By: Chloe Cory
Her son thinks he should be her most outstanding achievement. However, Dr. Rebecca Retzlaff, Auburn University’s College of Liberal Arts director of academic sustainability, says one of her best achievements is getting chickens legalized as pets. She and two friends already had chickens, but were constantly worried that they would be taken away or reported.
As Retzlaff watched her son hold the chickens and go down the slide in her backyard, she began to devise a plan to keep her chickens. She went to a member of the Auburn City Council, and told her, “We want chickens to be legal,” which prompted conversations, then petitions at stores and Auburn’s annual City Fest.
Retzlaff, a professor in Auburn’s Community Planning Program, researches planning history along with teaching classes at the university. Her fight on behalf of chickens changed the law in 2009, and many of her neighbors now have chickens in the city limits. Retzlaff and her husband, a poultry science professor at Auburn University, still have chickens to this day.
Retzlaff worked hard to have a rule changed. That determination can be seen in her work for communities like Auburn’s neighbor to the east, Opelika, a community that is continuing to grow and prosper.
A colleague in the community planning program, Dr. Binata Mahato also has interest in Opelika. “The real attraction is for the families. Opelika is more family-oriented than Auburn’s college feel,” she said.
Mahato hopes to influence her students to return to academia and work on more university-based community development programming.
When Mahato moved to Alabama in spring 2019, there were far fewer restaurants and recreational opportunities than there are now. She said she was excited about Opelika’s new breweries and the pedestrian projects underway to make it more walkable.
“In the next ten years, I see Opelika keeping the look and feel of a small town. The industrial spaces will be full and transformed to fit the needs of the town, but new spaces will also need to be created,” Mahato said.
Auburn University Community Planning Program Class:
Auburn University offers a community planning program that focuses on real-world problems and solutions. One of the many projects the urban design studio class focused on was Opelika, led by Retzlaff and Mahato.
This studio is often taken in the first year of the master’s program. The clients come to the university requesting help, which is how they have a variety of experiences in the urban design studio classes.
“We emphasize that students are getting firsthand experience engaging with those in the community,” said Retzlaff. This course helps students prepare for the next studio and apply what they are learning in their classes, Mahato added.
The project focused on a neighborhood east of the historic district in spring of 2018. The semester-long project came to fruition with the help of Tiffany Gibson-Pitts, on the Opelika City Council and working as a school counselor at Auburn High School.
“We spent four to five Saturdays going to the community center to see the kids. We gave them projects to help our overall goal,” said Retzlaff. The project helped identify what aspects the kids enjoyed about their hometown and what they would change.
One project that helped was giving the kids Legos to build their ideal city. Another was asking them to point out important places on the map. “Walmart was a big hit, which we were not expecting,” said Retzlaff. Many kids also pointed out familiar homes and did not see the downtown area as their stomping ground.
The children said they wanted a pool that was more accessible to them. Many came from low-income areas, and the community pool was a drive away, which was not always feasible for their family situations.
The Auburn University students went to work, creating and presenting a plan based on the children’s perspective. The findings included formulated plans for public art and library improvements, among other things, said Retzlaff.
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