The American Planning Association Texas Planning Awards program recognizes individuals, organizations, and communities for outstanding contributions to planning in Texas. H-GAC's Livable Centers Program was recently honored with two awards--Urban Design (Gold) and Public Outreach.

The Urban Design award honors efforts to create a sense of place, whether a street, public space, neighborhood or campus. H-GAC was recognized for the North Houston Livable Centers Study.

The Public Outreach Award honors an individual, project, or program that uses information and education about the value of planning to create greater awareness among citizens or specific segments of the public. The award celebrates how planning improves a community’s quality of life. H-GAC was recognized for the International Management District Livable Centers Study.

Livable Centers are places where people can live, work, and play with less reliance on their cars. They encourage a complementary mix of land uses that are designed to be walkable, connected, and accessible by multiple modes of transportation, including bus, bike, foot, or vehicle (multi-modal). Established in 2008, the Program works with local communities to reimagine auto-focused infrastructure, policies, and programs to be more multi-modal friendly. Learn more about H-GAC's Livable Centers Program.

The Bacteria Implementation Group (BIG) Fall Meeting has been moved to 1 to 3 p.m. Tuesday, December 1.

This meeting will be online.

Registration is required. For more information, contact Steven Johnston.

H-GAC's annual Fall Planning Workshop will be from 8:30 a.m. to noon Friday, December 4.

This meeting will be online.

The Fall Planning Workshop is an annual half-day workshop for local governments featuring presentations on planning best practices for communities. The topic of this year's workshop will be Responsible Revitalization and will expand on the 2019 Fall Planning Workshop theme, Building Equity Into Planning.

Registration is required. For more information, contact Cheryl Mergo.

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) invites students in 6th through 12th grades to enter the annual Take Care of Texas Video Contest. Student videos should be 30 seconds long and portray positive ways Texans can help keep air and water clean, conserve water and energy, or reduce waste. The contest deadline is Friday, December 4, and the public will have the opportunity to pick their favorite videos January 18-29, 2021. There will be six winners. Waste Management of Texas, Inc. will provide prizes--GoPro cameras and scholarships. The middle and high school students who win first place will be recognized by the TCEQ Commissioners and representatives from Waste Management of Texas, Inc.

For more than two decades, communities have come together on November 15 to celebrate America Recycles Day.

The Texas Water Development Board, the Texas General Land Office, and the Texas Division of Emergency Management launched a website with information on flood mitigation funding opportunities for Texas communities. The site includes an online Request for Information Form that entities can submit to get feedback on what state and federal financial assistance programs could be the best fit for their flood mitigation needs. The site also includes funding opportunities, general project and entity eligibility by program, upcoming events related to flood mitigation financial assistance, and other resources. For local governments interested in using the clearinghouse to access project ideas, visit the Texas Flood Clearinghouse website or call 512-463-8725. 

Texas communities working on long-term recovery from Hurricane Harvey can find Infoshare resources at Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service's new Resilient Texas website. Visit the site for both new and previous information shared in weekly emails. FEMA's Texas Recovery Office partnered with AgriLife on the site and will continue to provide resources both in email and for the website. 

Kansas State University Technical Assistance to Brownfields program provides free site re-use planning and visioning services, and site inventory and prioritization assistance to local governments that don't have the resources to get this done on their own. This assistance is usually enough to "start the ball rolling," for developing strategies and to attract funds to do more extensive planning work and to redevelop brownfields. For more information, contact Blase Leven, the Program Coordinator at Kansas State University, at 785-532-0780. 

Trash Free Texas strives to keep trash out of area waterways by working with communities and organizations across the state to connect people to places that need routine litter cleanup activities. Local governments and organizations can get involved by using the Adopt-a-Spot online interactive mapping application. 

Congratulations to the Lake Jackson Youth Advisory Committee for winning the Ruthe Jackson Youth Leadership Award for a Youth Organization from Keep Texas Beautiful's 2020 Keep Texas Beautiful Awards - Youth and Educators Awards. This award recognizes the efforts and leadership of youth (as individuals and their collective efforts as a group or team) and youth-oriented organizations to beautify the community and create cleaner, greener campuses, parks and neighborhoods.

H-GAC has compiled a list of local, regional, state, federal, and private funding sources for local governments and other organizations. H-GAC also maintains a list of ongoing funding opportunities for parks improvements and economic recovery resources.

If you know of a funding opportunity, forward it to Andrea Tantillo.

Looking for interactive applications or GIS data related to the H-GAC Community and Environmental Planning Department? Visit H-GAC's interactive applications web page.

H-GAC has a Facebook page where information about current and upcoming events is posted. Please visit and like H-GAC's page. While there, visit other H-GAC pages on Facebook, including Recycling, Trash Bash, Regional Data Lab, Bacteria Implementation Group (BIG), and West Fork Watersheds Partnership.

Find the latest information about activities around the region at H-GAC's Twitter feed @HouGalvAreaCog. H-GAC's water resources program also offers Twitter updates on water quality issues in the region @HGACwater.