Tom Hylton

Thomas Hylton, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, is author of a color coffee table book called Save Our Land, Save Our Towns. The book is a plea for comprehensive planning to save our cities, towns, and countryside.

Hylton is also host of an hour-long public television documentary called Save Our Land, Save Our Towns. The program has been broadcast prime time on all Pennsylvania PBS stations and has aired on more than 100 PBS stations nationwide.

As president of Save Our Land, Save Our Towns Inc., a non-profit corporation, Hylton serves as an advocate of traditional towns that house people of all ages, races, and incomes.

Since publication of the book, Hylton has given more than 400 presentations in Pennsylvania and 35 other states on land use planning and community building. He addressed the nation’s governors at the winter 2001 conference of the National Governors’ Association. He has given talks to legislators sponsored by both the Democratic and Republican caucuses of the Pennsylvania House and Senate.

Hylton is an organizing member of 10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania, a coalition of civic groups dedicated to land use reforms and community building in Pennsylvania.

A three-time winner of the American Planning Association’s annual journalism award, Hylton received a fellowship from the Society of Professional Journalists in 1993 to study state planning issues.

A native of Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, Hylton has lived all his life in Pennsylvania cities and towns. Since 1973, Hylton has lived in Pottstown with his wife, Frances, an elementary school teacher in the Pottstown School District. For 22 years, he wrote for Pottstown’s daily newspaper, The Mercury . His editorials advocating the preservation of farmland and open space in southeastern Pennsylvania won a Pulitzer Prize in 1990.

Hylton conceived and organized Trees Inc., a non-profit corporation that raised nearly $500,000 to plant and maintain street trees in Pottstown. He co-founded Preservation Pottstown, an organization dedicated to preserving Pottstown’s historic neighborhoods and enhancing the borough’s quality of life. He helped bring about the integration of Pottstown’s elementary schools through a special edition of The Mercury advocating the cause.

Hylton is chairman of the Pottstown Planning Commission and the Pottstown Shade Tree Commission. Pottstown Council recently adopted an innovative “user-friendly” zoning ordinance Hylton wrote with a grant from the William Penn Foundation.

Historic Preservationist of the Year, 2000 - Preservation Pennsylvania
Conservationist of the Year, 1999 - Pennsylvania Wildlife Federation
Urban Forester of the Year, 1993 - Pennsylvania Forestry Association

Greg Bialecki

Greg Bialecki is Assistant Secretary and General Counsel of the Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development and serves as the Commonwealth’s first Permit Ombudsman. For over twenty years prior to his appointment, he was a real estate development and environmental lawyer at the law firms of Hill & Barlow and DLA Piper Rudnick, where his work focused on the major urban redevelopment projects in the Greater Boston area. He also worked extensively with public agencies, non-profit organizations and private landowners on land conservation and open space protection matters throughout the Commonwealth. He is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School.

Marty Meehan

David Turcotte

David Turcotte is senior program manager at the University of Massachusetts Lowell’s Center for Family, Work, and Community and adjunct professor in the Department of Regional Economic and Social Development with more than 20 years of community development experience. He has administered several environmental projects, including co-directing the first “scenario workshop”, participatory-planning project in the United States, In the Community’s Hands: Planning for a Sustainable Lowell. David has conducted research on regional housing needs and innovative approaches to developing more affordable and sustainable housing. Recently, he studied 21 municipal and county green building programs, authoring the report, The Benefits of Building Green: Recommendations for Green Programs and Incentives for the City of Lowell. David holds a Master’s degree in Community Economic Development and a Doctor of Science degree from the University of Massachusetts Lowell.  He teaches courses on conflict resolution and housing development and land use. David’s research interests also include health and the build environment, and sustainable development.

David Wluka

David Wluka, President of Wluka Real Estate Corp. in Sharon is a REALTOR® and development consultant with more than 30 years of experience in the fields of real estate sales, development, zoning, subdivision, land planning and marketing. A product of the Boston and Milton school systems, he is a graduate of Boston University. He holds a BA degree in Sociology and an MA in Urban Sociology. He is a member of the National Association of Realtors®, the Urban Land Institute, and the American Planning Association.

