2024 APA Virginia Awards program
Congratulations to 2024 award winners!
​
APA Virginia honored the 2024 Awards Program winners on July 23, 2024 during the Awards Ceremony at its annual conference at the Williamsburg Lodge in Williamsburg, Virginia.
Individual Awards
The Individual Awards categories honor individuals who are great practitioners and advocates of planning in Virginia.
​
The Foxhound Award: Distinguished New Professional
2024 Award Winner: Caroline Vanterve
This award is named for the State dog of Virginia, the American Foxhound, and is awarded to an outstanding new planner (less than five years of experience). Like the Foxhound, this award recognizes a planner at the outset of their career who is good-natured, reliable, and known for their work ethic and their consideration for others.
​
About the Winner:
In just four years, Caroline has amassed an impressive, exceptional suite of accomplishments - cementing her position as a rising star in Virginia planning. Caroline has utilized a broad skill set across many types of planning projects for a diverse array of communities, showcasing the maturity and acumen of an important leader-to-come as she advances in her career.
Caroline’s excellence shines through in each of the following career milestones. Caroline was a reliable, proficient contributor to the Berkley Group’s work on Dinwiddie County’s Comprehensive Plan. Her research, mapping, drafting, and design work convinced the Berkley Group’s leadership to transfer project management duties to her due to a mid-project staffing change. Caroline builds trusting, productive relationships with her clients which enabled her to deliver an important diagnostic of the City of Hopewell’s land use tools along with an overhaul of Pittsylvania County’s zoning ordinance. Caroline facilitated innovative engagement workshops with the City of Petersburg’s high school students to support and inform the Berkley Group’s work on Petersburg’s new comprehensive plan; Caroline’s rapport with the students empowered them with new insights into important long-range planning principles and land use compatibility. Caroline’s impressive body of work exemplified the values that the Awards Committee looked for in its Foxhound Award winner. Her ability to pivot and work across multiple leadership roles in different communities makes her a standard bearer for young planners entering the profession.
​
New in 2024! Larson Distinguished Professional Award
2024 Award Winner: Denise M. Harri
In honor of Glenn Larson, FAICP, who has dedicated his career to advancing the
American Planning Association, the American Institute of Certified Planners, and Virginia
communities by championing initiatives that promote integrity, diversity, equity, and
volunteerism. This award recognizes a planner who is a model to the profession for their
experience, their breadth of knowledge, and their high ethical standards. This award recognizes exceptional skill and achievement from an individual planner.
​
About the Winner:
Denise has been a precedent-setting leader in her professional community planning practice, the state, and national levels of APA and, most recently, the AICP Commission. Her legacy is clear and includes the duality of applying planning principles that make a valuable difference to communities, as well as shaping the planning profession itself to embody the very best of values-based, inclusive, and equitable practices. Denise has fought for these principles in tense community planning projects, while leading her fellow planning professionals to define, elevate, and become accountable for these core principles. Denise’s sustained leadership role as a volunteer with APA/AICP charts a path of innovation and construction of all the building blocks for equitable and inclusive planning practice. Importantly, she crafted planning tools for the APA Virginia and APA Chapter President’s Council (CPC) to better apply core planning principles to chart the course of these organizations.
Throughout her career, Denise has done the hard work to build firm foundations for ethical planning, tending to the unseen people and practices that planners and communities build upon to create great communities for all. She has left an indelible impact on the Virginia Chapter of APA and proceeded from there to benefit all planners through her work at the national level with APA and the AICP Commission. Consequently, her legacy includes not only the quality and impactful projects she has led for communities but extends far beyond that through her influence on ethical, equitable, and vision-based planning.
​
Moeser Outstanding Service Award
2024 Award Winner: Samia Byrd
In honor of the late Dr. John V. Moeser, our esteemed colleague who was described as an ‘advocate for a more just society and an urban studies trailblazer’, the Chapter will recognize a planner who has contributed to the growth of the profession and the improvement of their community. This award recognizes a remarkable planner who has embodied APA’s mission statement of Creating Great Communities for All with their individual efforts.
​
About the Winner:
Samia Byrd, AICP, is the quintessential standard bearer for the ideals and teachings championed by Dr. John Moeser. Samia’s accomplishments are moving the needle with great strides to harness the power of planning for a more just and equitable society. Ms. Byrd currently serves as Director of Arlington County's Department of Community Planning, Housing and Development (CPHD). In this role, she provides vision and leadership for the next generation of land use plans, housing policies, and community engagement programs.
