Auburn – �鶹��Ƶ

Cultural Neighborhood Mapping

Victor Manzanilla — Wed, 01 Nov 2023 03:38:06 +0000

This is part of a year-long engagement with this project. During the fall quarter, students will identify and summarize available data to help describe Auburn’s 5 neighborhoods. Students will conduct stakeholder interviews, and will identify aspects of shared identity and diversity. Students will create a community profile of each of Auburn’s 5 neighborhoods to support community engagement in Auburn.

Livable City Year Contact Info
Teri Thomson Randall
Program Manager
terir@uw.edu
206.221.9240

University Faculty Contact
India Ornelas
Health Services
Professor
iornelas@uw.edu
206-685-8887

Local Government / Community Contact
Erika Klyce

Business-to-business, Auburn business collaboration

Victor Manzanilla — Wed, 01 Nov 2023 03:38:06 +0000

This multi-pronged project will enable Auburn’s residents and local businesses to connect with each other. Students will develop a website and mobile application to gain information about local businesses and buy products and services. The project will also include a marketing component, helping local businesses to better advertise to a wider audience.

In the fall of 2016, the City of Auburn and University of Washington collaborated
together to work on the Buy Local Project. The Buy Local project was developed
in order to respond to the loss of sales tax revenue and to stimulate the local
economy of Auburn. The overall goal of the Buy Local Project is to create a robust,
searchable online database, known as the Auburn Business Collaboration (ABC)
database. The database will essentially consist of a catalogue of local businesses
in Auburn. This will allow businesses to search for local suppliers in Auburn rather
than taking their business outside of Auburn, generating more sales tax revenue
for the City of Auburn to put towards city projects as needed.
To assist in achieving this goal, the City of Auburn utilized student assistance for
two separate projects. The first project asked students to survey a sample of local
businesses in order to populate data to allow for testing of the database’s coding
and framework, while the second project asked students to aid in developing the
website design.
This report will provide a clear and concise description of the work that both
student teams did. Each section is dedicated to one of the two main projects. Each
section includes a description of the teams’ work, the results of their work, and
further recommendations and considerations for the City of Auburn.

Homelessness Assessment

Victor Manzanilla — Wed, 01 Nov 2023 03:37:52 +0000

The purpose of this project is to develop new analysis tools to assess the size, location, and change in Auburn’s homeless populations. Students will assess current practices and strategies used by Auburn and other municipalities, and describe potential new tools appropriate for Auburn.

Livable City Year Contact Info
Teri Thomson Randall
Program Manager
terir@uw.edu
206.221.9240

University Faculty Contact
Kyle Crowder
Sociology
Professor
kylecrow@uw.edu
(206) 616-1205

Local Government / Community Contact
Jeff Tate

Connectivity Element for Comprehensive Plan

Victor Manzanilla — Wed, 01 Nov 2023 03:37:51 +0000

School cafeterias generate a significant amount of wasted food. An estimated 30 to 50 percent of edible food in schools is not eaten by students and is instead sent to landfills or composting facilities. The purpose of this project is to work with Auburn School District to gather and analyze data from schools in the Auburn School District on current cafeteria and kitchen solid waste to inform a pilot School Food Share Program and to help identify effective waste reduction strategies. Students will suggest actions schools could take to reduce and recycle overall waste, including wasted food, and will offer recommendations for what could be donated from schools as edible food products. This project calculated current lunchtime trash, recycling, and compost rates in elementary, middle and high schools in Auburn School District, and evaluated current food waste patterns to determine if wasted food could be rescued and reallocated to feed students or community members experiencing food insecurity. Waste audits at 15 Auburn schools were performed. The following process was followed to calculate current and potential lunchtime recycling rates in each school: weighing and recording bags of trash, recyclable materials, and compostable materials received from lunchrooms and kitchens in order to determine the current pre-sort lunchtime rate; sorting each item from those bags into its correct
receptacle; and weighing and recording the correctly sorted bags to determine the potential post-sort rate.

Livable City Year Contact Info
Teri Thomson Randall
Program Manager
terir@uw.edu
206.221.9240

University Faculty Contact
Deb Hinchey
Public Health
Professor

Local Government / Community Contact
Kathleen Edman

Aurburn Alleyway

Victor Manzanilla — Wed, 01 Nov 2023 03:36:28 +0000

Our project involves the redesign of the alley located between the Auburn Avenue Theater and Auburn Arts and Culture Center and the surrounding landscape area to provide the community with functional spaces that relates to the programmatic components of adjacent businesses. Envisioned is a revitalization action plan that would produce a model for public gathering, public art and other programmed uses and contribute to the revitalization of downtown Auburn.