David has served as a member of the National Association of Realtors® Land Use, Property Rights & Environment Committee which he chaired in 2003 as well as NAR’s Smart Growth Working Group which he chaired in 2006. He currently remains on NAR’s Smart Growth Working Group as well as serving on its State & Local Issues Committee. He chairs MAR’s Quality of Life Working Group and has spoken nationally on Smart Growth issues.

He is the immediate Past President of the Massachusetts Association of Realtors and was the 1999 President of the Greater Boston Real Estate Board as well as the 1993-94 President of the Greater Boston Real Estate Board’s Multiple Listing Service. He was instrumental in the negotiations towards and creation of MLS-PIN, the statewide MLS Property Information Network and served on its first Board of Directors.

David has provided real estate services to municipalities, government agencies, land owners and developers in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Maine since 1968. He has also been directly involved in the marketing of large development projects, giving him a unique vertical perspective on the development process from raw land through its approval, construction and ultimate sale to the end user.

George Proakis, AICP

George Proakis Since 2002, George has been working for the City of Lowell Massachusetts, where he has participated in a team creating a new Master Plan and new zoning ordinance, focusing on protecting the character of Lowell’s neighborhoods while supporting attractive infill development in Lowell’s neighborhoods and residential loft conversions in Lowell’s historic downtown. George currently serves as Chief Planner for the City of Lowell.  Between 2002 and 2004, George served as Lowell’s Associate Planner. In 1998, George founded Fenmore Consulting Services, through which he participated in economic development and alternative energy consulting projects in upstate New York. He previously served as a volunteer member of the Fenway Planning Task Force, representing the Boston neighborhood where he lived for 10 years. George has a Master in City Planning degree from MIT, a Master of Public Administration degree from the Maxwell School at Syracuse University, and a Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering from Northeastern University. George is a founding member and a member of the board of the New England Chapter of the Congress for the New Urbanism.

Curt Bellavance, AICP

Curt Bellavance is the Director of Economic and Community Development for the Town of North Andover where he coordinates and implements the Town’s planning and economic development initiatives.  Curt has been with North Andover since 2005. He has most recently coordinated the implementation of two several high profile smart growth projects.  Specifically, he spearheaded the successful adoption of a Smart Growth Overlay District for a 169-acre site within the Town, including the proposal for the development of 530 residential units on 30 acres of the site, with the balance of the site being devoted to mixed commercial uses.  He also recently led the efforts for the successful Town meeting approval of a proposed expedited permitting mechanism under Mass. General Laws Ch. 43D. The adoption of the two new regulatory reform efforts will compliment the recently adopted Town Affordable Housing Planned Production Plan as well as the Town’s Community Development Plan.  The Town is now looking to expand an existing Economic Target Area (ETA) in order to revitalize an old mill site and other underutilized properties within the downtown area of North Andover through the Mass. Office of Business Development’s Economic Development Incentive Program (EDIP).

Prior to coming to North Andover, Curt served as the Director for the City of Methuen. Prior to his work in Methuen, Curt worked for the Town of Plymouth where he was part of the planning team that led to the creation 3,000-acre Pinehills project.

Curt earned his Master Degree in Community Planning from the University of Rhode Island, and has been a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP) for 11 years.  Curt currently serves on the City of Peabody Planning Board and is Chairman of the Cultural Council, and in the past has served on the City’s Community Preservation Committee, Zoning Advisory Committee and International Festival Committee.

Angus Jennings, AICP

Angus Jennings is the principal planner for Concord Square Development Company, Inc., a private firm dedicated to working with both municipal and development partners who share a commitment to smart growth.  Since it was founded in 1995 by Ted Carman, Concord Square has carried out a major development project, provided extensive development consulting on several projects including a mill conversion, and played a major role in the adoption of Ch. 40R Smart Growth Zoning legislation in Massachusetts.

Angus served on the state committee to draft regulations for the Ch. 40R legislation, and is the project manager for several recent and ongoing smart growth zoning contracts in Plymouth, Kingston, Brockton, Lynnfield and Belmont. Prior to joining Concord Square, Angus served as the Town Planner in Marshfield, Massachusetts, where he led the adoption of thirty-one zoning and general bylaw amendments, and received the 2005 Massachusetts Association of Planning Directors Chapter Award.

As a graduate student in City & Regional Planning at Cornell University, Angus received the American Institute of Certified Planners student award for promise of success as a professional planner.