Policy Pulse: FitCity 2016

FitCity 2016 is on 06.08.16 at BAM Fisher in Brooklyn, NY. Hosted by AIANY and the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, FitCity is an annual conference that convenes stakeholders across diverse disciplines such as architecture, public health, urban planning, academia, and community development, to champion the role of design in creating healthy neighborhoods.

Since 2006, FitCity has served as a platform for exchanging ideas, informing strategies, and advancing a community of practice around built-environment solutions for health.

Against the backdrop of our rapidly changing city, this year’s event will shift focus from projects to processes – the how-to of implementation – by highlighting the integration of human-centered design within three key strategies: data-driven decision-making, community engagement, and finance innovation in healthy housing.

Register for FitCity at FitCity2016.splashthat.com. Participate online with #FitCity2016.

Pulse Points

• On 06.06.16, Margery Perlmutter, Esq, RA, Chair of the New York City Board of Standards and Appeals (BSA), will speak at the Center for Architecture. She will discuss how the BSA operates, the relief mechanisms available, and how the BSA can be of help in enhancing the viability and design of development projects in NYC.
• The NYC Economic Development Corporation, the Empire State Development Corporation, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, the New York Department of State, the NYC Department of City Planning, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers launched Waterfront Navigator. The website is a centralized source of information for businesses and waterfront property owners. Users can learn about what tools are available and how the environmental permit applications processes work – a “one-stop” resource for waterfront permit planning.
• The American Institute of Architects and the AIA Design and Health Research Consortium have partnered with HOK to run focus groups to identify and develop practice-focused opportunities for funded research, publications, and tools in the area of design and public health. The collaboration aims to conduct research that can be translated into practice by architects and be beneficial to people.
• Citi Bike is expanding. Starting in August, the bike-share service will have docking stations further north in Manhattan to 110th Street, and in the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Boerum Hill, Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens, Gowanus, Park Slope, and Red Hook.
• New York City’s Sandy Recovery Workforce1 initiative will make additional free pre-apprenticeship training opportunities available to low- and middle-income residents of Sandy-impacted areas. The city launched Sandy Workforce1 in 2014 as part of the Sandy recovery overhaul.
• New York City released an RFP, SustaiNYC, for the design, construction, and management of a 100% Affordable Passive House building on an East 111th Street site in Harlem. The building will be a mixed-income, mixed-use development that will offer no less than 400 new affordable units. Submissions must include Passive House designs.