Category: transit oriented development

a myurbanist rerun: reclaiming the urban memory

Posted by Chuck – April 24, 2013

preface

One inspiration for my new book, Urbanism Without Effort, came in 2010,  from  an unexpected find in a Seattle used bookstore. This discovery led to interviews and exposure to incomparable photographs, some over a century old.

“Reclaiming the Urban Memory” first appeared in myurbanist in 2010, when it was also featured by Kaid Benfield in his blog and in The Huffington Post.  A revised version appeared in 2011, both in myurbanist and Grist.

Given the passage of almost two years, and the considerable number of new readers interested in cities and urban history, the story is well worth a rerun, as slightly updated below.

Here, for new readers and old, is the stirring work of Burton Holmes, a continued and motivating force in my work, and by inference, a catalyst for us all.

____________

the old is new again

Melbourne, Flinders Street Station, 1917 ©2006 BHHC

“100 years from now I wonder if those in the future who view these images will appreciate the value of … pictures as a means of recording life as is lived in this century… photography is in the truest sense biography –is it not the writing of life in a truly universal language?”

-Burton Holmes, Seoul, Korea, 1899

The Great Recession, climate change and the quest for carbon neutrality have reoriented how we look at cities, the distance between home and work, and the role of the automobile.

A simultaneous, street-based nostalgia targets simpler times, a more human scale and an elusive world of accessible neighborhoods often lost in the memories of earlier generations.

Melbourne, Flinders Street Station, 2009, evolved as modern transit hub ©2009 myurbanist

Consider imagery which restores such lost urban memories for those who did not witness modern urban history, and recreates what political writer Alexander Cockburn has termed “the lost valleys of the imagination”.

Such “lost valleys” often grace nearby bookstores and online forays, but quality varies, and frustrates our romantic search to turn back time.

Of all available resources, amid blogs and information byways, no visual record is more compelling than the archived work of seldom remembered, but innovative documentary pioneers, who left breathtaking records of camera artistry: pictures revealing moments when people hardly understood the camera as it recorded the profound change which surrounded them.

One such pioneer, Burton Holmes, preserved imagery in unparalleled human scale, first with black and white, glass negatives, often hand-colored with fine, single hair ermine brushes and through parallel use of motion pictures from the time of their invention.

He showed all that a city can be—while also depicting the changing form and appearance of infrastructure, public spaces and the impact of this change on urban residents.

Travelogues, the Greatest Traveler of His Time, Ed. Genoa Caldwell

His legendary work, which entertained the captive opera-goers in front rows and the general admission crowds in the rear, is well-chronicled in the work of Genoa Caldwell (The Man Who Traveled the World and Travelogues: The Greatest Traveler of His Time, recently republished as Early Travel Photography), as well as by other devotees, and can be readily reviewed in print and online (including the most resource-intensive compilation at burtonholmes.org).

Holmes was not an intentional urban historian. He became a famous stage presenter, who, from the late nineteenth century until the 1950′s, inherited a showman’s tradition from earlier travel lecturers and became synonymous with the new word, “travelogue,” which he favored to stimulate vicarious interest in his art. He brought the first motion picture cameras to the Far East, recorded Tolstoy and the coronation of Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie and otherwise roamed the world–often to places of danger where a camera had never been– and brought home both organic, natural portraits of life abroad and entertaining still and cinematic visions to halls across America.

However, over and above Holmes’ published travelogue narratives, a particularly intentional urban documentary purpose flows from his photos, as depicted above and below. Photo-archivist and biographer Caldwell has shared hints of this perhaps subconscious resolve in quotations she has compiled in the over 30 years she has devoted to her research. An example of one reference she has found that holistically describes urban ambiance addresses Berlin in 1907.

Holmes noted Berlin as a city of contrasts, where the traveler feels the unseen presence of something fine and beautiful, and it is cleanliness, he said, that pleads most eloquently for Berlin. There, he described how the art of municipal housekeeping is practiced in perfection: “Berlin is the best-kept great city in the world–there are no backyards in Berlin, [and] balconies filled with flowers ornament the buildings, [while] outdoor cafes give impressions of cheerful sociability, and the traveler is confirmed in his impression that Berlin is a city beautiful.”

