IN THIS ISSUE
Planning Board Recommends Approval of ACI Application Request
Community Shop Fixing Bikes and More; Open House March 15
Students Introduced to Place Game Concept
Support Sought for Downtown Omaha Signage Project
Neighborhood Grant Program Roundup, Help Sessions Available
Story Ideas Sought for “The Green Issue”
Green Homes: Indoor Water Use
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| The Dundee Theater, 4952 Dodge St., is located in the area that’s on its way to becoming the city’s first Area of Civic Importance. |
Planning Board Recommends Approval
of ACI Application Request
A section of Dodge Street in Omaha’s historic Dundee neighborhood is on its way to becoming the city’s first Area of Civic Importance (ACI).
On March 5, the Omaha Planning Board voted 6-0 to recommend approval of the creation of an ACI along Dodge Street between 49th and 51st streets. The purpose of the ACI designation, a zoning overlay, is to preserve and strengthen a sense of place in image-forming parts of the city. It’s part of the zoning code revisions and additions package passed by the Omaha City Council in August 2007 to improve the quality of the natural and built environments throughout the metro.
The Dundee Memorial Park Association (DMPA) requested the ACI designation. “This area of Dundee includes a unique mix of architectural styles and uses, some of which date back to the early portion of the previous century,” said Marty Myers, DMPA president. It includes the Dundee Theater at 4952 Dodge St., Omaha’s last single screen theater.
Staff from the city’s planning department met with the DMPA in January to explain the ACI designation process and answer questions. The group has pledged its willingness to assist the department in working with businesses and homeowners affected by the designation, said Steve Jensen, the city’s planning director.
The Omaha City Council will consider the planning board’s recommendation April 22.
For more information on ACI, visit here and click on “Code Changes, Additions.”
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| The Community Bicycle Shop of Omaha offers kids the opportunity to participate in healthy and productive activities. It also gives them access to affordable parts for bike repair and sustainable transportation. |
Community Shop Fixing Bikes and More;
Open House March 15
Editor’s Note: On April 8, Whole Foods Market, 10020 Regency Circle, will donate 5 percent of the day’s net sales to the Community Bicycle Shop of Omaha.
Neighborhood change is brewing in a red brick building on Omaha’s N. 33rd Street.
The structure, located in the heart of the Gifford Park Neighborhood Association, is the home of the Community Bicycle Shop of Omaha. Its founding “proprietor” is a somewhat unlikely candidate – a college student from Austin, Texas, who’s pursuing his nursing degree at nearby Creighton University.
“Bikes are beautiful,” said Emerick Huber, who currently serves as chair of the shop’s board of directors. “I started out helping kids fix their bikes in my driveway. I knew we really had something when they started showing up at my house to wait for me to get home.”
In 2006 at a community garden youth day event, Huber talked with neighborhood leaders about the possibility of opening a community bike shop - a place where kids could participate in healthy and productive activities while gaining access to affordable parts for bike repair and sustainable transportation.
Gifford Park embraced the concept. A site at 525 N. 33rd St. was secured with a rent structure of $1 per year, teams of students from Central High School and Duchesne Academy of the Sacred Heart began refurbishing the building, and volunteers from Creighton University’s Community Economic Development Law Clinic helped the group gain nonprofit status and establish its inaugural board.
Today, the shop’s mission is threefold - to create a safe, positive environment for learning the basics of bicycle mechanics, to build community and to promote cycling. Its staff is a diverse group of volunteers ranging from medical students to retirees and everything in between. Its inventory of bikes, tools and parts is a mix of donations and castoffs literally plucked from the streets before they become landfill. And, its impact on its physical environment is not going unnoticed.
“Our vision for the Gifford Park neighborhood is to promote a healthy environment for all, whether you live here or are passing through,” said Chris Foster, a neighborhood leader. “The Bike Shop offers many truly positive and healthy activities that add a positive, healthy street life component to our business district.”
