The Power of Place: Projects Making a Difference

Making Neighborhoods Greener: Livable Communities Innitiative

"Your suggestions to our volunteers for appropriate plants and landscape design to use helped us to transform our neighborhood.  Thank you for your encouragement, support and participation in our 2007 neighborhood beautification program. We could not have succeeded without you,"  Jeannette Higginbotham, Sansbury Park Civic Association.
     


In 2003, the Livable Communities Initiative was established in Prince George's County.  The Initiative was created as a broad based effort to respond to residents' complaints about deteriorating neighborhoods, especially in the older established communities inside the Beltway.  The goals of the Initiative are to promote more livable communities by creating beautiful, healthy, safe, and clean or litter-free environments, to consider the widest range of solutions, and to look for ways to enhance successful programs.  (For more information visit the County's web site.)     

Over the past five years, the Neighborhood Design Center has been instrumental in helping Prince George's County meet the mission of the Livable Communities Initiative.  The County provides free trees and plant materials, soil and mulch to any community group willing to mobilize volunteers to plant.  NDC provides the design and technical assistance to help these groups implement successful  planting projects.  Since 2003, NDC has assisted 160 groups involved in community greening projects.  Each year the contribution of the Neighborhood Design Center has grown.  In both 2006 and 2007, NDC assisted seventy (70) groups - over 65 of which involved planting trees or more extensive gardens at schools.  As a result of NDC's services, we were able to help community groups and schools leverage nearly $350,000 in funding, in-kind  plants and materials, and pro-bono services -   new investment that is making  Prince George's County greener and more beautiful.

In 2008, interest in the Livable Communities Initiative grew - with NDC providing design assistance, consultation, and training to 70 planting projects!

The Neighborhood Design Center staff and volunteers support the Livable Communities Initiative by conducting outreach, analyzing existing sites, creating planting design and cost estimates, raising in-kind donations of resources, creating flyers and design boards that help to mobilize volunteers to install the plantings, and giving practical assistance with planting methods and maintenance.  NDC works closely with individual groups to make their project a success.  Many hours are spent with each group to build their confidence to manage the planting, mobilize community volunteers to install the plantings, and maintain the gardens after they are completed.

We would like to acknowledge the important partners that NDC has worked alongside as part of Livable Communities, in particular Wayne Lucas and other members of the Department of Public Works and Transportation, Ms. Joyce Beck of the Prince George's County Police Department, Chris Wagnon of Prince George's County Department of Parks and Recreation / M-NCPPC, and Ms. JoAnn Carter of the County Executive's Department.
                                                  

"I am a resident of Mount Rainier, Maryland, and I serve on the board of the Gateway CDC, the Environmental Protection Board of Mount Rainier, and I run the Mount Rainier Bicycle Cooperative.  I have witnessed the transformation of several city and community spaces due to the assistance and planning by NDC.  The park at the end of our block,   30th and Arundel, has been transformed due to the coordination, layout, and plant selection of NDC; it is now an attractive community space," PJ Park, Mount Rainier Bike Co-op.            

"Jan Townshend from the Neighborhood Design Center has been extremely responsive and helpful to my community in this endeavor.  She has walked my community and given us the benefit of her expert experience on not only where to place and what to select in plantings and trees, but she has offered advise on maintaining our current planting and how to further help the ecosystem in Maryland with them," Marge Tyler, Woodland Lake Condominium Association.