Session Details 

Ambassador Programs as Critical Urban Infrastructure

Cities are meticulously designed physically yet largely unmanaged experientially. This session explores how ambassador programs function as a critical “human layer” in urban systems, shaping safety perception, wayfinding, and overall place experience in real time. Using Downtown Sioux Falls as a case study, we’ll examine how ambassadors act as on-the-ground connectors, data sources, and experience designers, advancing core planning goals like economic vitality and public space activation. Attendees will leave with a practical, scalable framework for integrating ambassador programs into their own communities as a strategic tool, not just a service.

Approaches to Rural & Tribal Transportation Safety

Are You Ready for HULUs? (Highly Unpopular Land Uses)

We are seeing a dramatic growth in local opposition and backlash to wind and solar farms and now data farms, just at a time when the demand for renewable energy and new datacenters are increasing. What is the role of the local planner and what should we be doing now to be ready before the next HULU (highly unpopular land use) permit hits your desk.

Back to the Basics: Bullet Proof Your Public Meetings

This session will blend the basics of the public involvement event with expert-level advice for making your meetings, hearings, workshops, and open houses bulletproof. Strategic Communications staff from HDR Engineering are public relations and community involvement professionals that have mastered and systemized the public involvement process. The presenters will provide considerations and processes for each step of the event planning process – venue, format, content, follow-up and more. Whether you have planned zero or 50 public meetings, you can expect to come away with fresh ideas and best practices to upgrade your public involvement process.

Better Floodplain for Better Outcomes

From the process of identifying an issue, to gathering impacted assesses, projects, and meaningful outcomes it can be a challenge to determine what project(s) may be needed to help elevate and open up planning potential for specific areas impacted by floodplain that may or may not be reflected entirely or partially within a FEMA FIRM. This discussion focuses on the beginning process of starting a few study projects within the City of Sioux Falls that focused on bringing together better data, analyzing the data, and helping different departments get the information they need to plan for the next 50 years.

Beyond Boundaries: Reconnecting Ancestral Lands Through Georgia’s Next National Park

The proposed Ocmulgee Mounds National Park and Preserve is a transformative regional planning effort to reconnect the Muscogee (Creek) Nation to ancestral homelands while advancing Georgia’s first national park. This session explores how planners, Tribal leadership, and public partners developed a strategic framework for 80+ miles of the Ocmulgee River Corridor that integrates Muscogee (Creek) voices, conservation, recreation, infrastructure, and economic development. Attendees will gain insight into structuring Indigenous partnership within complex multi-jurisdictional planning efforts and learn how culturally grounded planning can shape large-scale conservation and community development initiatives.

Building a Roadmap for Proactive Community Development

This panel session explores how communities can move from planning to action using the Hartford, South Dakota, Community Development Plan and the award winning Le Mars, Iowa, Community Development Plan as case studies. Panelists representing local government and consulting partners will share how a 10 to 20 year development framework aligned housing, economic development, and quality-of-place investments. Participants will learn how transparent engagement, data-driven planning, and implementable strategies helped generate development momentum, maintain stakeholder buy in, and produce measurable results. Attendees will leave with replicable tools and approaches to guide proactive community development in communities of all sizes.

Catalyzing Community Planning - East Greeley, CO

Many comprehensive plans and subarea plans like to talk about implementation and how plans lead to concrete achievements by communities in subsequent years. This session focuses on how one planning effort, the East Greeley Subarea Plan, leveraged city resources and connections in the background of the planning effort to launch several catalytic projects to serve East Greeley, a historically disadvantaged set of neighborhoods within the rapidly growing community of Greeley, Colorado. The city launched these catalysts, through funding and subsequent planning and design, while the overall subarea plan came into focus.