Holmes’ cameras captured far more than the order he saw in Berlin; he chronicled the impact of new forms of transportation as they were introduced to classical environments, and the resulting evolution of streets and ways of life.

BeIow is a sampling of the collection maintained by Burton Holmes Historical Collection (BHHC), reprinted with special permission and under copyright of BHHC. Caldwell has archived 1700 of an assemblage which once numbered 30,000 photos, the rest lost to the poor condition of time. A range of movie footage, from 200 film cans rediscovered in 2003, now resides at George Eastman House in Rochester, New York.

a mode we have lost?

A captivating horse and buggy amid Sydney’s clouds shows a morning routine now lost in Western culture today. Holmes was fascinated by the expanse of the Australian continent and the impact of colonization on native people and place.

Sydney, 1917 ©2006 BHHC

a mode to regain

A grand Austrian urban stroll provides a model for emulation. Holmes regaled in the “superb edifice” of Vienna’s Grand Opera House, while his camera prioritized the pedestrian view.

Vienna, 1907 ©2006 BHHC

street scenes and carriage jams

Traffic congestion took different forms, often without protection from the elements. Holmes’ photographs were rich with street scenes in world cities. Consider the different social nature of traffic interactions without doors or windows and the different sounds that graced the street.

Paris, 1895 ©2006 BHHC

London, 1897 ©2006 BHHC

the ascent of the car

Early in the last century, Holmes toured Denmark by car. Here, a rare car-sighting south of Copenhagen in 1902 yields to a predominant auto culture on Seattle’s Marion Street by 1934.

South of Copenhagen, 1902 ©2006 BHHC

Seattle, 1934 ©2006 BHHC

gathering places

Note the human interaction in a public place as captured by Holmes in Italy and France, countries he repeatedly visited in times of war and peace. Today’s increasing attention to sidewalk cafes and public gathering spaces attempts to achieve the ambiance of the photographs below.

Florence, 1924 ©2006 BHHC

Paris, 1918 ©2006 BHHC

change in the holy land

Jaffa Gate, in the walls of Jerusalem’s Old City, shows the evolution from animal to motorized transport at the sunset of the Ottoman Empire. The Jerusalem chronicled by Holmes is reminiscent of Mark Twain’s narrative in Innocents Abroad.

Jerusalem, 1920 ©2006 BHHC

Jerusalem, 1920 ©2006 BHHC

a town with a purpose

The gold rush town of Dawson City, Yukon Territory was assembled in weeks with all the vitality of an urban place. Holmes’ many photographs there documented a new town built on speculation with a surprising sense of permanence, amenity, and not least of all, sidewalks.

Dawson City, 1903 ©2006 BHHC

the romance of the bicycle past

In Rome and Naples, Holmes captured the function and charm of the bicycle mingling with urban forms.

Rome, 1924 ©2006 BHHC

Naples, 1924 ©2006 BHHC

Holmes’ work offers a central place to rediscover the look and feel of Cockburn’s “lost valleys of the imagination” and provides models to facilitate the regeneration of a classic model of urban life–a full experience shaped not just by where one could drive in a car, but by where one could walk or ride by animal–or access by public transportation. His photographs provide gloss on features to include in new development and the planning of today’s complete streets.

The implications from the photographs are more than academic, as inferred principles of practice for regulation and design emerge. The architect can derive the relation of building and street. The traffic engineer can see inspiration for lanes, surfacing and signage. The lawyer and planner can react to setbacks, and ways to encourage pedestrian spaces while assuring light, air, acceptable noise levels and governance of private use of public spaces.

Perhaps most of all, the child in all of us is transported by time-travel to a fantasy world better than the Wizard of Oz, because the world in the photographs was real and foundational. In the end, the “film as biography” foretold by Holmes in 1899 draws us in, and challenges us to reclaim and relive the best of the city. It is a biography we should read as precedent, both for inspiration and for lessons learned from the consequences of change.

Please scroll over photographs for credit. Except where indicated, all photographs ©2006 BHHC. Restricted use. Do not copy.

