Category: urban administration

help with learning more about TOD, part 2

On By Chuck WolfeIn compact development, infill development, politics, sustainability, transit oriented development, urban administration2 Comments

The initial myurbanist post on transit oriented development (TOD), highlighted two recently released reports. Here is an additional resource, a Powerpoint summary presented in Olympia about a month ago, which outlines findings after investigation of top barriers to vibrant urban centers and TOD in the University of Washington/Quality Growth Alliance “From Barriers to Solutions and Best Practices” report.

As also noted in the post, the recently released Futurewise/GGLO “Transit Oriented Communities: A Blueprint for Washington State”, provides an applied analysis of what makes for successful development around transit stations and general guidance for future legislation.

from 1911, the Bogue plan of Seattle speaks

On By Chuck WolfeIn politics, sustainability, urban administration6 Comments
    Bogue Somehow my father–an urban planning professor–once obtained the copy of the the 1911 Bogue Plan of Seattle owned by J.W. Maxwell, who served on the Municipal Plans Commission representing the Seattle Clearing House Association as a member of the Plan’s “Location, Width and Girth of Arterial Highways Committee”.

    For many years, I have used the Plan as a coffee table provocateur. But after seeing the sidewalks in Greenwood last night after the votes came in, I took a new look–and saw some messages from history.

    The Plan is a classic “City Beautiful” document of the era, emphasizing the grand boulevards of a Civic Center never achieved, new, numbered highways and rapid transit, parks and port facilities, premised on “the development of the Civic Idea, old as the human race”–building to accomodate future population.

    After all, Virgil Bogue was an engineer of some repute and veteran of railroad and port design and construction. For him, the Civic Idea was building, constructing and rehaping–beginning with the “testimonies of the dim ages” which brought us “earth mounds of America and the lithic structures of Stonehenge”.

    Nearly 100 years later, we struggle with the legacy of such plans, and how to achieve their unrealized grandeur while remaking their Robert Moses outcomes. Bogue did not mention walkable neighborhoods, compact development or much green outside of large parks. Many would call the vision bold, yet hardly sustainable.

    Still, he left a message–facing the Plan’s title page and reproduced below–reminding Seattle always to dream.

    Bogue 1

photos from june visit to the eco-prince’s domain

On By Chuck WolfeIn infill development, urban administration, urban viewsLeave a comment

DSC_1503
The constrained spaces of Monte Carlo, which occasioned now abandoned plans for over-water buildout

My May 31 seattlepi.com piece described a pending trip to the demain of eco-sensitive modern royalty, in order to see what Prince Albert II once had in mind for managing growth in Monaco–the second smallest country in the world–as it runs out of livable space. This “republication” shows photos from the the following week in early June.

Until the world economy intervened last Fall, the world’s longest ruling dynasty had in mind an emirate-scale answer to compact urban growth–a new urban, mixed-use district built on stilts–designed to model urban expansion in an environmentally sustainable fashion as “a showcase of the world’s best eco-technology.”

The multi-billion Euro idea was gargantuan–and subject to multiple, world-class architectural proposals before the slowdown. Envision a super-South Lake Union or post-viaduct planning area with a 10-year planned build-out, with thematic overwater, eco-sensitive panache.

Planning historians have always extolled the principle that the best planning proceeds when a single governmental or private entity has control of a development area.

Yet even if Monaco’s project had proceeded on the planned schedule, this grand vision had already evoked classic and ironic debate–the environmentally sensitive Prince Albert II (avoiding landfill with stilts and known for imposition of traffic demand management and electric car ownership) versus Nice and Toulon, France-based advocacy groups fearful for impacts upon Mediterranean coral and other sea life and decrying technology-based environmental solutions.

As the Prince explained late last year, “The international crisis has forced us to seek better financial guarantees, more security. I would in any case want to reassure myself that effects on the environment would be as limited as possible.”

DSC_1489This could only be Prince Albert II drowning his sorrows in front of the Grand Casino in Monte Carlo over his cancelled development plans

Detroit update

On By Chuck WolfeIn politics, urban administration1 Comment

My October 8 Crosscut article about Detroit asked what we might learn from that city’s pending reinvention, “where a perfect storm of the wrong American urban future has brought, in Time magazine’s words, “an iconic American city to its knees.” Mayor Dave Bing was reelected on Tuesday night. He warned of continuing tough times and called upon a broad-based coalition to help him turn around Detroit.

The Detroit News quoted the former NBA star’s call to action, “Let me say this: I can’t do this alone.”

lessons learned, the sequel, redux: the day after the development boom

On By Chuck WolfeIn lessons learned, sustainability, urban administrationLeave a comment

Yesterday, I “republished” my first piece in seattle pi.com, below. Here is the companion piece which followed on April 30, which asked the still prevalent question of “who pays” for sustainable practices going forward.

“Lessons Learned from the Development Boom” (April 21 seattlepi.com, reproduced below) warned of potential disincentives for sustainable development in the new economy. The article advocated for further and careful coordination of the silos of design, regulation and finance to avoid oversimplification, unfunded hyperbole and excessive cost.

The first responsive comment embraced cost, and emphasized that well-meaning regulations could make desired development untenable, especially in our current economic circumstances. After all, it is in this “cost trench” that the battle of sustainability will be fought–who will pay, and in what form–will determine the success of urban redevelopment at the “cutting edge”.

As lawyers, we are relearning how to be advocates and for what result, as the public benefit/private burden equation recalibrates. Will our clients benefit from demand management assessments, from “greenwashing” at the regional or building-specific level, from voluntary compliance or incentives, from mitigation or subsidies which reward optimization of transportation and land use, tax or fee rebates, less parking, retrofitting existing or building new? Once the rail line is there, how will reduction of vehicle miles traveled and quality development of surrounding areas be assured and at what densities?

The range of creative thought on sustainability and related topics is unprecedented. The dialogue is rich, and ranges from implemented to visionary, glib to insightful. New icons such as Alex Steffen catalogue and itemize the elements of a changing world. Easy regulatory references include Seattle’s 2006 density bonus incentive for LEED silver rated projects (with affordable housing contributions), similar programs in, e.g., Arlington, Virginia and pending efforts in King County and statewide to implement measures to mitigate greenhouse gas impacts under the State Environmental Policy Act (perhaps ironically, the economy and political climate have delayed Department of Ecology efforts to formalize guidance to counties and cities). A recent Department of Community, Trade and Economic Development Report to the Legislature showed the range of potential amendments to the Growth Management Act to address climate change.

Meanwhile, in the cost trench, multiple studies debate the cost of green. The PI.com cited recent American efforts on April 14. A comparative British CBRE study, “Who Pays for Green?” examines green as “the latest trendy must” and prices LEED certification, other rating systems, and the price of a carbon-neutral building, while noting that at some point, the trend will prevail based on a longer-term commercial logic and environmental desirability.

As author Auden Schendler has noted, “Getting Green Done” is no easy task and the trench warfare has and will occur far beyond the “101 level” where we often dwell. His new book purposely takes on simple greenwashing and, among many tales of “wrong turns”, casts today’s green building certification processes as something good but not end-all, a necessary step towards figuring out true energy efficiencies.

In the end, the first responsive commenter on April 21st appeared in the key trench, where costs will be allocated and success will be measured. For all of the debate and creative thought, we still know relatively little about the cost of sustainability, and who will pay. But change is rapid and readily apparent. I did not read Schendler’s book on paper, but in its Amazon Kindle edition, downloaded on an iPhone at the Starbuck’s at 6th and Union.