Committed to People and Place: Lessons from Old Town Avondale, Arizona

Preserving character while proactively reinvesting in the places that matter most is central to Old Town Avondale's commitment to people and place. Through a holistic community development approach, the city is strengthening its historic core as a vibrant anchor amid rapid regional growth. This session brings together planning, economic development, and law enforcement perspectives to share a three-part framework of community development: Physical, Economic, and Social and Cultural. Attendees will learn how coordinated planning strategies, trust building, and intentional investment foster people first places and apply these lessons in an interactive group exercise.

Connected Lands, Thriving Communities: The Co‑Benefits of Wildlife‑Informed Planning

Cities and counties can play a critical role in planning for sensitive lands and conserving wildlife habitat connectivity. However, these resources are rarely considered in local land use planning efforts and it can be challenging for local decision-makers to prioritize conserving wildlife and natural resources, much less balance other competing priorities. Join our convergence of planning and ecology to learn how local governments can better maintain wildlife habitat connectivity within our built environments. We’ll highlight best practices on how planners and biologists can address land use opportunities at various scales, share several relevant state statutes, and discuss the co-benefits of co-location between wildlife connectivity, housing, transportation, and economic development.

Designing for People First: Human-Centered Design in Parks, Plazas, and Public Spaces

Human Centered Design (HCD) recognizes that successful parks and open spaces rely on strong programs and well designed infrastructure—but are ultimately measured by how people experience and use them. This session introduces HCD as a practical framework that brings lived experience to the forefront of planning and design decisions, translating empathy, observation, and iteration into physical outcomes. Using case examples including plazas, streetscapes and parks master plans, the session demonstrates how human centered approaches complement investment and programming to create inclusive, well used, and authentic public spaces that reflect local identity and support everyday life.

Downtown By Design - Day to Night

This session explores how design-led strategies can help downtowns shift from reactive growth to intentional, people-centered places. In many college and regional hubs, daytime vibrancy contrasts with nightlife that can feel narrow or disruptive. Using case studies from Brookings, SD and Grand Forks, ND, we will share how coordinated investments in mobility, mixed-use development, and placemaking can balance economic energy with a more family-friendly identity. Attendees will gain practical tools to guide private investment, diversify daytime/nighttime activity, and create walkable, inclusive districts that perform.

Ethics! In the Form of A Question?

Ethics! In the Form of a Question? is an interactive session that reintroduces the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP) Code of Ethics and its application in contemporary planning practice. Participants will explore ethics resources from the American Planning Association (APA), review recent ethics inquiry data, misconduct cases, and emerging trends, and examine equity within the Aspirational Principles. Through a Jeopardy-style team game, attendees will apply ethical reasoning to real-world planning challenges and strengthen their ability to integrate integrity, accountability, and equity into daily professional decision-making.

Follow The Numbers: An Analysis of Nonconforming Parcels in Bismarck, ND

Using commonly available tools like Microsoft Excel and GIS, City of Bismarck planning staff analyzed which parcels within the City’s jurisdiction were likely nonconforming and which would return to conformity as the City transitioned to a new Land Development Code. This analysis further visualized the differences between the old and new zoning codes and demonstrated which areas of the City might be most impacted by the new code. While there are likely other ways to perform this type of analysis, this session offers insights into one methodology and advice on how other planners could perform similar reviews of nonconforming parcels.

Forging Ahead (Together): How Community Voices Shape Comprehensive Plans

This session highlights innovative public engagement strategies utilized throughout the Forge Laramie comprehensive planning project in Laramie, Wyoming. Presenters will share creative, hands-on approaches that move beyond traditional outreach to generate meaningful, usable input, and how that input was incorporated into the City’s updated comprehensive plan.

From Crisis to Comeback: Rebuilding Communities from the Inside Out

Communities in crisis must rebuild more than physical spaces—they must restore confidence, strengthen institutions, support local businesses, and reinvest in places and people simultaneously. This session connects NOAH’s Crisis Dogs of Nebraska with Ayres’ REVITALAB: A Downtown Revitalization Workshop to explore how communities move from disruption to recovery and renewal. Together, these approaches demonstrate how healing people, rebuilding institutions, supporting businesses, and reactivating downtown buildings creates the foundation for resilient, thriving communities.

