Program may offer town chance to plan for future
BY MARK ROSMAN
Staff Writer

ENGLISHTOWN - Survive and advance.

No, that is not just the late coach Jim Valvano's advice for teams in the NCAA basketball tournament. It is the hope of Englishtown officials who are trying to sustain their small community in the face of an ever-changing world.

According to information provided by the Monmouth County Planning Board, Englishtown, a community of 0.57 square miles that is completely surrounded by Manalapan, had an estimated population of 1,885 in 2006. There were 688 households that year. The borough's population is estimated to reach 2,399 by 2025.

Getting the borough's disparate groups to work together to best use the town's available resources is a plan that Borough Councilwoman Jayne Carr is hoping to pursue.

Englishtown will get some help in that effort following the acceptance of its application for technical assistance from the American Institute of Architects (AIA) Sustainable Design Assessment Team (SDAT) program. Englishtown is one of eight communities in the United States that will receive SDAT assistance under the 2007 request for proposals, according to information provided by Carr.

It is the councilwoman's hope that groups such as business owners, residents, municipal officials, Monmouth County representatives, members of the local historical society, and the borough's economic development committee and the events committee will be able to interact and work toward a common goal - the sustainability of Englishtown as an independent municipality.

"All of those entities are currently working independently. We need to get everyone focused on a vision plan and working together toward the same goal. If we can put them all together this town has a chance not just to survive, but to thrive," Carr said, noting that English-town has resources that include the downtown Main Street area, Lake Weamaconk and Sanford Park.

According to information provided by Carr, the SDAT program offered by the AIA is a community assistance program that focuses on the principles of sustainability. SDATs bring teams of volunteer professionals (architects, urban designers, planners, hydrologists, economists, attorneys, and others) to work with community decision makers and stakeholders to help them develop a vision and framework for a sustainable future.

The SDAT process helps communities:

+ understand their structure at various scales and contexts;

+ explore interactions between ecological, sociological, economic and physical systems;

+ visualize potential futures;

+ articulate the qualities of a place;

+ advance the principles of sustainable communities;

+ define the role of stakeholders and players in the public and private sectors.

The SDAT community assistance program provides communities with six components: a preliminary visit; a three-day visit from a multidisciplinary team; a report highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of the community with regard to sustainability, along with the opportunities and obstacles to change; consultations after a three-day visit; a conference call six months after delivery of the assessment report to review progress; and a one-day follow-up visit to complete a secondary assessment, one year after the SDAT report is delivered, according to information about the program that Carr provided.