Inside FSU’s Barnaby Lab: Students Solve Broadband, Housing & Data Center Challenges

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Dennis, welcome and good morning. How are you?
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I'm doing great, Eric. Yeah, so I'm
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Dennis Smith and I'm the planner
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in residence at Florida State University's Department of Urban and Regional Planning,
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and I'm also an emergency management consultant.
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So let's talk a little bit about your background. How did you get to FSU?
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For full disclosure, we've known each other since we were in graduate
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school in the space that you're probably sitting in. So we've
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known each other for quite a while, but how did you end up being
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the planner in residence at Florida State?
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Yeah, that's a great question, Eric. I have a
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pretty long and diverse career. I started out
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in the public sector. When I first moved to Florida,
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it was the year that Hurricane Andrew hit. So my entire
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kind of educational focus and then my career
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trajectory really centered around work that I was able to do with
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some faculty members looking at
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the way in which Florida had started planning for natural disasters.
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And so that set me on my path to work first
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with the Florida Division of Emergency Management,
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later Vermont Emergency Management, believe it or not.
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And then after some time there, returned to
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Florida, moved into the private sector where I worked with
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PBS&J, a major Florida company heading
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up their disaster recovery After working there for
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a good part of my career, I transitioned to Florida
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State University to take on the role of planner in residence here
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in our Department of Urban Regional Planning. And it's my alma mater,
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so it was really kind of a full circle. So how long have you been
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at FSU as the planner in residence? Yeah, so I
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left PBS&J Atkins
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in 2015,
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and then I spent a year working with the
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Florida Department of Transportation in
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their planning and policy group.
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While I was at DOT, I had an opportunity to work a little bit more
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closely with the department, and at that point this
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position came open. So I officially started in
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2017 with FSU. So I've been here almost a decade.
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And so it's been a great experience,
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but also too, it's kind of towards the end of my career. So it
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was a really nice way to transition from first the public sector
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to the private sector and then now to academia. So you've
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got an interesting position there because you not only teach graduate
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classes, but then you also do projects
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through the Barnaby Lab, if I'm pronouncing that correctly,
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or Barnaby Lab. And that's what I really want to talk about.
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And so I think our member counties
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would be really interested in the type of work that y'all do. So talk a
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little bit about the classes that you teach, and then let's talk about the projects
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and the actual hands-on work that your graduate students do.
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Sure. Yeah. So Florida State University has
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the oldest urban planning program in the state.
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We just celebrated our 60th anniversary.
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The program was established in 1965,
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and the program for a very long time has had
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a position called Planner in Residence. The idea
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of the founders of the department was to bring in a
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professional who had worked in professional
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practice to teach students really
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what it was like to work in the work
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environment, to address real projects.
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So to form that bridge between theory and practice.
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Initially, the position was set up to be, you know, like a 3 to 5
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year appointment. And then later that was relaxed. So it's
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a full faculty member position now.
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I had the opportunity to work under a planner in
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residence when I was a student, Dave Haight, who had
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worked at PBSNJ. And Dave's focus was really
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on urban design. And land
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use planning. And so when the position opened up
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for me, I came in with a lot
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of experience with managing mid-size
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to large-scale projects for state and
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local governments. And some of the projects were rather complex,
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hurricane evacuation planning, land use planning,
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But then also a lot of community outreach and engagement projects. And so
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that really helped me in this position
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to bridge into it. So in my role
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within the department as a faculty member, I teach our
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professional topics class. It's a seminar for our first-year
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new entry graduate students. They take 2 semesters of my class
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and they're introduced to a range of planning topics and they meet
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with professionals from really across
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all of the subdisciplines of planning, from housing to transportation
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to emergency management. We've brought in some members of
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the Florida Association of Counties, some leadership.
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We bring in county administrators from time to time. And so it's a great
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way for students to connect with the profession.
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I've taught classes on infrastructure,
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planning for community infrastructure that address financing.
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You know, how do we pay for all of the aspects of our built
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environment? I've taught classes here at Florida State University
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in the disaster recovery and mitigation process.
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Uh, but the, uh, the key class
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that I teach is our graduate capstone course. So as I mentioned,
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I teach the seminar class for our entering students,
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and then all students before they graduate have to take this capstone
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course where they're, uh, put on a real-world project.
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So, um, the projects range from, you know, uh,
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maybe a, a a transportation plan, it could be a housing
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plan. Some are working with communities to
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address a wide range of environmental issues and the like.