From Public Meetings to Immersive Planning: Using Experience and Storytelling to Improve Community Decisions

Planning is evolving as communities face more complex decisions around growth, housing, and resilience. Traditional engagement methods—public meetings, boards, and reports—often struggle to communicate these issues in a clear and meaningful way. This session introduces immersive planning as a more effective approach, using visualization, storytelling, and experiential tools to help people understand and evaluate choices. Attendees will see how creating an experience—not just presenting information—can improve participation, build trust, and lead to better outcomes. Supporting technologies, including AI-assisted tools, are used to enhance storytelling and dialogue, not replace professional judgment.

Helpful Assistant or Confident Liar? Using AI Without Losing Professional Judgment Garbage In, Gospel Out… and the Challenge of Public Trust

AI is rapidly entering planning workflows as expectations for speed, volume, and quality continue to increase. As a result, AI is becoming less optional and more embedded in daily practice. While it can improve efficiency, it also introduces risks related to accuracy, bias, and transparency. This interactive session helps planners navigate that reality while maintaining professional judgment, ethical responsibility, and public trust through real-world examples and hands-on scenarios.

Heritage Tourism in Planning: Preservation, Place, and Rural Economic Vitality

Let’s explore how planners can include heritage tourism as a practical strategy to connect preservation, economic development, and community identity. Drawing on real-life examples from Great Plains communities, not commonly thought of as tourism destinations, we will discuss how comprehensive plans, downtown plans, zoning, adaptive reuse, historic districts, way finding, event infrastructure, and partnerships can help communities build on existing assets rather than making up new ones. Participants will leave with an “authenticity test” and a set of planning actions they can adapt for small towns, downtowns, and regional destinations across the West.

Housing Hot Takes: Qualitative Observations

Over the past decade, we have conducted housing studies throughout the Midwest. Most of studies include community surveys about people’s needs and preferences. Our database includes years of data with tens of thousands of responses. This session will overview changes we’ve seen through these surveys over time on topics such as preferred housing types, needed price points, supported housing policies, and much more. The data will be supplemented with the presenters’ expert observations and quantitative data over time. The session will include an open conversation with attendees on housing perceptions versus possible realities, and future policy approaches.

Integrating Transportation, Food Systems, and Drought Resilience in Long Range [Transportation] Planning

Transportation, food access, and drought vulnerability are tightly linked across South Dakota and the Plains but are often planned for separately. This session will offer insight into how transportation, food systems, and drought vulnerability/adaptation planning can be integrated with long-range transportation plans. Reviewing several current project examples across these related areas of planning, the session will highlight how food sovereignty and drought resilience efforts closely depend on their relationship to transportation access, mobility, freight, and infrastructure investment. Through case examples and an interactive exercise, participants will develop practical, cross-disciplinary strategies applicable across various western plains planning contexts.

Just Enough and Not Too Much Zoning Flexibility

Local government planners face a common dilemma of trying to fit real-world development proposals into a pre-existing zoning ordinance. We tend to reach for the variance, PUD, or special use permit, but feel a little guilty and promise to fix the ordinance so this doesn’t happen again. This summer, the City of Bismarck, North Dakota, completed its first comprehensive update to zoning in over forty years. Learn about how we are wrangling over 130 PUDs and conditional districts, and how we intend to apply objectivity with intentional release valves in the future.

Large Rural Industrial and Energy Uses - Permitting and Managing

As we see increased energy uses and consolidation of large scale industrial uses, managing and permitting these uses in a responsible manner becomes increasingly important. This session will examine uses, mitigation, how to address these uses in your codes, and how to work with neighbors who may be ""fired up"".

