Rockland P.L.U.S. | Keep Rockland Beautiful

Rockland P.L.U.S. (Planning Land Use with Students)

“Collaboration”, “Sustainable Planning”, “Youth”, and “Professional Mentors” are the keywords of Rockland P.L.U.S., an annual land use charrette activity that has, over the last six years, engaged over 650 high school students, their teachers, and a group of loyal professional mentors from the fields of planning, architecture, law, real estate development, affordable housing and environmental science and advocacy. Before 2011, the case study focused on the booming waterfront development in the Village of Haverstraw (on the Hudson River about 20 miles north of Manhattan). This is an area where high end condo development competes for riverfront access with heavy industry and a largely Latino historic urban area. In 2011, each school chose sites in their own locality to study. According to Arlene Miller, one of our mentors and a senior planner with the Rockland County Planning Development, the Symposium is a fun, hands-on way for high school students to learn about the intricacies of land use planning and zoning related issues.

The program begins with classroom visits by Sonia Cairo (Keep Rockland Beautiful) and Margie Turrin (Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory) to introduce students and teachers to the project, and to help guide them in their individual site studies. Rockland P.L.U.S. culminates with the convening of the 135 students and their teachers at Rockland Community College for a day of planning charrettes overseen by professional mentors. By the end of the charrettes, the students have thoroughly explored a range of environmental and socio-economic issues associated with development – everything from the effects on our watershed and open space to traffic, tax base, employment and housing. With the help of mentors, the students explored concepts such as “impermeable surface”, “green building design”, and “affordable housing”, and they reviewed community character and needs. Using colored markers, the students recorded their land use decisions on their maps for presentation to other groups. The student take their roles as planners and community members very seriously, deriving a sense of empowerment from being asked for their perspectives. This is combined with a real appreciation for the complexity and trade-offs inherent in the planning process. All materials used in preparation for the symposium are available on this Rockland P.L.U.S program page.

Rockland P.L.U.S. is a collaborative effort of Keep Rockland Beautiful, Columbia University Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Rockland Community College, Cornell University Cooperative Extension and Rockland County Americorps.