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So it's, they're very varied and they're dependent on really
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the needs of our communities. And that helps me now bridge into
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what the Barnaby Lab does. So we run kind of like a small consulting firm
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out of the Department of Urban Regional Planning. It's affordable
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because, you know, unlike a consulting firm, we don't have a
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markup. So we're really just covering our costs
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as faculty members. And we provide
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services to local governments and state agencies.
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So out of my portfolio of work,
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about half of the work is associated with these
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studio projects, small projects. Paid projects
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that students can work on. And the other half of the work might be work
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that might be a little bit beyond the capabilities of students or associated
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with some more fundamental research.
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What are some of the county projects that y'all have worked on? I know looking
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at the website the other day, there was quite a few of them
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and they range, I mean, including international work.
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Some broadband stuff, but let's, let's talk about a couple of the projects that
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would be of interest to counties. Right. So,
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um, really, I, I, to my mind, the Barnaby Lab
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was established within the department in order to
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provide services to communities. Now there's a fee, but the
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idea is that we really should try to focus
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our work, uh, to meet both existing and
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emerging needs of communities. As we know, in Florida,
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we're very fortunate in that we have a strong planning
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framework, both legislatively
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and then operationally. For many decades, we've been a leader
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in the nation in developing and
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implementing comprehensive plans to help guide our growth and to
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make sure that are spending our money wisely.
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And so we have worked with communities on comprehensive
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plan updates. Now, clearly it's
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a local government-led process, but we've worked in
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different aspects of the production of
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comprehensive plans, sometimes with research on data
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and analysis. Or sometimes with helping support community
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outreach with visioning processes. We worked with the city of Tallahassee
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on their comprehensive plan update a couple years ago.
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And fairly recently, just about a year and a half ago, we worked with
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Hillsborough County in their comprehensive plan update
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to look at a couple of areas within the county and
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develop scenarios for how those areas might be developed
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differently. So we worked really on future land use map issues for
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Hillsborough County. Beyond comprehensive
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planning, we really do a lot to help communities. Sometimes we do policy work,
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sometimes we do research on legislation,
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but all with the idea of creating documents
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or guidance that the communities then can use to better
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address emerging planning issues. You mentioned the broadband project.
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So as we all know, a couple years ago there was a
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big push on making sure that we had kind
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of general equitable distribution of resources
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and planning for broadband.
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COVID-19 really brought that to the fore, didn't it?
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You know, we had communities really overnight
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having their, you know, figure out how to teach
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their students remotely. And believe it
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or not, that worked great. And really, I think our world has transformed
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because of what we went through there. But I've got to
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tell you, we had some rural counties where, you know, you had moms and
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dads driving their kids to the parking
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lot of a library or a
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community building where they could get broadband access
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so that their kids could do their homework. And so we really needed to
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come up with a better system so that everybody had access to those types
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of resources. And so working through the Appalachian Regional
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Planning Council, we developed broadband plans for Liberty
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County and Wakulla County, 2 of Florida's
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more rural communities to really help them
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address this issue of broadband and plan for the
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financing of the data infrastructure that they would need to make that
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happen. Looking at other kind
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of emerging issues across not just the state,
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but across the nation, As you know,
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housing is really at a kind of
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a critical tipping point. It's really hard for this new generation of
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young people to even contemplate being homeowners.
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And really for Florida to thrive,
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we really need to promote and protect,
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you know, the home building industry and the development community.
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So that people can have houses to live in and own and not
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just rent. And so we worked with
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Hillsborough County again on developing a framework
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for addressing accessory dwelling units.
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While accessory dwelling units aren't the cure-all for
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affordable housing, anything we can do to
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rationalize expanding housing supply, working within
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the framework of community needs. We need to consider that. And we were able to
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do, I think, some exemplary work for Hillsborough County.
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In fact, there's a project that the students that worked on the project are being
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recognized for this year at the Florida
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Planning Conference. They won an outstanding student project award for that.
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Dennis, I think I just saw last week a news clip on
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this, and I know it was either Pinellas or Hillsborough. I want
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to say it's Hillsborough. Someone had built an ADU
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at their house. It was beautiful, and they were going to use it
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to rent out. So maybe that relates
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to some of the work y'all did. Yeah.
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And well, again, it's not the final solution
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on how are you going to address this housing problem, I think it's
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really important for communities to know that we're a resource
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that they can reach out to and work with
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to address some of these emerging issues.
