City of Rochester/Rochester City School District
News Release
(Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2017) — Mayor Lovely A. Warren, Rochester City School District Deputy Superintendent Dr. Kendra March and City Planning and Zoning Director Zina Lagonegro served as judges for the final round the 2017 Future City Rochester Competition held today at City Hall. Future City is a national competition curriculum where middle school students brainstorm, research, design and build a scale model of a city of the future. This year’s competition theme was “The Power of Public Space” and the City is collaborating with the school district to incorporate the youth’s ideas into the Comprehensive Master Plan Update – Rochester 4.0.
“It is wonderful that we were able to use this competition to obtain the perspectives of our young people to include in our Comprehensive Master Plan Update,” said Mayor Warren. “But to me, the bigger benefit of this exercise is that the more than 100 students who participated are better prepared to go on to a higher education and enter the workforce with a good job. Our city needs to elevate the education of our youth and more and better jobs for our citizens.”
The students showcased their presentations based on the topic of “The Power of Public Space.” 13 teams from 11 city schools started work on their concepts at the beginning of the school year and were assisted by professionals from local architecture and engineering firms Stantec; Fisher Associates; Erdman Anthony; SWBR; Community Design Center of Rochester; Genesee Transportation Council; City and the City’s Bureau of Planning and Zoning, who visited the schools once a week. They used virtual city design software, wrote essays and built scale models of their vision of the Rochester of the future.
The teams, from Schools #3, #9, #10, #22, #23, #29, #34, #41, #44, #45 and #46 squared off at a preliminary competition on February 3, where teams from #3, #9, #34 and #46 advanced to today’s finals. Each finalist was awarded a medal and the winner received a trophy. The four scale models are on display at Rochester City Hall.
The City of Rochester Comprehensive Master Plan contains guidance for future land use regulation, development and investment. The City is currently updating the plan, last adopted in 1999, and plans to submit a final document to City Council for adoption in the winter of 2018. The Future Cities competition is one element of public input being placed into the document. For more information, visit www.cityofrochester.gov/comprehensiveplanupdate.
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For more information, contact Press Officer Jessica Alaimo at 428-7135.