Achieving a Balance resulted from a collaboration between the Design Trust, The Trust for Public Land, and Bronx Community Board 3. The report summarizes project research and makes recommendations to the community board that will help the community realize its long-term planning needs.

Achieving a Balance's aim was to promote strategies that address the sometimes competing needs for housing and public open space.

Policy and design proposals in the report were aimed at helping Community Board 3 in land use and development decisions. However, the report has broader relevance as a resource for other neighborhoods that have concentrations of vacant city-owned land and are going through a similar revitalization process.

Achieving a Balance provides information on numerous planning documents and data sources and suggests ways of improving the coordination of local planning and development efforts. In particular, it points to how the application of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) by community boards for land-use management could greatly transform the state of local planning — in New York City and elsewhere.