Throughout Ms. Byrd’s distinguished career, she has been a champion of advocacy and innovation in local government planning, county management, regional engagement, civic involvement, and the advancement of the missions of professional associations. Previously, Samia served as Arlington’s first Chief Race and Equity Officer, where one of her signature initiatives was the development of a cross-cutting racial equity training and educational program for County staff that broadened awareness of local government’s harmful impacts on persons of color and provided new methods of approaching long-standing programs that lead to more equitable outcomes. Samia was a key organizer and contributor to the 2023 Planning for Equitable Development summit hosted by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (MWCOG). She co-authored MWCOG’s 2024 Regional Principles for Equitable Development, which assisted local governments to integrate equitable practices into planning policies. Outside of her current role with Arlington County, Samia has worked to bolster the work of others as a member of the Urban Land Institute (ULI) Washington’s Diversity and Inclusion Working Group, a participant in ULI Washington’s Pathways to Inclusion Program, and a member of Alexandria’s Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Planning Committee.
​
Chandler Award - Virginia's Citizen Planner of the Year
2024 Award Winner: Stephen Kenney
Over his 43-year career, Dr. Chandler has trained and educated more than 15,000 Virginians in matters involving land use planning and zoning practices. Participants from his many lessons note that Dr. Chandler is “an icon in Virginia Planning” who “left a lasting impression on the Commonwealth.” In his honor, the Chapter has renamed the Dogwood Award to the Chandler Award. This award recognizes the contributions of a citizen planner to their community and is a fitting recognition of Dr. Chandler's efforts to educate Virginia's citizen planners over his career.
​​
About the Winner:
Stephen Kenney is a long-time resident of the Town of Vienna and a principal and practicing architect with RV Architects PC. Over the past 20 years, he has volunteered to serve on Town commissions that significantly impact the planning, development, and quality of life in Vienna. He spent the last 10 years as a member of the Planning Commission, including three years as Chair.
During his years on the Planning Commission, Mr. Kenney made significant contributions to the drafting of a major update to the Town’s Comprehensive Plan. He was also actively involved in the comprehensive update to the Town’s Zoning and Subdivision Ordinance, demonstrating great energy, attention to detail, care for the community, and fairness. Additionally, he has reviewed numerous development proposals and provided recommendations to the Town Council or the Board of Zoning Appeals. Mr. Kenney's meticulous and thoughtful approach to his role as a Commissioner has greatly enhanced the overall professionalism of the Commission, particularly during his tenure as chair.
​
The Cardinal Awards – Legislator of the Year
2024 Award Winner: The Honorable Jeremy McPike
Named for the State bird, the Cardinal Awards recognize elected officials that can see the big picture and find solutions through the field of planning. Local and State legislators are eligible for these recognitions.
​
About the Winner:
Sen. McPike has represented the Senate of Virginia’s 29th District since 2016. He possesses keen insight on local government needs honed through his studies at George Mason University (B.A., Government, M.P.A) and his work as the Director of the City of Alexandria’s Department of General Services.
Sen. McPike’s contributions to Virginia planning and its communities were given an elevated platform in 2024 as he assumed the chairmanship of the Senate’s Local Government Committee. He carried over 20 bills in the General Assembly’s 2024 session covering a broad array of policy issues including Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits and legacy college admissions.
Sen. McPike’s signature bills in the 2024 session included the following: SB14, granting local governments the authority to hold sales tax referendums to collect an additional 1% sales tax to fund school construction and renovation projects; SB243, which established discharge monitoring protocols and maximum contaminant level standards for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS); and, SB597, enabling any local government in the Commonwealth to establish an affordable housing dwelling unit program in its zoning ordinance. Sen. McPike’s bills addressed important tenets of APA Virginia’s 2024 Legislative Agenda while offering effective tools for communities to utilize in addressing the needs of their educational facilities and housing affordability.
​
​
The President's Award
More information to be shared with winner announcement!
2024 Award Winner: Mike Chandler
​
About the Winner:
Over his 43-year career, Dr. Chandler has trained and educated more than 15,000 Virginians in matters involving land use planning and zoning practices. Participants from his many classes and workshops note that Dr. Chandler is “an icon in Virginia Planning” who “left a lasting impression on the Commonwealth.” His work “will aid proper planning and growth for decades to come.”
