Virginia Commonwealth University

Impact Investment Strategy: Linking Health & Housing

The purpose of this plan is to create an impact investment strategy for RMHF that explicitly links health and housing. The strategy will use impact investing, an investment strategy that directs capital to enterprises that generate social and or environmental benefits for the sur...

Expanding Housing Opportunities and Preserving Character in Historic Neighborhoods

The City of Richmond has been experiencing population growth and rising housing costs in recent years, leading to spatially uneven revitalization and growing affordability concerns. The historic neighborhoods in the city are part of what makes Richmond unique and a desired city t...

The Effectiveness of the Virginia Network for Women: A Mixed Methods Study

Over the last 50 years, higher education institutions across the country have experienced growth in enrollment and degree attainment by women. However, despite the increase in educational merit, the representation of women in administrative and leadership roles within higher educ...

Increasing Access to the James River Park System: A Community Roadmap with the Blackwell, Oak Grove, and Bellemeade Neighborhoods

Natural Parks like the James River Park System offer a host of benefits. They improve our mental health, make us better environmental stewards, Improve socialization, and make a healthier population by lowering the rates of asthma, obesity and hypertension. These public health ou...

Green Infrastructure Initiative Plan

This plan was developed for the City of Richmond (VA) Department of Public Utilities with the purpose of identifying strategies to create Green Infrastructure (GI) development incentives among private properties. A series of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) analyses are used...

Creating Safer Routes to School for Fairfield Court Elementary Students

The purpose of this plan is to conduct a Walkabout study for Fairfield Court Elementary School in Richmond, Virginia through the guidelines of the Safe Routes to School program. The plan seeks to address infrastructural and non-infrastructural issues relating to traffic, safety,...

Residential Fire Impacts on Richmond, Virginia: A plan for identifying and educating our most vulnerable communities

In 2017, 1.3 million fires in the U.S. caused 3,400 deaths, 14,600 injuries, and $23 billion in loss. Vulnerable populations are less resilient due to their lack of adequate access to financial, medical, and community resources as well as their propensity to reside in substandard...

3014 Meadowbridge Rd: A Community-Engaged Opportunity-Based Re-investment Action Plan

This plan is an asset-based community response for 7th Street Memorial Baptist Church CDC as a way to revitalize and uplift the Six Points neighborhood of Highland Park. This plan was designed to provide a template for community engagement that would reintroduce a legacy of servi...

Rehouse Richmond: Plan to Address the Eviction Crisis

Rehouse Richmond aims to recommend specific best practices and start-to-finish development of successful organizing strategies for anti-eviction work. The client for this plan, RISC, is an interfaith coalition of congregations across the Richmond region. Richmond has a compoundin...

Stadium Neighborhood Plan, Richmond, Virginia

The purpose of this document is to provide a 20 year comprehensive plan for the Stadium Neighborhood in Richmond, Virginia. This document was produced as part of the requirements for the Master of Urban and Regional Planning (MURP) program at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU...

A Comprehensive Audit of Professional Development for K-12 School Leaders in the Commonwealth of Virginia

The intent of this paper is to provide a mixed-methods audit of professional development provided to K-12 school leadership in Virginia's diverse landscape to include identification of providers, funding, effectiveness, and expectations. In the Commonwealth of Virginia, geographi...

Virginia Commonwealth University Stormwater Management Plan

Every year millions of gallons of polluted stormwater and untreated sanitary waste are discharged directly into the James River during combined sewer overflow events. This is a problem considering stormwater is one of the most significant sources of pollution to the nation’s surf...

Scott's Addition Green Space Plan: Small Changes Making a Big Impact

Scott’s Addition is a fast growing, postindustrial neighborhood situated on the north side of West Broad street and bordering Henrico county to the west. The current building stock in Scott’s Addition consists of industrial and manufacturing buildings, and warehouses, much of whi...

Westwood Multimodal Transportation Plan

Westwood is experiencing an industrial regeneration that will change the way the area is utilized by the surrounding communities. To be proactive, Henrico County is planning for the future by creating an overlay zoning district and striving for a multimodal environment to ensure...

Lower Appomattox River Water Trail Plan

Water Trails are designated boating trails along rivers, lakes, or other waterways, and typically include features associated with land trails. For example, signage, restrooms, and other amenities that support users. Generally, water trails are for paddlecraft: kayaks, canoes, ra...

Saving the Libby Hill Viewshed: Preserving and Enhancing One of Richmond’s Greatest Assets

The view from Libby Hill Park in Richmond's Church Hill neighborhood has been identified as an endangered view, and the possibility of new development changing this view has increased in recent years. This plan explores what this view means to the identity of the neighborhood and...

A Framework for Forming Resident-Controlled Manufactured Housing Communities in Richmond

Despite manufactured housing representing one of the most affordable, unsubsidized housing options for families in the United States, the nature of ownership in many manufactured housing communities places families at constant risk of displacement. In mobile home parks, where a h...

The Scott's Addition Complete Streets Plan

Scott’s Addition was once an industrial neighborhood. In recent years, however, the neighborhood has experienced a rapid transition of uses. It has become a growing residential and commercial neighborhood that features numerous breweries as its most popular attractions. Regrettab...

A Strategy for the Cultivation of Community Strength

This professional plan is a community-based template for neighborhoods in the urban landscape that were once thriving and are now struggling with population stability. The study area is found in the south side of Richmond, Virginia in the neighborhoods of Bellemeade and Oak Grove...

Transit Feasibility Study for Chesterfield County, VA

This capstone presents a transit feasibility study for Chesterfield County, VA in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Urban and Regional Planning in the VCU Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs. GRTC Transit System (GRTC) is the primary public tran...