COMPLETE STREETS PROGRAM NOMINATION PROPOSALS DUE TO DAHP BY OCTOBER 3

Jurisdictions (cities and counties) interested in requesting that the State Historic Preservation Officer (SHPO) nominate their community for participating in the State’s Complete Streets program, must submit their request and nomination support materials to DAHP by 5:00 pm Monday, October 3 for consideration. Established by the State Legislature in 2015 (RCW 47.04.320), the program is intended to “encourage city and county governments to adopt complete streets policy; these policies mandate that cities and counties plan, design, operate and maintain their streets while considering all transportation users and modes.” The Program is administered by the State Transportation Improvement Board (TIB). To be eligible to participate in the program, jurisdictions must be pre-qualified by TIB by demonstrating adoption of a Complete Street policy. TIB has selected DAHP as one of 4 state agencies and 5 non-profit organizations to serve as a “nominating” entity. That means that DAHP can “nominate” up to 10 eligible jurisdictions to TIB to be included in the State’s Complete Streets program and compete for available grant funding. In selecting the 10 jurisdictions to nominate to TIB, the SHPO will be looking to make sure the jurisdiction supports a local Main Street program and/or is a Certified Local Government (CLG). In addition, DAHP has developed the following tips and guidance for submitting requests to the SHPO to be nominated to the Complete Streets program. Please read the guidance carefully and contact Greg Griffith for any questions or clarifications. The SHPO and the Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation (DAHP) want to share with you some insights and guidance on the SHPO’s process for reviewing and submitting nominations to TIB on October 21, 2016. If your community (city or county) is interested in participating in the Complete Streets program with an opportunity to receive funding for an appropriate project, please be sure to review the information on the TIB Complete Streets website, and view the TIB August 30 webinar together with the following points: Please review the following points about DAHP’s Complete Streets nomination process: 1)      Take a look at TIB’s webpage with information about the Complete Streets program (http://www.tib.wa.gov/grants/completestreets/CompleteStreets.cfm). From this webpage, you can view the August 30^th one hour webinar on the program as well as links to the MSRC website and Smart Growth America website with more information about Complete Streets. 2)      Once you become acquainted with the material on the webpage and the webinar, it will become evident that this is not a grant application to fund a specific project. Instead TIB has selected four state agencies and five non-profit organizations to nominate qualified jurisdictions (city or county) to TIB for their demonstrated commitment to the Complete Streets ethic. Demonstration of local commitment to the Complete Streets ethic is very important. 3)      Once you review the nomination form, you will see that it is a short, straightforward form in Excel format. In essence, there are three topics/questions that need to be completed: “Briefly describe what motivates your organization to nominate this agency”; “What indicators of the complete streets ethic have you seen in this agency?”; and “Has your organization been involved in complete streets planning with this agency, if so, how?” 4)      Please keep in mind that in considering the three statements in the nomination form and reiterated in #3 (above), that in this context “organization” refers to DAHP and “agency” refers to the local jurisdiction to be nominated to the Complete Streets program. 5)      DAHP is one of the four State agencies (“organization”) that is authorized to submit nominations on behalf of the eligible local jurisdictions. This means that the nomination forms that DAHP elects to forward to TIB will be signed by State Historic Preservation Officer (SHPO) Allyson Brooks. 6)      DAHP will be relying on prospective jurisdiction as candidates (the “agency”) to help us by drafting required narrative in the nomination form. 7)      It will be important that the most appropriate “agency” and “agency contact” (on page 1) be indicated on the nomination form. This needs to be a city or county official in your jurisdiction who is legally authorized to implement the Complete Streets program and associated projects. 8)      TIB has allotted ten Complete Streets nominations for DAHP to submit to TIB by October 21, 2016. The other nominating agencies/organizations also have nomination allotments. See the TIB website on the other organizations and their allotted number of nominations. 9)      Note: of DAHP’s 10 nomination slots, at least two of those must be of small towns and/or located in Eastern Washington. 10)   Are you an eligible jurisdiction? The above referenced webpage has a link to the list of eligible jurisdictions (there are currently 54 listed). If your jurisdiction is not on the list and would like to be considered for eligibility to apply for the program, we recommend you contact TIB immediately for direction. 11)   Since DAHP must forward nominations (up to 10) to TIB by October 21^st, we are setting a deadline of Monday October 3^rd at 5:00 pm for the draft nomination documents to be submitted to the agency for our review; comments/edits/revisions; and a final decision by the SHPO as to whether each nomination should be forwarded to TIB for consideration on October 21st. 12)   Note: the SHPO has decided that applications from Certified Local Governments (CLG’s) and/or certified Main Street communities will receive priority for DAHP’s 10 allotted slots for nominating jurisdictions. For a list of communities with certified Main Street programs, visit this DAHP webpage: /main-street-programs. For a list of CLG’s and contact info, visit this DAHP website: /clg-program-participants. 13)   The SHPO and DAHP will also be coordinating our review process and responses with Breanne Durham, Washington State Main Street Program Manager. Breanne can be reached at: BDurham@preservewa.org. 14)   Complete Streets and DAHP? What’s the connection? Plenty. In the Complete Street ethic, the Main Street program, and in historic preservation, streets are more than asphalt funneling the maximum number of cars in the shortest span of time through a community. Rather, the character, quality, appearance, safety, and design of streets are key to healthy, vibrant, and economically strong communities, especially historic downtowns, historic commercial district and other historic neighborhoods…urban and rural. By fostering a range of transportation options, experience has demonstrated that an attractive, safe, and accessible downtown or neighborhood creates places where people want to live, work, and play, in contrast to places where moving cars is the top priority. 15)   In question 3 in the nomination document (“Has your organization been involved in complete streets planning with this agency, if so, how?”) DAHP recommends this would be the most appropriate space to describe how your jurisdiction has supported local Main Street program work and/or local historic preservation efforts. Information that would be useful to share in your narrative are that your jurisdiction… 1)      Has adopted ordinances, policies, plans, planning elements, design guidelines, etc. that supports local efforts to protect cultural and historic resources (buildings, structures, sites, districts, objects, landscapes). 2)      Has a certified Main Street program. 3)      Cooperates and coordinates with the local Main Street program. 4)      Has in-place local planning, environmental review, permitting procedures/processes that consider impacts of proposed projects on cultural/historic properties and downtown revitalization efforts. 5)      If transportation projects have potential to affect cultural/historic properties and downtown revitalization efforts, your jurisdiction has or intends to implement appropriate mitigation. 6)      Has planned/undertaken transportation projects that successfully integrates protection of cultural and historic resources. 7)      Has planned/completed transportation projects that supports downtown revitalization and/or considers the impacts of transportation projects on downtown. 8)      Include an example or two of any of the above. Again, if your jurisdiction would like to be nominated by DAHP to the Complete Streets grant program, please note the advanced 5:00 pm October 3, 2016 deadline to submit a draft nomination for our review and follow-up work. In the meantime, questions should be directed to Greg Griffith at either greg.griffith@dahp.wa.gov or 360-586-3073. Draft nomination documents should be emailed to Greg and the SHPO Allyson Brooks at Allyson.Brooks@dahp.wa.gov. Thank you, we look forward to working from you.