Dr. Chandler began his career as a community development specialist and land use planner at the New River Valley Planning District Commission (PDC). He assumed this position after serving as a regional land use planner at the West Piedmont PDC. In 1980, he was promoted to a tenure track position at Virginia Tech as a statewide community development specialist with the rank of assistant professor. Over the next 23 years, Dr. Chandler designed and delivered off-campus community development and continuing education programs focused on community planning, land use, and public management issues. In 1984, the Land Use Education Program (LUEP) was developed in concert with the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development and is the nation’s first structured training program for persons serving on local planning commissions. The Virginia Chapter of the American Planning Association is forever grateful to Dr. Chandler for his efforts to educate Virginia's citizen planners. In his honor, the Chapter has renamed the Dogwood Award to the Chandler Award. This award recognizes the contributions of a citizen planner to their community and is a fitting recognition of Dr. Chandler's efforts to educate Virginia's citizen planners over his career.
Planning Efforts
The Planning Efforts category recognizes planning documents, a program or initiatives that make great places happen in the Commonwealth.
Holzheimer Economic Development Award
2024 Award Winner: City of Chesapeake
2024 Award Winning Project: Chesapeake Industrial Waterfront Study
In honor of Dr. Terry Holzheimer, our esteemed former colleague who passed away in 2014 and was described as “one of the deans of the economic development profession”, the Chapter will recognize great planning efforts for improving Virginia’s economic development. The successful nominee will show how their study, initiative, program, or even site development yielded economic development results for their locality, region, or state.
​
About the Project:
The Chesapeake Industrial Waterfront Study is a small area plan that focuses on a ten mile stretch of the Southern Branch of the Elizabeth River that serves mostly industrial businesses. Due to high demand for waterfront property, increasing coastal environmental hazards, and competing economic interests, this study seeks to provide Chesapeake with a better understanding of the area. Chesapeake’s planning team, including staff from Waggonner and Ball and Moffatt and Nichol, conducted a detailed study, analyzing the Southern Branch’s topography, flood risks, public infrastructure, land use, and industrial opportunities amongst others. The plan includes six themes, each including a goal and policy framework for goal achievement, to help guide staff and policymakers in decision making and future planning: highest and best use; resilience and adaptation; corridors and hubs; industrial opportunity and connectivity; connected ecologies; community access and assets.
The Industrial Waterfront Study demonstrates great range and breadth, integrating tailored recommendations for distinct geographies within the overall study area. The study’s implementation succeeds in providing a realistic, yet economically vigilant roadmap that allows industrial growth overall while protecting key natural resources and access points for public recreation and casual use. Most importantly, Chesapeake’s team prioritized the community’s viewpoints in formulating this study. The Chesapeake Industrial Waterfront Study reflects the authentic needs of a broad spectrum of stakeholders, including industrial operators, regional organizations, environmental stewards, civic leagues and community advocates.
​
Old Dominion Innovative Approaches Award
2024 Award Winner: Fairfax County
2024 Award Winning Project: Parking Reimagined
​
Virginia has many unique challenges, where innovative planning solutions are critical for making great places happen. The Innovative Approaches Award recognizes pioneering planning efforts in the Commonwealth. Nominees may include innovative planning processes, plans, programs, initiatives, or site developments that have or will result in real results.
​
About the Project:
The Parking Reimagined project launched in August of 2021 with the goal of updating and modernizing Fairfax County’s parking requirements, which hadn’t been comprehensively evaluated for more than 35 years. The project was daunting in scale, given the County’s 1.1 million residents and 406 square mile size.
Staff held more than 100 community engagements, including 19 town halls and open houses, for the development of Parking Reimagined. The project team used a tiered parking framework to account for the County’s geographic diversity and to root its recommendations in equity, affordability, sustainability, land-use site design, and economics. This framework was transformed into a user-friendly, interactive GIS mapping tool to distinguish where different parking rates would apply within the County.
Adopted on September 26, 2023, with an effective date of January 1, 2024, the tiered parking framework regulations support and align with the One Fairfax and Countywide Strategic Plan goals; reduce parking rates in densely populated areas with excellent public transit options or a strong mix of land uses; increase efficiency of land area with a right-sizing approach and streamlined loading requirements; and offer a concept to balance parking demands while encouraging cycling as a sustainable transportation option and increasing environmental enhancements.
The Parking Reimagined project team established a process for how communities can implement zoning reform by drawing upon established goals and priorities. Community values were at Parking Reimagined’s core, reflecting previous Countywide efforts such as One Fairfax – a joint racial and social equity policy – and the Countywide Strategic Plan. This project exemplifies that creative solutions can be achieved while staying true to community goals and character.
Commonwealth Connectors Award
2024 Award Winner: City of Harrisonburg
2024 Award Winning Project: The Friendly City Trail
Planners diligently work, sometimes over many years, to implement new ideas to solve the Commonwealth’s transportation challenges. From distribution centers to autonomous vehicles, each community is finding creative ways to meet the diversity of today’s modern-day transportation needs. This award highlights innovative and exceptional transportation-focused planning.