Living Main Streets: Big-Urban Energy, Small-Town Flexibility

How can Main Streets stay vibrant as communities grow, travel patterns shift, and downtown economies evolve? Using Salt Lake City’s Award-winning Main Street transformation as a case study, this session, co-led by the city and design lead for the project, explores how streets can become flexible public spaces that balance pedestrians, bikes, transit, vehicles, events, and business needs. Presenters will share strategies in phased implementation, creative parking strategies, tactical pilots, and close coordination across city departments and stakeholders. Attendees from large cities, small towns, and rural communities will gain practical tools to create Main Streets that feel economically active, locally authentic, and adaptable for decades to come.

Many Voices, One Vision: Scaling Public Engagement for a Regional SS4A Plan in Southeastern South Dakota

This presentation highlights the development of the Southeast Council of Governments’ (SECOG) regional Safe Streets for All (SS4A) Comprehensive Safety Action Plan, created to address rising safety challenges across a diverse, multi jurisdictional region. The project combines collision analysis, public engagement, equity evaluation, and peer policy review to identify high risk corridors and intersections where targeted investments can deliver the greatest safety benefits. Attendees will learn how SECOG applied a Safe System Approach, developed a data driven High Injury Network, and established an implementation ready project prioritization framework that supports local decision making, coordination, and competitiveness for future safety funding.

Mind the Gap: Fencing for Wildlife Movement

In Teton County and the Town of Jackson, development occurs within one of the most ecologically significant landscapes in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, home to migratory elk, mule deer, moose, and other sensitive species. As growth continues, traditional fencing can unintentionally fragment habitat, disrupt movement corridors, and create barriers that affect both wildlife and long-term ecosystem health.

While wildlife-friendly fencing is often associated with rural or open landscapes, its role within urban and developed areas is equally critical. In Jackson’s neighborhoods, commercial areas, and transitional edges, fencing can either maintain or sever the small-scale connections that wildlife rely on to move through fragmented environments. Urban fencing that prioritizes permeability helps reduce wildlife entrapment, supports daily and seasonal movement, and reinforces broader corridor connectivity across the community.

This session focuses on how wildlife-friendly fencing can be implemented at the local level to better align development with the realities of this landscape. Participants will learn key design principles such as permeability, appropriate height and material selection, and techniques to reduce wildlife entrapment, all tailored to local conditions including seasonal migration, snow accumulation, and mixed urban-wildland interfaces.

The session will also highlight emerging regulatory approaches specific to Teton County and Jackson, including standards for wildlife permeability, triggers for bringing nonconforming fencing into compliance, and design considerations for long or continuous fence segments. Emphasis will be placed on practical application, balancing ecological function with landowner needs, maintenance considerations, and enforceability.

Attendees will leave with a clearer understanding of how fencing—particularly within urban contexts—can be designed and regulated to support wildlife movement while accommodating responsible development in one of the region’s most sensitive and valued landscapes.

Planning for Power: Tribal Energy Development in Rural Western Communities

Tribal nations across the West are pursuing energy development as a pathway to sovereignty, economic resilience, and self-determination. Yet planners in adjacent and overlapping jurisdictions often lack the frameworks to engage meaningfully with tribal energy priorities. This session draws on real-world project experience to explore how tribal energy development intersects with rural community planning, land use, and economic development. Attendees will gain practical insight into the regulatory, cultural, and collaborative dimensions of tribal energy projects, along with strategies for building effective government-to-government partnerships that respect tribal sovereignty while advancing shared regional goals.

Planning The Future (reduce size and scope)

Plans shape cities, but culture shapes whether those plans succeed. This session explores the invisible forces—community relationships, public trust, leadership identity, and civic engagement—that determine whether great planning actually takes root. Drawing on concepts from organizational culture, sports, and community development, this session challenges planners to think beyond land use and zoning to consider how they show up, how they communicate, and how they inspire the public to move from complaint to collaboration. Attendees will leave with a refreshed sense of purpose and practical tools for building the cultural conditions that make great places possible.

