FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Date: April 17, 2023
Contact: Ryan McCauley, 650-772-3644, rmccauley@openspace.org
Los Altos, CA – The Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District has received the Award of Excellence for Public Outreach in recognition for work done on the Purisima Multimodal Access Project from the American Planning Association (APA), California Chapter, Northern Section Awards Program. The project evaluated existing parking, access and visitation at Purisima Creek Redwoods Open Space Preserve in order to identify strategies to implement through a multi-pronged and multi-phased approach to best address parking and traffic issues, manage visitation and increase greener modes of transit by offering a range of access.
“Equitable and inclusive public participation in the planning process was paramount to the Purisima Multimodal Access Project team,” Planning Manager Jane Mark said. “We employed a wide variety of virtual and in-person activities to ensure the greatest reach, gathering broad perspectives over the year-long phased public and stakeholder engagement approach that encompassed 36 individual engagement opportunities, all while overcoming the limitations of COVID-19.”
Instrumental to the project team’s robust and wide-ranging stakeholder approach was the focused effort to establish new relationships and expand existing relationships with multiple organizations and potential partners, including reaching out to the historically underserved local Spanish-speaking community and farm workers living in the coastal San Mateo County communities and procuring a language specialist to provide translation and interpretive services.
The Purisima Multimodal Access Project is now qualified to be considered for the Award of Excellence for Public Outreach at the state-level California APA Chapter Awards. Nomination announcements are expected to be released by the end of May 2023. This is the sixth APA award Midpen has won in recent years including first place in the Award of Excellence for Transportation Planning at the APA sectional and state-level awards for the Rancho San Antonio Open Space Preserve Multimodal Project in 2022, first place for the Award of Excellence for Public Outreach at the APA sectional-level awards and second place for the Award of Merit for Public Outreach at the APA state-level awards for La Honda Open Space Preserve Public Access Working Group in 2021, and second place in the Award of Merit in Innovation in Green Community Planning at the APA sectional-level awards for Midpen’s Climate Action Plan in 2019.
For more information about the Purisima Creek Redwoods Multimodal Access Project, please visit openspace.org/pcr-multimodal.