first speaker 11:30 am
Tim Center, Esq.
Biography
A Florida native and resident of Tallahassee for nearly 25 years, Tim Center is the Director of Sustainable Florida, an alliance of private and public partners committed to economic growth and environmental stewardship to create a higher quality of life for this and future generations.
Sustainable Florida is a program of the Collins Center which is an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization passionately committed to finding smart solutions to important issues. The Collins Center has offices in Miami, Tallahassee and Venice.
Tim graduated with undergraduate and law degrees from Florida State University. He has worked for the Tallahassee and Florida Chambers of Commerce, Florida Legislature and directed the state’s juvenile delinquency prevention efforts for the Department of Juvenile Justice for nearly five years.
Before joining the Collins Center, he served as the Foundation Director for the Florida Home Builders Association where he focused on workforce development issues with young people.
He is a former Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Children’s Home Society and a former Chair of the Citizens Advisory Committee for the Capital Region Transportation Planning Agency (the regional MPO for the Capital area).
Tim and his wife, Amy, are proud parents of a beautiful daughter, Hayden.
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Then at 12:30 pm The role of Mass Transit in community design.
by
Ramond A. Chiaramonte, AICP
Assistant Executive Director
Hillsborough County City-County Planning CommissionTampa, Florida
The philosophy of the famous Philadelphia Planning Director, Edmund Bacon, was unlike most conventional wisdom; he believed that a planner should find the community that he or she loves and dedicate their career to that community. Ray Chiaramonte lived and believed that sentiment for his entire career.
Ray brings many years of public and private planning experience to his role as Assistant Executive Director of the Hillsborough County City-County Planning Commission. The Planning Commission is Florida’s only state mandated long range planning agency serving the four local governments in Hillsborough County, Florida.
Ray's professional experience in planning spans three comprehensive plans and many updates, and includes public and private sector work. At the Planning Commission, Ray worked on the Horizon 2000 Plan in the 1970’s and more recently the Future of Hillsborough Comprehensive Plan for Unincorporated Hillsborough County, the first plan done under Florida’s 1985 Growth Management Act. He has worked on the subsequent plan updates and developed strategies to implement the concepts of the plan. Ray worked on the first neighborhood plans in Tampa, the Hyde Park and Davis Islands plans. He managed the development of the North Dale Mabry Corridor Plan, Kennedy Boulevard Plan, Fixed Guideway Transit Corridor Study, Livable Roadways concept, Scenic Corridor concept, Hillsborough County’s first Vision effort, Urban Service Area concept, legalizing accessory dwelling units, and television outreach programs to educate the community on planning issues. He was named Assistant Executive Director of the Planning Commission in 1996. Ray has been a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners since 1987.
Ray has been at the forefront of the New Urbanist movement since the late 1980s playing an instrumental role in getting the principles of that movement incorporated into planning efforts at both county and neighborhood levels, community planning efforts, and creatively using the plan amendment process to bring about positive change for the community.
In 1996, as an experiment in understanding the underpinnings of the New Urbanist movement, Ray became one of the first residents of Celebration, Florida, commuting to his job in Tampa by van pool which he organized. While living in Celebration, he hosted many tours including a major one in 1997 with Hillsborough County elected officials, citizens, and developers resulting in changes to Hillsborough County’s plan and regulations governing development design. When Hillsborough County’s first New Urbanist community, West Park Village, opened in 2000, Ray and his family moved back to Hillsborough County and took up residence there.
As a result of his personal and professional experiences, he has become an expert in the physical design of New Urbanist communities. Ray is a member of the Congress of New Urbanism and was elected the first vice-chairman of the American Planning Association’s New Urbanism Division. As vice-chair, Ray played a major role in the development and creation of an APA award winning CD entitled An Introduction to New Urbanism, designed to educate elected officials and the public on the basic concepts of New Urbanism. In April 2007, Ray was elected chairman of APA’s New Urbanism Division. He is a frequent presenter at national, state, and regional conferences and regularly takes advantage of opportunities to address students and civic organizations on diverse planning related issues including the relationship of land use and transportation.
Ray earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Social Behavioral Science from the University of South Florida in 1982 with overall emphasis on Planning, Political Science, and Public Administration. He has furthered his education through attendance at numerous national, state and regional conferences. Ray has served as a judge for the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council and the Orange County Awards Programs, as well as playing a key role in Hillsborough County’s own 25 year old design awards program. He has served on the Board of Directors of the Ybor City Rotary Club and was honored for his environmental work in 1991, as Rotarian of the year. He also served on the Board of Directors for Leadership Hillsborough. Ray created and hosted a successful national Telly award winning television show called Beyond Today on local government television for almost 10 years and presently serves as the Planning Reporter for Hillsborough County government on special productions.
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