The goal of this project was to provide the City of Auburn with a designed plan for
a central alleyway in their downtown. Our partners at the city asked us to consider
different ways to activate the space: how to establish character and placemaking,
as well as to provide social and environmental functions. We established several
objectives for the design after our first meeting. Our goals included the creation
of an alleyway space that fits its historical downtown context while providing
flexible outdoor space that could be used for arts-related programming, as well as
provide space for sitting, eating, and gathering. In addition, we hoped to add green
space to Auburn’s downtown and manage stormwater runoff through Low Impact
Development (LID) practices.
As students, our personal goals were to complete this project in a professional
way and to provide Auburn with a design that could be built. To help us craft as
professional a project as possible, we enlisted the help of two landscape architects
to act as our mentors and guide us through the professional process of a landscape
architecture firm. This process entailed a period of analysis where we located our
site within the context of Auburn’s history, geography, transportation systems,
and local businesses. The analysis then informed three concept designs, which we
presented to the city at our first meeting. Based on their feedback, we combined
aspects of the concepts they liked most into a single design. Their feedback on that
design informed our final design. After finalizing the design, we worked to create
compelling images, diagrams, and research to help the city promote this design to
stakeholders and raise funding for its construction. By the end of the quarter, we
provided the city with a comprehensive report containing a critical analysis of the
site, a schematic design, design details, and strategies for implementation.

Livable City Year Contact Info
Teri Thomson Randall
Program Manager
terir@uw.edu
206.221.9240

University Faculty Contact
Jeff Hou
Built Environment
Faculty Advisor
jhou@u.washington.edu
206.543.7225

Local Government / Community Contact
Julie Kreuger

Assessment of Auburn Task Force on Homelessness Recommendations

Victor Manzanilla — Wed, 01 Nov 2023 03:36:06 +0000

In November 2015, Mayor Nancy Backus convened Auburn’s task force on Homelessness. They developed a list of recommendations and consensus items on how to address the city’s current condition of homelessness that will be brought to the city council. The overarching purpose of this project is to engage students in assessing these recommendations and developing strategies for carrying them out.

Homelessness is a complex issue that affects a city in its entirety. This project aims
to analyze and evaluate the Mayor’s Task Force on Homelessness and lists potential
action items that could work towards mitigating homelessness in the City of Auburn.
As well as providing a preliminary assessment of each of the 61 action items the
task force identified, we drafted the most applicable and practical action items
into potential policy recommendations. Next, literature was examined concerning
various homelessness policies and applied to the City of Auburn’s context to create
working recommendations for aiding those experiencing homelessness in Auburn.
We propose two overarching sets of policy recommendations based on the action
items developed by the Mayor’s Task Force on Homelessness. The first set of
recommendations seeks to create a campaign that would 1) familiarize the residents
of Auburn with the causes of homelessness and humanize those experiencing
homelessness to gain support for future assistance endeavors and 2) improve
interagency communication between various institutions. This campaign seeks to
combine enhanced public knowledge of situations surrounding homelessness with
a more responsive, integrated social service ecosystem in order to build advocacy
and capacity. The second set of recommendations involves utilizing different
housing policy models to identify space and potential funding to sustain affordable
housing in Auburn.

Livable City Year Contact Info
Teri Thomson Randall
Program Manager
terir@uw.edu
206.221.9240

University Faculty Contact
Kyle Crowder
Sociology
Professor
kylecrow@uw.edu
(206) 616-1203

Local Government / Community Contact
Nancy Backus

Sewer Utility Wastewater Discharge Behaviors

Victor Manzanilla — Wed, 01 Nov 2023 03:36:04 +0000

Improper disposable of fats, oils, and grease (FOG) and “flushable” cleaning wipes can cause clogging issues, and improper disposable of pharmaceuticals can cause downstream environmental issues. Greater amounts of FOG and rags have been identified downstream of large areas of rental housing than of single family residences. The aim of this project will be to determine possible strategies to educate these residents about the issues associated with improper disposal of FOG, “flushable” wipes, and pharmaceuticals.

Livable City Year Contact Info
Teri Thomson Randall
Program Manager
terir@uw.edu
206.221.9240

University Faculty Contact
Scott Meschke
Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences
Professor
jmeschke@u.washington.edu
206-221-5470

Local Government / Community Contact
R. Elwell

Incentives for Establishment of more Healthy Food Alternatives to more Sections of the City

Victor Manzanilla — Wed, 01 Nov 2023 03:36:04 +0000

In 2015, Mayor Backus formed the Blue Ribbon Committee with the goal of
transforming Auburn into the healthiest city in Washington by 2020. This was in
response to a King County assessment, conducted earlier that year, that revealed
that Auburn had low rankings for many health determinants including obesity
and diabetes. In alignment with the city’s goals and through the University of
Washington and Livable City Year program, a team of graduate and undergraduate
students developed a food policy plan that sought to improve community health
outcomes through better nutrition.

Read the final student report delivered to the local gov/community partner.

Livable City Year Contact Info
Teri Thomson Randall
Program Manager
terir@uw.edu
206.221.9240

University Faculty Contact
Richard Conlin
Built Environment
Affiliate Instructor

Local Government / Community Contact
Carol Barker