communities and habitats
Coppice Planning is the practice of Charlotte Brett: twenty-five years of guiding land, water, and community projects from first idea to lasting outcome. Rooted in Buffalo, working across New York State and beyond.
what we do
Healthy communities and healthy habitats are planned the same way: patiently, with good data, and with respect for how a place actually works.
Planning that helps municipalities, nonprofits, and landowners make confident decisions about the places in their care, along with the funding and engagement that carry plans into action.
Strategy, planning, and program leadership for ecological restoration, from first concept through agency approval, implementation, and monitoring.
why “coppice”
A coppice is both a practice and a place. The practice: cut a tree or shrub back to its stool, and many new shoots regrow, stronger, denser, and more alive than before. The place: the grove that practice creates, renewing itself for generations. It’s how we think about land, water, and the communities that depend on them: growth that comes back.
the long game
The most valuable work isn't a single deliverable. It's a relationship that deepens over years. Our client relationships span the nonprofit, municipal, and private sectors, and across all three the pattern is the same: a first project grows into an ongoing body of planning, funding, and delivery. The three stories below are examples; the Projects page holds the rest.
Seven years and counting as contracted Executive Director of New York Green, a Genesee County sustainability nonprofit. The partnership has delivered a county climate resiliency plan, two comprehensive plans, the plan and design for a new public park, and millions in grant funding. Behind the projects sits the quieter work of running an organization well: strategic and succession planning, annual budgets, a facilitated annual review of bylaws and policies, and new policies drafted where gaps appeared.
An ongoing funding and planning relationship with the Town of Batavia that has produced more than $4 million in successful grants, a $1 million aquifer study advanced to FEMA, and a growing pipeline of water and waterfront work, built one delivered project at a time. Behind the results is a method: a multi-year strategic funding plan that ranks the Town's capital projects, so grant applications follow community priorities rather than deadlines. The same patient approach now serves towns and villages from the Silver Lake communities to Chautauqua Lake.
Eight years building and directing the New York mitigation program of a private environmental-markets investor, brought on midway through its first New York project and winning and delivering the work that followed. The program has delivered more than 30 acres of wetland and upland mitigation and over 3,600 feet of stream restoration within more than 200 acres of protected land, in client relationships that have continued across firms. Peer engineering firms, meanwhile, repeatedly bring Charlotte onto their teams.
what clients say
“Without Charlotte, the project would have come out pretty good. With her, it was an A instead of a B.”
Andy Johnson · Owner, EcoStrategies Engineering & Surveying, PLLC
“Charlotte is two or three steps ahead of where we need to move, and she has a very clear vision of how to work with the people in Albany.”
Mike Shultz · Board of Directors, New York Green
“With Charlotte you have an owner who takes a personal interest and shares our strategic and sustainability vision for making our community robust for generations into the future.”
Greg Post · Supervisor, Town of Batavia
selected experience
A sample of the work our founder has developed and led across two decades of practice.
Water quality
Buffalo Niagara Waterkeeper's first green/gray hybrid infrastructure project, in Niagara Falls' Hyde Park, developed from winning proposal through design, permitting, community engagement, and construction.
Restoration & mitigation
Nearly 20 acres of wetland restoration and over 3,600 feet of stream restoration as compensatory mitigation for wind energy projects, from site selection and agency approval through implementation and monitoring.
Waterfront revitalization
Local Waterfront Revitalization Programs for three Silver Lake communities, planning the future of their shorelines together, from pontoon tours to public workshops.
Whether you’re a municipality weighing options, a landowner with a stream that needs help, or a project team that needs permits and plans, we’d like to hear about it.