OUR PEOPLE

samuel gordon • principal

Founder and owner of Plan•it, Sam Gordon brings over 10 years of community revitalization experience from both the government and non-profit sectors in the US and abroad to the process of planning for community sustainability. Sam’s work combines community participation and engagement with visualization tools to develop strategies for achieving sustainable urban development models that incorporate responsible growth management, urban revitalization, and ecological protection as interdependent goals.

Sam worked with the Center for Environmental Studies (CEA) in Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain designing a new link along the city’s “green ring;” and is currently engaged in a project entitled Onondaga Greenbelt, with the Center for Urban and Regional Applied Research at LeMoyne College and the Onondaga Environmental Institute to develop a greenbelt within Onondaga County, NY.

As Senior Urban Planner for the City of Syracuse, NY, Sam worked with the city’s neighborhood planning program Tomorrow’s Neighborhoods Today (TNT) to develop neighborhood revitalization strategies as part of the Syracuse Neighborhood Initiative. TNT utilized a community participatory model to engage neighborhood stakeholders in decision-making processes to develop comprehensive neighborhood revitalization strategies focused on improving neighborhood image, strengthening the housing market, empowering stakeholders in community building efforts, and improving the overall physical conditions of their neighborhoods.

As a neighborhood planner with Home HeadQuarters, Inc., Sam worked with the Metropolitan Development Foundation and Clough Harbor and Associates on the creation of a comprehensive inventory of vacant and underutilized property within a 1.5 mile radius of Downtown Syracuse to become the basis for a web-based GIS system to assist with marketing these properties to creative developers.

Sam holds Master’s degrees in Landscape Architecture and Environmental and Community Land Use Planning from the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, NY.

Sam serves on the boards of several Central New York organizations including Cornell Cooperative Extension of Onondaga County, and is the Board President for Open Hand Theater. He is a frequent guest critic and lecturer at SUNY ESF Landscape Architecture , Syracuse University School of Architecture, and LeMoyne College. Sam enjoys cycling, photography, gardening, cooking, and spending time with his wife Julia and daughters Neve and Mira.

COLLABORATORS

robert morache • principal _ new earth strategies

Founder and owner of New Earth Strategies, a design and development planning firm, Rob Morache brings 20 years of experience in the architecture, housing and development sectors to the process of community design and sustainability planning.

As senior project architect for C. Lewis Tomaselli Architects, Rob participated in almost a decade of redevelopment and historic preservation in inner-city Utica, NY neighborhoods, with a significant focus on affordable housing and urban infill. His professional interest in housing has led to Rob’s exploration of alternative housing types, green building technology, alternative energy systems, permaculture and his development of the concept of comprehensive affordability, which evaluates and designs housing as a system involving not only the building, but also its location, and its ability to produce energy, food and a sense of community for its inhabitants in a sustainable manner. This systems approach to housing and a deep concern for the context in which human dwelling occurs, has resulted in Rob’s engagement in urban and regional planning.

In his hometown of Ithaca, NY, he is a co-founder of Connect Ithaca LLC, a company committed to promoting sustainable public transportation and transit-oriented urban revitalization. With Connect Ithaca, Rob has developed a concept plan for transportation and land use in Ithaca and Tompkins County which builds on the County’s comprehensive plan and outlines a transportation backbone to guide sustainable development in a future challenged by energy shortfalls and global climate change. The plan centers on creating greater opportunity for compact development in the urban core by reducing automobile intrusion into the city and simultaneously providing superior public transit. He has created presentations which help the public understand the relationships between transportation choices and land use, as part of an effort to foster grassroots support for sustainable development strategies which curb sprawl and preserve the rural resources of Tompkins County.

Furthering the exploration of improved public transportation in Ithaca, Rob is the Connect Ithaca project manager for a NYSERDA funded feasibility study of the installation of an automated Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) system linking Cornell University, Ithaca College and Downtown Ithaca. The study will evaluate PRT’s  potential to facilitate transit oriented affordable housing development in Ithaca’s struggling downtown, targeted at university staff who would otherwise live in car dependent suburban areas because of the current unavailability of affordable housing close to their workplaces.

Rob attended the Syracuse University School of Architecture, has held positions with a number of Upstate NY architecture and development firms, and recently taught design at Syracuse University’s School of Visual and Performing Arts.

Rob is a member of TCLocal, a peak oil and relocalization action group, serves on the Ithaca Comprehensive Plan Steering Committee, and is engaged in a number of informal sustainability efforts in his neighborhood of Fall Creek. Rob is also a copper sculptor and enjoys gardening.