Anyone with a bad tire can get a patch kit for free. For those without bikes, one can be earned by completing a program of six hours of community service and three hours of bicycle-related service. Fresh, healthy food options are set out for kids who stop by for brake maintenance or, more often, a chance to talk. Building mentoring relationships with neighborhood youth via the how-tos of bicycle mechanics is one of the shop’s most important by-products.
“A lot of times it’s not about the bike,” Huber said. “Some of these kids don’t have anyone to connect with – we’re here to provide emotional as well as mechanical support.”
As the shop prepares for the coming season, its goals for 2008 are refining safety protocols, managing a growing volunteer base and putting the final touches on building improvements. A freshly-painted message on the back side of the shop’s front door – surrounded by the names of its patrons and volunteers - is one of those touches. It simply reads, “A bicycle is a curious thing: its passenger is its engine.”
The Community Bicycle Shop of Omaha is open Wednesdays from 6 to 8 p.m. and Saturdays from noon to 4 p.m. The organization will host an open house Saturday, March 15, from 5 to 7 p.m. The goal, Huber said, is to raise friends as well as funds.
For more information, visit www.omahabike.org.
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| “Cities, Culture and Community: The Art and Improvisation of City Planning” is using the history of New Orleans - from its role as a port city through the rise of the jazz culture and the impact of Hurricane Katrina – to help Omaha students examine the factors that affect a city’s growth and development. |
Students Introduced to Place Game Concept
When Omaha Performing Arts brought the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra to the Holland Performing Arts Center for a series of performances last month, students from throughout the metro did more than enjoy the show. They were challenged to think about their city, how it grows and changes over time, and the importance of adding their voices to this process.
The activities are part of an Arts Exploration Project that’s giving teachers and students an opportunity to extend the educational experience into their classroom and connect the arts to other curriculum concepts. “Cities, Culture and Community: The Art and Improvisation of City Planning” is using the history of New Orleans - from its role as a port city through the rise of the jazz culture and the impact of Hurricane Katrina - to examine the factors that affect a city’s growth and development.
“The arts offer such a wonderful springboard for students to learn more about the world and the community of which they are a part,” said Michael Miller, education manager at Omaha Performing Arts. “At Omaha Performing Arts, we strive to create multilayered learning opportunities for students and educators to discover history, cultural traditions, philosophies and other complex ideas through music, dance, theater and other performing arts. This ‘Art & Improvisation of City Planning’ project starts with discovering jazz and its origins, and then goes much deeper and broader to challenge young people to recognize the connections between cultures and cities and how they might be a part of it all.”
After attending one of the orchestra’s February performances, the students have begun taking a look at Omaha – its growth, the challenges it faces and the tools that can help it become a stronger community.
Enter the Place Game, a free service of Omaha by Design. The workshop is an organized way of planning improvements to any neighborhood by listening to the people who use its public spaces.
Later this month, Omaha by Design will take its Place Game workshop to Crestridge Elementary School, Girls Inc., Skinner Magnet Center and Westside Middle School. The students at each location will explore a specific site there, taking note of how it looks and feels as well as how it’s used. A team of Omaha by Design’s Place Game facilitators will then lead a discussion of what the students liked and disliked about each site, and what three things they could do to improve the site. Following the discussion, the students will be asked to either illustrate or write down their suggestions. The suggestions will be compiled and featured on Omaha by Design’s web site later this spring.
“We’re excited about introducing the concepts outlined in the Place Game workshop to a younger audience,” said Teresa Gleason, program manager at Omaha by Design. “It’s never too early to learn how you can become an advocate for positive change in your community.”
Miller said he hopes the Place Game exercise will help the students think about ways to approach their larger assignment, which is creating proposals for how to improve their neighborhoods and the city as a whole. These proposals will be on display at Omaha Performing Arts’ annual Day of the Arts celebration Sunday, May 4, at the Holland Center.