​
​About the Project:
Opened in 2022, the City of Harrisonburg’s Friendly City Trail, is a two-mile trail that serves a broad array of users. The trail connects several residential neighborhoods with city parks and schools. The trail’s planning benefitted from the extensive community participation and engagement which contributed to the development of the trail’s alignment and its sensitivity to the surrounding environmental resources. The Friendly City Trail exemplifies incredible attention to detail on many fronts ranging from stormwater management to resource reuse. It is a model project that stands apart as this year’s Commonwealth Connectors Award recipient.
​
New in 2024: Equity in Planning Award
2024 Award Winner: City of Richmond
2024 Award Winning Project: Richmond Connects
This award recognizes Virginia planning practices that promote equity, diversity,
inclusion, and accessibility within the planning field. The successful nominee will be a planning
process, plan, program, and/or initiative in Virginia that addresses the concerns of women and/or
minority groups related to planning.
About the Project:​​
Richmond Connects is an equity-centered, strategic, multimodal transportation plan for the City of Richmond. The two-year process, conducted and designed through an equity lens, culminated with the Richmond Connects Action Plan, which identified 104 projects centered around achieving Richmond’s vision for equitable transportation by improving access to opportunity and reducing barriers. The Plan also outlines transportation, land use, economic development, technology, and sustainability policy and program changes through department-specific action steps through a near-term action plan and a long-term scenario plan to break down transportation issues at the root causes.
The data driven needs analysis defined transportation needs with improving equity as the main driver. Richmond Connects project team intentionally engaged the community through equitable and inclusive platforms and activities that resulted in input from over 20,000 people. The efforts included multiple surveys at targeted phases of the plan development, engaging community members at bus stops, community centers, grocery stores, and in class rooms, as well as flyers and focus groups that included compensation for participants. Richmond Connects illustrates a model process that can be emulated across the Commonwealth and beyond that pushes forward equity-centered community engagement, advances data-driven analysis techniques, and shows how a transportation plan and planning process has the ability to achieve a vision for equitable multimodal transportation.
​
​​
Virginia Plan of the Year
2024 Award Winner: Fairfax County Park Authority
2024 Award Winning Project: Parks, Recreation, Open Space and Access Strategy
​
The Virginia Plan of the Year Award honors the best planning document of the year. A successful nomination will show that the effort included outstanding planning processes, vision, implementation strategies, and innovative approaches. The planning document can be local, regional or a statewide effort.
​​​
About the Project: Fairfax County Park Authority’s Parks, Recreation, Open Space, and Access (PROSA) Strategy, approved and adopted in September 2023, represents a transformative approach to park planning. The plan focuses on creating a more equitable park system through improved access to parks, diverse recreational experiences, and enhanced habitat connectivity. By applying a data-driven equity lens, FCPA ensures that all residents, regardless of their socio-economic background, have access to high-quality parks and recreational opportunities.
The PROSA Strategy improves park access by utilizing GIS technology to enhance 10-minute walk access to parks, addressing physical barriers, and prioritizing park development in underserved areas. The Strategy focuses on diverse recreational experiences by offering a complete range of recreational activities, from active and social to passive and natural/cultural experiences, within close proximity to residents' homes. Strategies for habitat connectivity included preserving and enhancing natural resources and ensuring equitable distribution of environmental benefits across the county. The project team conducted extensive public outreach, including multilingual surveys, in-person events, and targeted engagement with underrepresented communities.
FCPA's PROSA Strategy is a shining example of how thoughtful planning and inclusive community engagement can lead to substantial improvements in public spaces and overall community well-being. This award underscores FCPA's leadership in advancing equitable access to parks and recreational facilities, setting a benchmark for park planning across the state of Virginia.
GREAT PLACES
The great places category recognizes great places, developments, and communities in Virginia.
The Jamestown Award – Locality of the Year
2024 Award Winner: Fairfax County
2024 Award Winning Project: Expanding Housing Options in Fairfax
In honor of the first local government in Virginia, the Chapter will recognize a locality that has undertaken a sound and innovative planning practices, not in a single plan but through various efforts. This award recognizes a town, city, or county that is dedicated to the principles of planning.
​
About the Winner:
Fairfax County has ardently committed to the development and retention of affordable housing within the jurisdiction. This commitment is the result of foundational policies including the Communitywide Housing Strategic Plan, the Countywide Strategic Plan, and One Fairfax Policy.
