Allean Brown Receives Neighborhoods Matter 2015 Award for NPU-S



The primary purpose of the Atlanta Planning Advisory Board (APAB) Neighborhood Civic Engagement Award Ceremony is to provide a forum to acknowledge noteworthy contributions by individuals, institutions, organizations, groups (churches, civic associations, neighborhood clubs, businesses, etc.) to the City of Atlanta and its neighborhoods.  Allean Brown was the honoree from NPU-S.
Neighborhoods Matter 2015 Award for NPU-S

Robbie Hunter and Eric Toomer present Allean Brown 
with the Neighborhoods Matter 2015 Award 
for NPU-S


Ms. Brown has been very active in community restoration and preservation for many years. Her constant and diverse participation throughout the City of Atlanta demonstrates that not only Southwest Atlanta, but the whole City is near and dear to her heart. Using her background in architecture, historic preservation, transportation, community planning and construction project management, she is often an informed voice for Southwest Atlanta monitoring and reporting Ft. McPherson and Atlanta BeltLine progress, public safety and environmental issues, community health and services needs and promoting local business and employment.

Ms. Brown’s mother was active in NPU-S, Treasurer of Eastridge Neighborhood Watch and Secretary of the Hyacinth Art Circle. Due to health issues, Allean became her stand-in whenever in town between career assignments. Advocacy and love of the natural and built environments sustained Ms. Brown from college, throughout her career and onto her parents’ path of promoting the southwest Atlanta urban forest neighborhoods. Ms. Brown chose to be a community participant in the Fort McPherson BRAC planning and zoning process at the beginning of the Community Benefits Working Groups where she served as:
  • Chair of the Environment, Open Space & Public Health and
  • Co-Chair of Transportation,
  • Facilitator for the Education & Culture and
  • Initiated the inclusion of renewable energy into community benefits proposals developed by the original Community Benefits Working Groups.
  • Charter member and officer of the Georgia STAND-UP supported McPherson Action Community Coalition (MACC) serving as Secretary and Co-chair.
  • Editor of the Georgia Tech graduate studio community benefits compilation report
  • Facilitator in the Georgia (State University) Health Policy Center’s (GHPC) Rapid Health Impact Assessment
  • Member of the GHPC Fort McPherson Photo-Voice project.
Her involvement with the Fort McPherson Redevelopment project has been ongoing since 2006. Ms. Brown is now the NPU-S Community Engagement Subcommittee (CES) representative for Fort Mac and served as the CES chair of the recent Fort Mac Fall Festival/Open House. She is an active community voice on the Livable Centers Initiative (LCI) Core Team for the development planning of the Local Redevelopment Authority’s (MILRA) remaining 145 acres.

Recognizing the need to maintain a broader perspective to help solve local issues Ms. Brown has added to her training, career experience and licensed design-build and property inspection business ownership through attending:
  • The STANDUP Policy Institute for Civic Leadership graduate
  • The Partnership for Southern Equity
  • Policylink National Equity Summits
  • NeighborWorks Leadership Institute
  • Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC) Community Planning Academy
  • Atlanta Regional Housing Forum
  • ARTWORKS and ARTPLACE grants collaboration
  • 2015 LOCUS National Leadership Summit in Washington, DC on Smart Growth and Transit Oriented Development
  • USEPA Environmental Justice Academy
Still championing for the existing local communities, Ms. Brown monitors the primary developments of Fort McPherson, the Transit Oriented Development at the Oakland City MARTA station, the Atlanta BeltLine Westside Trail and the Atlanta Streetcar proposed for Southwest Atlanta through her broad based civic participation to focus on assuring the planning is comprehensive, equitable and inclusive, acutely respective of the existing surrounding community and its progressive future.

In the community she has participated in
  • Southwest Coalition of Concerned Citizens (SWC3)
  • Friends of Rev. James Orange Park at Oakland City and
  • SWANC, (SouthWest Atlanta Neighborhood Collaborative), an effort to establish a community land trust in southwest Atlanta.
  • Proposing to eliminate a community eyesore and drug trafficking site: Ms. Brown created an adaptive reuse design for an abandoned carwash in Venetian Hills.
  • COVE (Cascade, Oakland City, Venetian Hills Engagement, a NeighborWorks facilitated organization) where she supported the late Mrs. Louvenia Gates in reviving the Hardnett-Oakland City Community Garden and participated in the Venetian Hills Elementary School campus improvement project.
She and Mrs. Gates were on the project consultant team selected by Fulton County Health Department to alleviate food deserts by supplying neighborhood corner stores with fresh produce from limited resource Georgia farmers.

Ms Brown is also an active member of the Intown Southwest Atlanta community collaborative that plans and sponsors
  • Development Day Tours introducing outside restaurateurs and food investors to SWAtl
  • Local Business Cash Mobs
  • Business Coaching support for existing community small businesses

In her position as the Transportation Chair Ms. Brown wrote the NPU-S response to the MARTA TOD proposal at Oakland City and spoke on behalf of NPU-S at the City Council public hearing. She was also instrumental in pressing community concerns over public safety issues during the demolition and site prep of a neighborhood business conversion. From serving as the NPU-S representative for the BeltLine Subarea Master Planning, Ms. Brown was appointed to the Atlanta BeltLine Tax Allocation District Advisory Commission (TADAC) by the BeltLine Network, nominated by STANDUP, to monitor community benefits. She was elected Vice Chair of the BeltLine TADAC and co-chair of its Economic Development Sub-committee. Ms. Brown was appointed NPU-S representative and elected Vice Chair of the Campbellton Road TAD.



2015 Neighborhood Civic Engagement Award Ceremony