Omaha by Design conducts Place Game workshops from March through October. There is no charge for the service. The host organization is responsible for securing a location for the workshop and recruiting participants. For more information or to schedule a workshop in 2008, contact Teresa Gleason at 402.342.3458 or teresa@omahabydesign.org.
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| The proposed comprehensive signage system consists of three components - pedestrian destination panels, pedestrian maps and vehicular signs. With the pedestrian signs and maps, color will be used to signify one of five code destination categories: Omaha, Cultural, Public, Open Space and Transit. |
Support Sought for
Downtown Omaha Wayfinding Project
Editor’s Note: This is the fourth in a continuing series of entries from the first Omaha Catalogue of Urban Design Philanthropy, a compendium of strategic giving opportunities that focus on the city’s natural and built environments. The Omaha Catalogue was published in December 2007 by Omaha by Design and the Omaha Community Foundation. It has attracted donations from Omaha’s philanthropic community at both the foundation and individual level, including a $10,000 gift to the Big Garden and a $25,000 gift to the South 24th Street Tree of Life Project. For more information on how to donate to a project, contact Connie Spellman, director of Omaha by Design, or Sara Boyd, vice president of the Omaha Community Foundation, at 402.342.3458.
On any given day, the streets and sidewalks of downtown Omaha are filled with thousands of locals and visitors. A growing number are living and working in the vicinity, while others may have traveled across states and continents to take in the city’s list of first-rate attractions.
What’s missing from this human mix is a comprehensive signage system that meets the pedestrian and motorist needs of this diverse group and reflects Omaha’s image as a premier Midwestern city.
Enter the Downtown Omaha Wayfinding Project. Spearheaded by the Mayor’s Office and the City of Omaha Department of Planning, the project was developed by the internationally renowned Joel Katz Design Associates in conjunction with input from local stakeholder groups. Its goals are fivefold:
- To help people find their way around a physical environment with which they might be unfamiliar;
- To reveal a deeper understanding and new possibilities within an environment a person may be somewhat familiar with;
- To enhance the perception of Omaha across a broad and diverse group of audiences;
- To support and encourage a more intensive use of downtown resources; and
- To be flexible and expandable to other areas of the city.
The Katz firm has completed the research, documentation and analysis phase; the conceptual and schematic design phase; and the design development document. Funding for these phases was provided by the City of Omaha.
The proposed system consists of three components - pedestrian destination panels, pedestrian maps and vehicular signs. With the pedestrian signs and maps, color will be used to signify one of five code destination categories: Omaha, Cultural, Public, Open Space and Transit. Among the planned features on the pedestrian maps are “You are here” markers, parking structures to help visitors return to their cars and recommended walking streets.
The total estimated cost for fabricating and installing the system is $450,000 to $500,000. Cost estimates are also available for smaller components of the project. For example, the estimated cost of assembly for all of the pedestrian signs is $6,900. The estimated cost for all of the gateway vehicular signs is $62,000, and the estimated cost for the remainder of the vehicular signs is $89,000.
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Neighborhood Grant Program Roundup, Help Sessions Available
It’s grant season for neighborhood groups in Omaha. Below is a roundup of funding opportunities available to neighborhoods, along with information on a pair of March workshops designed to help those interested with the application process.
Neighborhood Innovation Awards
The Neighborhood Innovation Awards, launched by the Omaha Community Foundation (OCF) in 2008, strive to increase residents’ involvement and pride in their neighborhood by:
- Building on strengths the neighborhood currently possesses
- Funding and supporting sustainable projects that build neighborhood capacity and continue to develop leadership
- Encouraging the development of creative and innovative ideas that enrich the neighborhood and the lives of its residents
- Funding projects that strive to move beyond a one-day event or physical building projects toward longer term projects that will inspire residents to come together and make their neighborhood a safer, more close-knit place to live
The OCF Grant Committee will look for project proposals that meet the following criteria:
- Involvement – residents are active in identifying neighborhood concerns and work together to create, implement and follow through on a plan to address these concerns
- Investment – the finished product is a long-term contribution to the improvement of the neighborhood and to the lives of its residents
- Innovation – residents lead a project that is “outside-of-the-box” and will revitalize their neighborhood
- Impact – project creates a sense of pride among the residents and has viable, lasting effects on the community
Available grants include capacity-building grants up to $5,000 distributed over a period of three years and leadership grants up to $10,000 distributed over a period of three years.