To achieve these policy objectives, Fairfax County established a Workforce Dwelling Unit Rental Task Force in 2019 and a Workforce Dwelling Unit For-Sale Task Force in 2023 to review the Workforce Dwelling Unit Policy and to provide recommendations for affordable housing development. Fairfax County also established an Affordable Housing Preservation Task Force in 2021 and a Manufactured Housing Task Force in 2022.
Fairfax County staff, elected and appointed officials, community members, affordable housing advocates, and the development community worked collaboratively on these policies. Implementation has taken the form of development strategies, financing tools, land use policies, and legislative priorities to address affordable housing preservation, manufactured housing complexities, and equitable community development. Leveraging County-owned land in partnership with affordable housing providers to build new affordable housing has been key in these efforts. These efforts distinguish Fairfax County’s leadership amongst Virginia’s local governments in retaining their existing affordable housing while generating new housing opportunities for residents who are not able to secure market rate housing.
​
STUDENT AWARDS
This category recognizes the exceptional work of students in the planning field.
University of Virginia
​
Graduate
Emily Routman
Emily’s interest in planning began right out of undergraduate when she took her first position in the City of Richmond and she hasn’t wavered in her commitment to the field and its possibilities. She is a Transportation Planner II with the Timmons Group.
​
​
Graduate
Adam Stevenson
​
Adam is a student who is dedicated to excellence no matter the assignment or the task. With strong interest and experience in accessible transportation, Adam is a research assistant at the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service at the University of Virginia.
​
Undergraduate
Rita Wu
Rita Wu (currently in China for the summer and cannot attend the ceremony). Rita is an outstanding student who sought opportunities to deepen her planning skills and knowledge at every turn through the classroom and internships. She will be pursuing graduate studies at Harvard University this fall.
​​
Undergraduate
Justin Villareal Estanislao​
Justin was committed to hard work and excellence from his first year and he applied his passion for planning throughout his undergraduate career. He is in the Urbanism and Planning Department at AECOM in the Federal Planning Studio.
​
Faculty
Will Cockrell
Will Cockrell, adjunct professor of Urban and Environmental Planning at the University of Virginia School of Architecture and Senior Planner with EPR P.C., has been impacting students’ lives for over a decade. He is committed to their personal and professional development. One student comment says it best, “Professor Cockrell is very passionate and experienced in the planning field. His understanding of how local government shapes daily life, in everything he sees, is fascinating and it's a skill I aspire to attain.
​​
Virginia Commonwealth University
​
Graduate
Mac Hyde
​
Mac recently completed a study, in partnership with Cleveland Park Smart Growth, examining the possibility of increasing the supply of housing in Washington DC’s Cleveland Park, Woodley Park, Van Ness, and Forest Hills neighborhoods. Mac was a finalist for his study on introducing gentle density at VCU’s annual student Plan-Off! Competition where students compete for a prize by pitching their solution to a real-world planning, public policy or management problem before a panel of expert judges.
​
Undergraduate
Abby Lacuesta
​
Abby is a senior Urban and Regional Studies student who has excelled in advanced emerging GIS technologies. Abby was selected because of her motivation to learn new skills and apply work and educational experiences towards a career in urban planning. She is passionate about increasing transit mobility and creating a more equitable community engagement process.
​​
Virginia Tech
​
Graduate
Emmanuel (Asenso) Edusei
​
In addition to pursuing a master’s degree in Public and International Affairs, Emmanuel also serves as a Graduate Teaching Assistant for the Center for the Enhancement of Engineering Diversity (CEED) where he supports programs for minority engineering students.
​
Undergraduate
Claudia Budzyn
​
Claudia, a member of the Calhoun Honors Discovery Program, graduated with dual degrees in environmental policy & planning and politics, philosophy, and economics, plus a minor in German. During her time at Virginia Tech, Claudia was published in the undergraduate research journal, received multiple research grants, studied and volunteered in 15 countries, completed internships, and held numerous leadership positions on campus.
​
Virginia Tech & APA Virginia Community Scholars
​
​Bianca Harleston
Bianca is a Northern Virginia native who spent part of her childhood in Sierra Leone. In May of 2023, Bianca graduated Summa Cum Laude from the honors college obtaining a B.A. in Smart and Sustainable Cities from Virginia Tech. She currently works as an environmental specialist at Dominion Energy with a predominant focus on environmental justice and renewable energy projects.​
​
Laura Cheng
Laura is a strategist at Gensler with a focus on data analytics as it pertains to cities, workplaces, and design. Laura says that meeting with Bianca has been a wonderful experience and enjoyed hearing about her journey and career exploration as a student and the things that she’s really passionate about. Laura was encouraged by Bianca’s eagerness to make the world a better place through her work and hopes that the experiences and insights she was able to share will help enable her in her future endeavors.​