Putting Infrastructure First: A Statewide Planning Case Study + Panel

Infrastructure readiness is a foundational component of successful community and economic development, yet many communities lack a clear picture of their true infrastructure capacity. This session features a panel discussion and case study of South Dakota’s Infrastructure First initiative, led by the South Dakota Governor’s Office of Economic Development (GOED) in collaboration with planning and infrastructure partners. Attendees will explore how statewide data, multi-agency coordination, and capital improvement planning tools can support site readiness, guide investment decisions, and activate planning at the local, regional, and state levels. Interactive engagement will help participants translate lessons learned into their own planning contexts.

Say It Out Loud: What Your Inner Kid Would Say About Data Centers

Data centers are reshaping communities and raising tough questions about land use, the environment, infrastructure, and local impact. This session takes a different approach. Participants step into the perspective of their “inner kid” to say what we often think but rarely say out loud during a real data center proposal. Through guided role play, they ask instinctive questions, challenge assumptions, and surface blind spots that often go unspoken. Facilitators then move the group from reaction to resolution, focusing on the most difficult issue and turning it into clear, actionable planning strategies. The session offers a fresh way to build partnerships, strengthen decisions, and grow community trust.

Shifting the Line: A Vision for More Efficient Rail Infrastructure

The Rapid City, Pierre and Eastern railyard, located in southeast Rapid City, creates issues with transportation, the environment, and livability. The Railyard Relocation and Railway Configuration Study examines the possibility of relocating the railyard, and constructing a more efficient railway. The study identified and ranked multiple sites for relocation, and include a robust public input process to recommend steps to create a more efficient transportation system.

Spearfish on Becoming a Trail Town

Join a dynamic group of panelists building a more connected Spearfish through trails. The City of Spearfish and Spearfish Trails Coalition (STC), a local non-profit, present a model for effective public-private partnership.

Still Here: Regional Planning in Partnership with American Indian Communities

Meaningful engagement with Tribes and American Indian communities is critical for creating plans and policies that reflect their needs and priorities, uphold sovereignty, and foster respectful partnerships. This session will explore how the Metropolitan Council convened and continues to partner with an American Indian Advisory Council to develop and implement Land, Water, and People Commitments across each of its policy areas. The session will include perspectives from a policy maker, a community leader, and staff on successes and lessons learned.

Targeted Environmental Health Interventions: Lessons from Sioux Falls’ Project NICE and KEEP

Sioux Falls, South Dakota, has transformed neighborhood cleanup into a data-driven, community-powered initiative through Project NICE and Project KEEP. By pairing GIS mapping with hands-on support, the city directs cleanup resources where they are needed most—removing hundreds of tons of debris, engaging volunteers, and keeping nuisance cases steady despite rapid population growth. This model shows how cities can turn environmental challenges into opportunities for healthier, stronger neighborhoods.

The Right Place at the Right Time: Increasing Collaboration to Grow Smarter

The City of Sioux Falls annexes an average of 700 acres of land every year. In this time of increasing costs and tightening budgets it is critical that the city’s growth management strategy align infrastructure timing and location with a long-term vision. This session explores how Sioux Falls identifies land suitable for development over 5-, 10-, and 25-year horizons through multi-departmental collaboration.

There Really is a Better Way to Zone

This session will present the content of a new book on zoning reform titled An Even Better Way to Zone. It will identify five ""thought mistakes"" about how zoning works that have led to unaffordable housing, unsustainable development patterns, inequitable zoning outcomes, and a focus on greenfield development over more sustainable redevelopment -- four key challenges facing today's planners. More importantly, it will present specific implementable examples of zoning reforms that can produce more affordable, sustainable, and equitable development. It will conclude by reviewing how to resolve conflicts between these competing community goals.

