Karen continues her work as Principal of Strategic Community Solutions LLC (SCS). Her attention this year has focused on clients in the North Texas area and on involvement with the American Planning Association (APA).

The City of Lewisville continues to be a major client. During 2019, SCS assisted this community in a complete overhaul of its development codes and regulations (a project for which Kimley-Horn is the prime consultant). SCS continued to provide assistance to the City and its partners creating a Green Centerpiece. And this year began the process to review and update the Lewisville 2025 plan, which was adopted in 2014. SCS is working with the City staff on this initiative.

Transformation of an aging industrial area into the Collins-Arapaho Transit-Oriented Development/Innovation District was the focus of a project for the City of Richardson this year. Building on a 2017 SCS project (the “East Arapaho/Collins Game Plan” for the Richardson Chamber) and a Vision Plan developed in 2018 by Interface Studio and team, the Kimley-Horn team (including SCS and others) held a Block Party to get the public involved, carried out online surveys and drafted a new zoning ordinance. It’s not often that a city initiates rezoning of 1,200 acres of land and ends up adopting it unanimously with support of the property owners!

A number of other projects also engaged SCS this year, including assistance to the Town of Addison’s successful $70 million bond election and a strategic planning retreat for the Board of Directors of the American Planning Association, Texas Chapter.

Karen enjoyed two APA conferences this year. The national conference was held in San Francisco. It was great to return to the first city Karen really experienced, and to share her connections there with Texas colleagues.

The Texas conference was held in Waco for the first time. It was well-attended and featured great speakers and events (and a visit to the center of Chip and Joanna Gaines’ Magnolia empire!). Karen led a session on “Engaging the Extremes” that was lively and instructive for participants interested in civic engagement. The session on “Flooding Beyond FEMA” that she organized with colleagues from the City of Fort Worth and Halff Associates was also well-received, with one participant calling it “life-changing”!

It was great to receive recognition of projects and teams I’ve been involved with. At the national APA conference, the Texas Chapter received the Chapter of the Year award. While the credit for this award goes to the recent chapter leadership, it was fun to gather the current, future and past Chapter Presidents to celebrate!

At the Waco conference, the City of Lewisville’s plan implementation efforts received the Implementation Gold recognition and the City of McKinney’s ONE McKinney 2040 plan received a Comprehensive Plan award. Projects for which SCS played a smaller role — the Envision Oak Point plan in Plano and the Collins-Arapaho Vision Study in Richardson — were also recognized.

Finally, the Greater Dallas Planning Council’s Urban Design awards recognized the Collins-Arapaho TOD/Innovation District with its Unbuilt Dream/Study Award Honorable Mention.