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And I think what's
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very compelling about the services we offer
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is that we can help augment their planning staff. Not every community
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has a robust planning or planning and development department.
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So I can come in as an advisor or
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essentially as a worker bee and get work
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done with my colleague, Professor Billie Ventimiglia.
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So she and I really run all of our direct
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consulting services. Again,
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we are able to bring students on these projects. And some folks
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might say, wow, you know, what kind of work can students do? But remember,
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our students are all graduate students working on
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master's degrees in urban and regional planning. So they come
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to us as college graduates, many of whom
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have already worked professionally. And so,
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um, you're really getting, uh, a,
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uh, a human resource boost, a manpower boost. By bringing us
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on board. Because really overnight you can go from maybe
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a staff of 2 or 3 working on a really thorny issue to
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having that staff augmented by maybe
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10 to 12 new people. Dennis, how do local
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governments find your work? How do they
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know about you? Well, that's a great question.
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It is. We are an agency of the
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state. And so we are relatively
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easy to work with. We have some noncompetitive
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eligibility for accessing us.
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And so we really try to get our work
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out there through the professional planning channels,
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such as the American Planning Association and their state conferences.
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Through the FSU website and our media
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and word of mouth. And so it seems like when we're
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able to do a project in a community, then we get a
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lot of follow-up work either in that community or neighboring communities. You talked about
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the lab exists for existing
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needs and emerging needs. That's right. An emerging need in
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Florida and across the country, let me say
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emerging issue, maybe not the need, but emerging issue is
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data centers. And I believe you guys
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are about to do some work in a Florida
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county on that issue, if that's something you can talk about. Yeah, that's right.
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And so just like broadband
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after COVID-19, just like
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this issue of housing, which was you know, a really pressing issue
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with the legislature for the last couple of years. Now our communities are
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grappling with this issue of data centers.
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You know, data centers come in all sizes. There are smaller data centers and
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there are now these, what have been referred to as mega data
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centers, with some legislation passed at the state level to
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emphasize the ability of local governments to be able to
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analyze and regulate those types of uses. And so we
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are working now with the community to
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look at the potential impacts of these centers
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and to think through some of the optimal ways
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in which they can be sited. So,
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you know, we really take an objective approach to all of these issues.
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And so it's important for for me as a professor,
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as well as an urban planner, to make sure that we are walking
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through some type of a methodological process that can
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be replicated and that provides
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decision makers with good information.
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It's not our job to necessarily make a
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firm recommendation one way or the other regarding policies, but we are
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very interested in understanding the impacts of data centers and what
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other communities have done with their
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local ordinances to better accommodate these
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types of facilities with respect to community
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concerns and impacts. All right. Well, Dennis,
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just from a, I guess, a marketing standpoint,
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if a commissioner or a planning director listening wants
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to explore a partnership, what's the first
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step and what's the lab's capacity? What's your capacity
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to help a county government that has
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a need out there? You know, our— that's
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a great question. You know, so the best way to reach us is through
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me, Dennis J. Smith,
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through the FSU Department of Urban and Regional Planning. And you
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can provide my contact information at the end of this podcast.
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Folks can reach out to me by phone or email.
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I would also invite everyone to look at our
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website because we have a catalog of both these graduate
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capstone studio projects, as well as some of our more recent
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research and publications to give everyone a feel for the
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wide range of work we're able to do. And so
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that's kind of the best way to
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reach us. Now, in terms of,
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you know, kind of work we can do for local governments,
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I am one person. We have another staff person who is
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our senior planner in the lab. We can bring students
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in when appropriate. Sometimes it's appropriate, sometimes maybe less
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so, but we also have tremendous reach back.
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And so being housed in the FSU Department
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of Urban Regional Planning, I'm able to speak to colleagues here
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or in our neighboring Department of Geography on
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a daily basis about issues. I'm also an affiliate of
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our joint FSU FAMU College of Engineering's
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RIDERS Center, which is the Resilience Infrastructure
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and Disaster Recovery Center. So we can reach back
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and tap into experts with an engineering background,
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with a more technical built environment background
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to really bring together the best team possible.
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Now, we've also worked with other universities.
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So as an example, if there is a local government and
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you're right next door to another planning program at another
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university that might want to do work or get their students involved,
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but don't have the same type of ongoing
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business structure we do, I'm more than happy to partner and
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share the work because really for me, not only is it about
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meeting the needs of local government. It's about, uh,
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educating the next generation of urban planners.