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90 Page 1 ,. 111111 -- CITY COUNCIL MEMBER REPORT OF CONFERENCE/MEETING ATTENDANCE Name: Barbara Pierce Vendor No.: Department City Council Voucher No.: Responsible Standing Committee: Conference or meeting: CNU XVI (Congress for the New Urbanism) Austin, Texas Summary of conference or meeting: Topic of this year's Congress for New Urbanism was New Urbanism and the Booming Metropolis. CNU 's basic tenets are the restoration of existing urban centers and town within metropolitan regions, reconfiguration of sprawling suburbs into communities of real neighborhoods and diverse districts, conservation of natural environments and preservation of our built legacy. Principles that Redwood City shares with CNU are that communities should be designed for pedestrian and transit as wef! as the car, there should be universally aooessible public spaces and that urban places should be framed by architecture and landscape design that celebrates local history, climate, and ecology. Workshops that had specific relation to the interests of our community included sessions on developing retail centers, visUalizing density in communities, and designing streets that work for mutti-modal movement. Retail Recipes exp\ored the difficulties of developing successful retail centers due to the failure to attract key retailers or to meet market perfonnance standards. Experts in retail design and merchandising principles discussed how communffies need to undet'stand the demographics, site planning, tenant mix, anchor placement, vehicular circulation patterns and modem retail principles to increase sales and create a successful retail strategy. VISUalizing Density - and Getting It Right provided a detailed visual exploration of how density looks in dftferent cities and the characteristics of density. The presenters. Julie Campoli and Alex Maclean are c0- authors of VISUalizing Density that chronicfes through photographs, dozens of neighborhoods with varying densities and designs. The book can be a helpful tool in helping community members, staff and council in showing the range of densities and how they work in different communities. Green S1Jeets: MuIti-MOdaI, Mufti-Functional and Totally Fabulous foCUsed the discussion on how to design and build streets that meet conventional functions and serve as environmental systems - balancing the competitive needs for travel lanes, parking, bikes. pedestrians. trees. drainage and technical requirements. Participating in this conference gave me new energy and interest in bringing the best ideas back to our Council, staff and community to help Redwood City cope with the challenges of development and sustainability . ~ 1(...6-~"- Signature of Council Member 7-15-08 Date The Adminlstllltive Code requires reports of con~ or meetings for which a council member requests per diem or expense reimbursement. RepOOs must be submitted 10 the City CIel'k of no later than the Wednesday of the week before the next City Council meeting. Reports must be submitted before the City of Redwood City wl1l pay per diem (X reimbursement for the oonfererlce or the meeting. Reports are not required for City - ~... ., .". ". -.....