Washington, D.C. - The American Planning Association presented its most prestigious award to two projects that are a world apart: The Daniel Burnham Award for a Comprehensive Plan was awarded to the Greensburg Sustainable Comprehensive Plan in Greensburg, Kansas, and to the Kigali Comprehensive Plan Master Plan in Kigali, Rwanda.

“These projects demonstrate that innovative planning and engaged citizens working together foster better communities no matter where they’re located,” said Carol Rhea, AICP, 2009 National Planning Awards Jury Chair. “In both Greensburg and Kigali, people overcame enormous obstacles, persevered and worked together to put their damaged communities back together again.”

The Daniel Burnham Award honors a comprehensive plan that advances the science and art of planning. The award honors America’s most famous planner, Daniel Burnham, for his contributions to the planning profession and to a greater awareness of the benefits of good planning.

Greensburg Sustainable Comprehensive Plan

On May 4, 2007, a two-mile wide, EF-5 tornado hit Greensburg, a rural town of 1,389 in southwestern Kansas. The disaster leveled more than 90 percent of the town’s buildings, killed 10 people, and prompted The New York Times to state that “Nature had performed a coup de grace” on Greensburg.

Prior to the tornado, Greensburg also had struggled with an unstable economy. With few opportunities for the town’s youth, Greensburg’s population had aged and declined. To some outsiders, Greensburg was a “dying town.”

While the town had been ruined, the community’s relationships remained intact. The Greensburg Sustainable Comprehensive Plan reflects the community’s vision of rebuilding based on respect for the land, a rededication to future generations, and a vision of a sustainable future.

“When you consider the size of the community and the gravity of the situation, it is remarkable that the residents turned to planning as part of the recovery process and to rebuild in a sustainable manner to benefit future generations,” said Rhea.

Through an intensely public process, with meetings held in open-air tents and FEMA trailers, the planning team worked with the community to create a plan that goes beyond disaster recovery. It creates a framework for an ambitious new direction and provides a model for the sustainable rural community of the future, while maintaining the town’s cherished rural character.

Greensburg is taking bold steps to establish itself as a model for sustainability. The community is the only city in the world to adopt the United States Green Building Council’s LEED® Platinum resolution for public buildings, and they also are building a wind farm to generate 100 percent of the community’s energy needs from renewable sources.

“The Greensburg plan to rebuild a more sustainable town was based on the commonsense principles of the prairie,” said Stephen Hardy, BNIM Associate and project manager for the plan. “Conserving precious natural resources, respecting the land and working in concert with it, harnessing the wind for energy — these attributes come naturally to the citizens of western Kansas.”

Ultimately, the sustainability of Greensburg relies on the ability to bring high-quality jobs to town. The available resources, amenities and clean energy resources that are planned for Greensburg create a host of potential economic-development opportunities. Several manufacturers are in negotiations with Greensburg to bring potentially 200 new jobs to the town because of its dedication to sustainability and available renewable energy.

“I am extremely proud of the work our community and our planning team put into our recently completed Greensburg Sustainable Comprehensive Plan in the wake of the devastating tornado,” said Greensburg Mayor Bob Dixson. “The plan represents hundreds of hours spent conducting community meetings, creating plans and documents, and building a vision. The result of all this work is not just an excellent plan, but also a community made stronger by the optimistic act of planning for our shared future.”

Kigali Comprehensive Plan Master Plan, Kigali, Rwanda, Africa

Kigali, located in the heart of Sub-Saharan Africa, is the capital city of Rwanda. As the most densely populated country in Africa, Rwanda is still healing from its tragic history of war and genocide in 1994 and has undertaken an ambitious vision to become a model for sustainable development in Africa.

Kigali sits at the center of unrestrained rural-urban migration. More than 70 percent of Kigali’s residents are thought to be living in unplanned areas. To overcome its challenges and become a leading urban center for Africa, planners believed Kigali must develop an urban landscape that would help expand its economy and provide livable neighborhoods for a population that is projected to triple by 2030.

“It is impressive to see a developing community such as Kigali recognize the importance and need for planning,” said Rhea.

The Kigali City Master Plan was developed through a series of public workshops—held in both French and Kinyarwanda—informational and technical seminars, and stakeholder meetings. The plan underscored the importance of creating an exciting and responsible development strategy while encouraging actions to implement it.

Planners developed land-based strategies derived from the area’s natural terrain that sought first and foremost to affordably promote development. The goal: meet the needs of a city in which 80 percent of the population lives on less than $2 a day.

A model was used to illustrate how future aspects of urbanization, such as buildings, infrastructure, transportation, land-uses, and density, should respond to topography and to each other. Higher-density areas were recommended for hilltops and the flat low areas and the steep slopes were recommended to be preserved in their natural or wetland condition.

To deal with poor water sanitation -- one of Kigali’s most pressing problems -- an alternative decentralized system based on watersheds was developed that uses the hilly terrain, gravity, and the existing wetland areas to efficiently and affordably cleanse wastewater and stormwater.

An affordable model house built for under $4,000 from compressed earth blocks showed how such materials can provide the majority of Kigali’s population with durable and low-cost housing. After the model home was completed, the mayor authorized the construction of a neighborhood of 250 houses using similar methods.

The work begun in the Kigali Master Planning Process continues as the city is planning finer-grain pilot projects, pursues work on a new international airport and city administrative center, and implements capacity building strategies to train in-house and local planning staff.

“The plan is a land-based strategy that organizes development and infrastructure based on the unique topography of Kigali in an environmentally sensitive and affordable way,” said Thomas E. Wheeler, Strategic Planner for the Land Use Management and GIS Department for the Republic of Rwanda, City of Kigali.

“This master plan is well written and supported with clear and easy to use illustrations,” Wheeler added. “The text and illustrations combine to clearly articulate the urban design vision as well as an implementable strategy for future development in Kigali. As a result of the master plan, future development in Kigali is following the recommendations outlined in the plan, and the city has already experienced benefit from its adoption.”

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The awards for the Greensburg Plan and the Kigali Plan will be presented at a special awards luncheon at APA’s National Planning Conference in Minneapolis on April 28, 2009. Both plans also will be featured in an upcoming issue of Planning magazine, APA’s flagship publication.

For a list of all of the APA 2009 National Planning Excellence, Achievement, and Leadership Award recipients, visit www.planning.org/awards/2009. APA’s national awards program, the profession’s highest honor, is a proud tradition established more than 50 years ago to recognize outstanding community plans, planning programs and initiatives, public education efforts, and individuals for their leadership on planning issues.

The American Planning Association and its professional institute, the American Institute of Certified Planners, are dedicated to advancing the art, science and profession of good planning -- physical, economic and social -- so as to create communities that offer better choices for where and how people work and live. Members of APA help create communities of lasting value and encourage civic leaders, business interests and citizens to play a meaningful role in creating communities that enrich people's lives. APA has offices in Washington, D.C., and Chicago, Ill.