The application deadline is May 1. For more information, visit http://www.omahacf.org/page15387.cfm.
Mutual of Omaha’s Neighborhood Grant Program
Eligible neighborhood associations can apply for grants to fund projects that strengthen resident participation and promote neighborhood development within at least one of the following categories:
- Beautification/Identity
- Crime Prevention/Safety
- Education
- Health and Wellness
- Parks and Recreation
- Restoration
The maximum for grant requests is $5,000. All neighborhood organizations listed in the City of Omaha’s Neighborhood Group Directory are eligible to apply online at www.mutualofomaha.com/about/corporate_support. Grant applications are due by Monday, March 31. The Mutual of Omaha neighborhood grant committee will review applications and notify applicants the first week of June.
Mayor Mike Fahey’s 2008 Neighborhood Grant Program
Information on Mayor Mike Fahey’s 2008 Neighborhood Grant Program is set for distribution the week of March 17. The president of each neighborhood association will receive a packet.
Workshops Available
For those who need help with their grant applications, the Neighborhood Center for Greater Omaha – in conjunction with the Omaha Community Foundation, the Mutual of Omaha Foundation and the City of Omaha’s Office of the Mayor – will host two workshops this month. The schedule is as follows:
Saturday, March 15
9 to 11 a.m.
Neighborhood Center for Greater Omaha
115 S. 49th Ave.
Monday, March 24
5:30 to 7:30 p.m.
Neighborhood Center for Greater Omaha
115 S. 49th Ave.
Grant providers and “coaches” will help participants develop a plan, and review and edit applications. They will also offer suggestions. These individuals will not write any grant applications, and computers will not be available.
Those planning to attend should bring their materials, ideas and draft applications to the workshop. For more information, contact the Neighborhood Center at 402.561.7582.
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Story Ideas Sought for “The Green Issue”
Are you reducing your impact on the earth’s resources in a substantial way? We want to know about it!
Omaha by Design is currently seeking story ideas for “The Green Issue,” a special edition of Designline that will be published in 2008. “A sustainable community actively seeks a balance between its built and natural environments,” said Connie Spellman, director of Omaha by Design. “We want to showcase local projects that are helping transform Omaha into a green city.”
ObD is looking for metro area businesses, organizations and individuals who are reducing energy consumption, waste generation and non-native landscaping; re-using materials; and building lasting, efficient structures. Local efforts to improve air and water quality are also sought.
To be considered for inclusion in “The Green Issue,” please send a brief description of your project, along with your name and contact information, to Teresa Gleason at teresa@omahabydesign.org. For more information, call Gleason at 402.342.3458.
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Green Homes: Indoor Water Use
Editor’s Note: This is the second in a continuing series of articles written or compiled by Daniel Lawse, energy outreach coordinator with the Neighborhood Center for Greater Omaha. Lawse also co-chairs the Green Omaha Coalition’s Green Neighborhood Council. The Green Omaha Coalition is dedicated to promoting a healthy, sustainable community through partnerships, policy and smart solutions. Omaha by Design is a founding partner of the Green Omaha Coalition.
By Daniel Lawse
The average person in Nebraska uses about 100 gallons of water each day in his or her home. That means a four-person household uses about 400 gallons of water a day. If that sounds like a lot, it is! Imagine if you had to carry 100 plastic one-gallon milk jugs from your house to the Missouri River to fill each day in order to quench your daily water needs. This doesn’t even take into consideration the time you would spend boiling and purifying all that nice “clean” river water. If we each had to haul the water we use in a day, our daily water use would be dramatically reduced.
