The City of Knoxville has received an "Outstanding Planning Award" from the Tennessee Chapter of the American Planning Association for its South Waterfront Vision Plan.

The award was presented Thursday at the 2007 Tennessee Annual Conference of Planning, Landscape Architecture, Development, Urban Forestry and Green Building in Memphis. This year's theme is "Building Great Communities."

TAPA, the Tennessee Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects, the Tennessee Urban Forestry Council, the Urban Land Institute and the U.S. Green Building Council are sponsors of the event.

Nominations were accepted for the following categories: Outstanding Planning Award for a Plan, Outstanding Planning Award for a Project/Program/Tool, Outstanding Planning Award for Implementation, Outstanding Planning Award for Student Project, Planner of the Year, and Lifetime Achievement Award.The city received its award in the first category. Knoxville's Vision Plan entry was judged on criteria that included originality and innovation, quality, comprehensiveness, effectiveness and public participation among other standards. The Outstanding Planning Award for a Plan is awarded for a document that demonstrates innovative planning and at the same time is simple to understand and can be easily adopted for use in other communities.

Comments about the plan by the award judges included:
"Comprehensive, innovative, and addresses sub-areas on their own merits"
"As a package, the vision plan and action plans are well-done"
"As a planner, when reading a plan you think about implementation tools, policies, and partnerships. This plan addresses that head-on and follows up with tools in a timely manner to keep momentum"
"Excellent analysis of all available resources with respect to this historical area's vital importance"

Winning an Outstanding Planning Award means the South Waterfront Vision Plan will be nominated for a national American Planning Association Award, to be presented in Las Vegas in 2008. "It's great for our city to be recognized by this award," said Mayor Bill Haslam. "The South Waterfront Vision Plan is a quality project, and this recognition reflects the time and effort devoted to it by people who care about their community. We still have a lot of work in front of us because the true test of a plan's worth is to make it reality."Several agencies and consulting firms worked with the city in developing the Vision Plan including the Knoxville-Knox County Metropolitan Planning Commission; the Knoxville Regional Transportation Planning Organization; Knoxville's Community Development Corporation and the lead consulting firm, Hargreaves Associates.