SCUP Excellence in Planning for an Established Campus, Merit Award

Clifton Community Partnership Urban Design Guidelines at Emory University, Atlanta, GA and Goody Clancy, Boston, MA

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Emory University and its surrounding neighborhood collaborated to create the “Clifton Corridor Urban Design Guidelines” and build on and reinvigorate the area’s heritage to meet 21st-century needs and aspirations. The Clifton Community Partnership is a vehicle for managing growth and transforming its impacts into opportunities for community building and improving quality of life throughout the Clifton community, the three-mile radius surrounding the heart of Emory’s campus.

Bryan Cooke, Executive Director of the Clifton Community Partnership says, “The plan confirms the physical realm as a large part of the overall strategy and confirms Emory’s role as crucial to the development of the community.”

The guidelines contain direction for shaping a more livable future and recognize the need for a robust response to the corrosive impacts of suburban growth; establish the value of a shared vision inspired by widely diverse perspectives coming together; and explore nontraditional strategies to accommodate growth.

Several catalyst projects now underway were coordinated with the guidelines to produce near-term results establishing good future precedents.

The design guidelines promote walkable streets, healthy natural systems, and preservation of traditional neighborhoods to celebrate a community with strong missions and values.

The guidelines define three distinct areas that merit different planning approaches: neighborhood preservation; natural restoration; and corridor enhancement. They address means to reduce heavy traffic currently eroding community character, threatening the safety of pedestrians and bicyclists, hampering access, and causing environmental harm.

The guidelines also call for enhanced protection of the historic Olmsted-designed neighborhoods surrounding much of the Emory campus to safeguard community character. The guidelines help protect significant areas in the Atlanta region by adding interpretive signage, and restoring degraded natural areas, reducing stormwater impacts.

The guidelines improved the pedestrian network by buffering sidewalks from traffic and improving visibility at dangerous crosswalks. 

Through these guidelines and future products of this collaboration, the partnership is building a model for other university communities across the country and laying the groundwork for benefits in their own community that will represent an enduring legacy.

The jury said, “ . . . a collaborative vision for a university community . . . great strategic planning . . .”

Project Team: Emory University and Goody Clancy with Kittelson + Associates Inc.; and Dovetail Consulting