Fortunately for us, we have a public water system that delivers clean, drinkable water to us with the turn of the tap. Because we get our water so easily, we often take it for granted and, consequently, use more than is necessary for many of our daily tasks. There are many free, easy, low-cost ways to reduce our indoor water consumption, which can also save a substantial amount of money and resources over time. Consider, for instance, the breakdown (below) of our typical daily water use and accidental waste.
Average indoor water use per person: 100 gallons/day
Toilets: 26%
Clothes Washers: 22%
Showers: 17%
Faucets: 16%
Leaks: 14%
Other Domestic Uses: 2%
Baths: 2%
Dishwashers: 1%
Leaks
Up to 14% of all water use in your home comes from leaks. A drip every second from a faucet can lead up to 1,600 gallons of water each year. A leaky toilet can waste as much as 200 gallons each month.
- Check for leaks: Turn off all water in your home. Write down the reading on your water meter. Wait one hour. See if your water meter has changed. If it has changed, you have a leak!
- Toilets: Drop a few drops of food coloring into the toilet tank. Check in 15 minutes and again in 30 minutes. If you see food coloring in the toilet bowl, you have a toilet leak.
Bathrooms
Over 50% of all indoor water use occurs in the bathroom.
- Turn off water when brushing your teeth, washing your face and shaving.
- Install a 0.5 gallon per minute (gpm) maximum bathroom faucet aerator. Cost: $4. Savings: Greater than $15 per year.
- Install a low-flow showerhead, which provides the same or greater pressure with less water. Look for 1.75 gpm models. The standard is 2.5 gpm max, so get at least a 2.0 gpm or lower. Cost: Less than $10. Savings: Greater than $15 per person each year.
- Take shorter showers. If you lose track of time in the shower, there is a “Shower Coach” water-proof five-minute sand timer that sticks to your shower wall. Cost: $3. Savings: Greater than $10 per year.
- Install a shower on/off valve. This low-cost device lets you reduce the water flow while shampooing or lathering soap without affecting the perfect temperature you spent so long coaxing. Cost: $4. Savings: Greater than $15 per person each year.
- Install a toilet sink that takes the place of the lid on the back of your toilet. This allows you to use clean water to wash your hands, which then goes into the toilet tank to be used the next time you flush your toilet.
- If you have an older toilet, consider replacing it. Older toilets can use more than 5 gallons per flush (up to 7.5 gpf). New models use no more than 1.6 gpf.
Kitchens
If you have a dishwasher, use it. Washing by hand can use up to 20 gallons per washing, whereas newer dishwashers use as little as 5-10 gallons per load.
- Wash only full loads of dishes. Most new dishwashers do not need to have the dishes rinsed. Just scrape food scraps into your compost bucket and place your dishes in the dishwasher.
- If you need to wash dishes by hand, fill up two sinks - one for washing and the other for rinsing.
- Instead of dumping good water down the drain, leftover water from your metal or glass water bottle can be put into a watering can for thirsty plants next time you water.
- Install a three-way kitchen sink aerator. This aerator has an on/off lever, a full stream option for filling containers, and a spray option for hand and dishwashing. Cost: $4. Savings: Greater than $15 each year.
Clothes Washing
Wash only full loads of laundry. This alone can save you as much as 1,000 gallons each month.
- Wash clothes in cold water. Up to 90% of all energy used to wash your clothes comes from heating your water. Most detergents work just as well in cold water.
- If you are in the market for a new clothes washer, look for a high-efficiency, front-loading washer. Front-loading models can cut water use in half and energy use by one-third compared to a top-loading model.
Many of the water-efficient products are sold online. I have found www.efi.com to be a useful resource in the consumer division. Use promotional code: CMC for 10% off your next purchase. Other places to check are www.amconservation.com and www.niagaraconservation.com.
If you have questions or comments about how to green your home or would like to see a specific topic covered in the Green Homes column, contact Daniel Lawse at livesimply93@gmail.com.
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