The
primary purpose of the Atlanta Planning Advisory Board (APAB)
Neighborhood Civic Engagement Award Ceremony is to provide a forum to
acknowledge noteworthy contributions by individuals, institutions,
organizations, groups (churches, civic associations, neighborhood
clubs, businesses, etc.) to the City of Atlanta and its
neighborhoods. Allean Brown was the honoree from NPU-S.
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Robbie
Hunter and Eric Toomer present Allean Brown
with the
Neighborhoods Matter 2015 Award
for NPU-S
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Ms. Brown has been very active in community restoration and preservation for many years. Her constant and diverse participation throughout the City of Atlanta demonstrates that not only Southwest Atlanta, but the whole City is near and dear to her heart. Using her background in architecture, historic preservation, transportation, community planning and construction project management, she is often an informed voice for Southwest Atlanta monitoring and reporting Ft. McPherson and Atlanta BeltLine progress, public safety and environmental issues, community health and services needs and promoting local business and employment.
Ms.
Brown’s mother was active in NPU-S, Treasurer of Eastridge
Neighborhood Watch and Secretary of the Hyacinth Art Circle. Due to
health issues, Allean became her stand-in whenever in town between
career assignments. Advocacy and love of the natural and built
environments sustained Ms. Brown from college, throughout her career
and onto her parents’ path of promoting the southwest Atlanta urban
forest neighborhoods. Ms. Brown chose to be a community participant
in the Fort McPherson BRAC planning and zoning process at the
beginning of the Community Benefits Working Groups where she served
as:
- Chair of the Environment, Open Space & Public Health and
- Co-Chair of Transportation,
- Facilitator for the Education & Culture and
- Initiated the inclusion of renewable energy into community benefits proposals developed by the original Community Benefits Working Groups.
- Charter member and officer of the Georgia STAND-UP supported McPherson Action Community Coalition (MACC) serving as Secretary and Co-chair.
- Editor of the Georgia Tech graduate studio community benefits compilation report
- Facilitator in the Georgia (State University) Health Policy Center’s (GHPC) Rapid Health Impact Assessment
- Member of the GHPC Fort McPherson Photo-Voice project.
Her
involvement with the Fort McPherson Redevelopment project has been
ongoing since 2006. Ms. Brown is now the NPU-S Community Engagement
Subcommittee (CES) representative for Fort Mac and served as the CES
chair of the recent Fort Mac Fall Festival/Open House. She is an
active community voice on the Livable Centers Initiative (LCI) Core
Team for the development planning of the Local Redevelopment
Authority’s (MILRA) remaining 145 acres.
Recognizing
the need to maintain a broader perspective to help solve local issues
Ms. Brown has added to her training, career experience and licensed
design-build and property inspection business ownership through
attending:
- The STANDUP Policy Institute for Civic Leadership graduate
- The Partnership for Southern Equity
- Policylink National Equity Summits
- NeighborWorks Leadership Institute
- Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC) Community Planning Academy
- Atlanta Regional Housing Forum
- ARTWORKS and ARTPLACE grants collaboration
- 2015 LOCUS National Leadership Summit in Washington, DC on Smart Growth and Transit Oriented Development
- USEPA Environmental Justice Academy
Still
championing for the existing local communities, Ms. Brown monitors
the primary developments of Fort McPherson, the Transit Oriented
Development at the Oakland City MARTA station, the Atlanta BeltLine
Westside Trail and the Atlanta Streetcar proposed for Southwest
Atlanta through her broad based civic participation to focus on
assuring the planning is comprehensive, equitable and inclusive,
acutely respective of the existing surrounding community and its
progressive future.
In
the community she has participated in
- Southwest Coalition of Concerned Citizens (SWC3)
- Friends of Rev. James Orange Park at Oakland City and
- SWANC, (SouthWest Atlanta Neighborhood Collaborative), an effort to establish a community land trust in southwest Atlanta.
- Proposing to eliminate a community eyesore and drug trafficking site: Ms. Brown created an adaptive reuse design for an abandoned carwash in Venetian Hills.
- COVE (Cascade, Oakland City, Venetian Hills Engagement, a NeighborWorks facilitated organization) where she supported the late Mrs. Louvenia Gates in reviving the Hardnett-Oakland City Community Garden and participated in the Venetian Hills Elementary School campus improvement project.
She
and Mrs. Gates were on the project consultant team selected by Fulton
County Health Department to alleviate food deserts by supplying
neighborhood corner stores with fresh produce from limited resource
Georgia farmers.
Ms
Brown is also an active member of the Intown Southwest Atlanta
community collaborative that plans and sponsors
- Development Day Tours introducing outside restaurateurs and food investors to SWAtl
- Local Business Cash Mobs
- Business Coaching support for existing community small businesses
In
her position as the Transportation Chair Ms. Brown wrote the NPU-S
response to the MARTA TOD proposal at Oakland City and spoke on
behalf of NPU-S at the City Council public hearing. She was also
instrumental in pressing community concerns over public safety issues
during the demolition and site prep of a neighborhood business
conversion. From serving as the NPU-S representative for the
BeltLine Subarea Master Planning, Ms. Brown was appointed to the
Atlanta BeltLine Tax Allocation District Advisory Commission (TADAC)
by the BeltLine Network, nominated by STANDUP, to monitor community
benefits. She was elected Vice Chair of the BeltLine TADAC and
co-chair of its Economic Development Sub-committee. Ms. Brown was
appointed NPU-S representative and elected Vice Chair of the
Campbellton Road TAD.
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2015 Neighborhood Civic Engagement Award Ceremony
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