TIF Demystified: Strategy, Risk, and Opportunity

This session provides a clear, practical breakdown of Tax Increment Financing (TIF) for professionals involved in development, public finance, and municipal decision-making. We will examine how TIF districts are structured, the legal and financial mechanics that drive them, and how projected increments are leveraged to fund infrastructure and redevelopment. The discussion will also address common risks, including revenue shortfalls, overlapping taxing jurisdictions, and compliance challenges. Through real-world examples, attendees will gain insight into when TIF is most effective, how to evaluate deals critically, and how to align TIF strategy with broader economic development objectives.

Trust is the Method: A Relationship-Centered Approach to Tribal Hazard Mitigation Planning

This session explores trust as a planning method for advancing community resilience. Using the Metlakatla Indian Community’s Tribal Hazard Mitigation and Climate Plan as a case study, it shows how a relationship‑centered approach supported the delivery of a FEMA‑approved, culturally grounded plan on an accelerated timeline. The project illustrates how trust‑based collaboration can function as an innovation—enabling clearer decision‑making and alignment between federal requirements and community priorities. Public‑ and private‑sector planners will leave with clear, practical ways to build trust and guide planning processes toward collaborative, high‑quality outcomes.

Unlocking Hidden Spaces: Grassroots Real Estate as a Catalyst for Downtown Change

Real estate development is often viewed with skepticism in many Main Street circles, yet it can be one of the most powerful tools for revitalization. This lecture reframes the conversation—focusing on how underserved and underutilized properties can become catalysts for transformation when activated through grassroots, community-driven efforts.

Participants will explore how Main Street programs can move beyond the stigma of “big development” and instead embrace small-scale, people-centered property activations that bring vibrancy, equity, and opportunity back into neglected spaces. By combining place-based economic development with creative programming, we’ll demonstrate how communities can reclaim overlooked properties as engines of inclusive growth.

Using a Complete Streets Approach to Forward Horace’s Small-Town, Downtown Neighborhood Plan

This session highlights the Horace Downtown Neighborhood Plan and how a fast-growing community used collaborative planning to envision a vibrant, walkable downtown. Speakers will share the process behind setting a clear vision, engaging residents and stakeholders, and translating ideas into achievable land use, transportation, and placemaking strategies. The session explores balancing growth pressures with small-town character, capitalizing on a Complete Streets approach, and aligning public and private investment. Attendees will gain practical lessons on phasing implementation, coordinating with elected officials, and using neighborhood plans as tools to guide redevelopment, support local businesses, and create downtowns that are resilient and community-centered.

Visualizing Wind Energy Setbacks: A GIS Approach to Better Planning Decisions

Wind energy development requires communities to balance energy goals with land use compatibility, often through setback regulations that are difficult to interpret in ordinance form alone. This session demonstrates how GIS was used in Turner County to translate wind energy setback requirements into clear spatial visualizations. Using buffer analysis and scenario mapping, different regulatory options were mapped to show their real impact on residences, roads, and available land. The presentation highlights how GIS improves understanding of policy implications, supports task force discussions, and enhances decision-making by turning abstract standards into practical, visual tools for planning.

Western Dakota Regional Water System: Planning for Western South Dakota Water Security

This presentation summarizes the creation, strategic framework, and ongoing progress of the Western Dakota Regional Water System (WDRWS) evaluating supplemental water supply from the Missouri River as a foundation of sustainable, resilient water management. Through early 2026, with federal feasibility study authorization being sought and stakeholder engagement successfully progressing, WDRWS illustrates effective regional collaboration with the goals to safeguard public health, foster economic vitality, and mitigate climate vulnerabilities.

When Everyone’s Caring Loudly: Planning for Tough Conversations

Why Do We Care? Rethinking the Regulations That Shape Everything

Zoning codes are full of inherited assumptions—but which still serve us? This interactive session challenges traditional approaches by asking a simple question: Why do we care? Using examples from Grand Junction, presenters explore how reframing specific standards better support housing and community goals while simplifying review and administration of the Code. Participants will engage in exercises to evaluate regulations, rethink their purpose, and build stronger, outcome-based approaches.