County. For more information on the project, contact Dr. Lenore Alpert, assistant director for research, at 954-762-5268, lalpert@fau.edu.

Under a subcontract, CUES has drafted a methodology to review and assess cumulative effects of Maritime Industry and Coastal Construction Impacts (MICCI) on South Florida’s coral reefs from Miami-Dade to Martin counties (i.e., MICCI Project 26). This work is being conducted for the Florida Department of Environmental Protection/Southeast Florida Coral Reef Initiative (SEFCRI). Partners on the project – the Florida Center for Environmental Studies at FAU, the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science at the University of Miami, and the CEPEMAR Group – have just submitted our revised draft methodology, together with a cumulative impact assessment tool and process flow chart. Cumulative impact reviews are required by such laws as the federal National Environmental Policy Act, among others. For more about this project, contact MJ Matthews, JD, senior research associate, at 954-762-5286, mmatthew@fau.edu. For additional information on SEFCRI, see http://www.dep.state.fl.us/COASTAL/programs/coral/ and http://www.dep.state.fl.us/COASTAL/programs/coral/documents/
2005/SEFCRI_LAS_FINAL_20May05.pdf.

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NOTE IMPENDING DEADLINE:
Thinking of creating a Community Emergency Response Team?
In case your community is considering creating a Community Emergency Response Team (CERT), you may want to consider this upcoming conference (March 8-11, 2007).  The registration deadline is December 31, 2006. http://www.floridacert.com/

Connecting Water Resource and Land Use Decisions
Please see the information below about a webcast on Connecting Local Land Use Decision-makers on Water Resource Protection (Jan. 17, 2007).  This discussion will focus on the NEMO program (Nonpoint Education for Municipal Officials).   Several communities in north Florida (including some of our Waterfronts FL communities) are involved in a NEMO pilot led by Roz Kilcollins, the Coastal Training Program Coordinator for the Apachicola National Estuarine Research Reserve.  These EPA Watershed Academy webcasts are free, and their website includes a lot of great resources for those trying to preserve water resources and water quality.

Register Now!!!!
For the CNU FLORIDA 3rd Annual Statewide Meeting to be held at Rollins College in Winter Park , Florida from January 18 - January 19, 2007
The conference will feature keynote speaker, James Howard Kunstler, author of The Long Emergency and The Geography of Nowhere. For more information on this important event, go to www.cnuflorida.org.

Density Forum
The South Florida Smart Growth Partnership is sponsoring a "Density by Design" forum on Jan. 24th at the African-American Library in Fort Lauderdale at 5:30 p.m. Sponsorships are available at the $250, $500 and $1,000 categories. For more information on this event, contact Gloria Katz at GloriaKatz@bellsouth.net.

Climate Change Conference—save the date!
Please join us May 9-11, 2007 at the Tampa Renaissance Hotel for the first conference on climate change in Florida!  This timely conference will focus on Florida, providing the latest scientific findings and identify impacts and actions that should be taken to respond to climate change. Global, national, and state experts will share their perspectives with conference participants in both general and concurrent sessions. Click here for a preliminary agenda: http://www.ces.fau.edu/ccc/agenda.php. For sponsorship and exhibit opportunities see: http://www.ces.fau.edu/ccc/sponsors.php. For hotel accomodations, go to http://www.ces.fau.edu/ccc/accommodations.php. Visit www.ces.fau.edu/ccc in February to register for this event.

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