Republished in Grist, on June 29, 2011, in edited form, here, and in Crosscut on September 18, 2010, here.  Thanks also to Kaid Benfield for republication in his “Village Green” column in The Huffington Post on September 8, 2010, and his Natural Resources Defense Council Blog on September 9, 2010.


how the imagery of “urbanized” motivates better places

Posted by Chuck – September 29, 2011

Seattle-based writer and futurist Alex Steffen (left) joins Gary Hustwit on stage

As a survey text in visual form, Gary Hustwit’s Urbanized is a frank introduction to the buzz about cities in our age of right-minded sustainability. Lurking amid the narration and vignettes is a scalable world view where the car is no longer king, and community priorities rather than government mandates often set the agenda for change.

Seattle had the chance to view Hustwit’s new release last night, and in my estimation, the audience saw local issues reflected back from the screen, as will city-dwellers everywhere who attend an Urbanized presentation. Hustwit clearly succeeds in highlighting a universal cast of diverse and sometimes conflicting stakeholders who must balance and integrate ideas, technology and economic forces characteristic of an urbanizing world.

Other articles about Urbanized have set the stage well, among them a Hustwit interview in TheCityFix, a review by Christopher Hawthorne in the Los Angeles Times (who notes Southern California is missing in Hustwit’s lexicon) and a concise entry by Nate Berg on the new Atlantic Cities site.

In short, Hustwit, while not an architect or urban planner, aptly synthesizes the hottest urban issues—from carbon neutrality to safety to human-scale transportation. He employs voices of the well known, the lesser known, and fast-moving urban imagery, which guides the film from Mumbai to Santiagp, to Brasila, Bogota and around the world.

I’ve written lately about the value of imagery in conveying the messages of cities. In this context, Urbanized gives rich meaning to street scenes, infrastructure, and the single building as part of an urban framework.

Through the film’s masterful editing, reality abounds.

Santiago slum dwellers participate in the design of new dwellings, and choose bathtubs over water heaters to escape the communal shower left behind. Brasilia is a planned joy from the air, yet a disconnected trek for the pedestrian. Beijing, with narration by architect Yung Ho Chang, becomes a city of wide avenues no longer a place where friends cross paths. Adjacent to Cape Town, in the township of Khayelitsha, a community project team builds safety through light and other urban design features.

Hustwit also honors his cast and blends them skillfully with their environments.

Former Bogota Mayor Enrique Peñalosa is one with the bus rapid transit and bicycle infrastructure which made his reputation. Landscape Architect James Corner hears the noises around him on New York’s High Line and acknowledges them as an undeniable piece of the urban experience. And the camera is loyal to the anthropological perspectives presented by Danish urban designer Jan Gehl as he suggests angles of view characteristic of evolved homo sapiens in their urban habitat.

While some have said that Urbanized is more primer than graduate seminar, it is still a must-see as a one-sitting wonder. Seldom do we get to see the Brookings Institution’s Bruce Katz espouse optimism for cities as opportune laboratories for reinvention and competition, within moments of dramatic scenes of tension between citizens and government. Hustwit has a knack of mixing and matching, and merging problem with opportunity.

A visual triumph, Urbanized could nonetheless feature more cities, reference more history and, sometimes better blend the film’s talking heads with the community they espouse.

Yet the film says more than meets the eye, and in my view, issues an undeniable challenge to all who embrace cities: capture ideas, and make better urban places going forward.

Initial image composed by the author at the Egyptian Theater, Seattle.


Obama and the Middle East, urban sustainability and detente

Posted by Chuck – May 19, 2011

Could sustainability principles pave the path to peace?

President Obama’s strategic statements about the Middle East last Thursday (and as clarified to AIPAC on Sunday) were not city-specific, but took me back one year to Jerusalem and in-person perspectives on the city’s prospects.

My 2010 reflections, reproduced below, capture individuals still in the news, and the issues of today’s urbanism, boundaries and ecosystems in Jerusalem—considerations well worth heeding in response to the President’s focus on borders, and his call to embrace the choice “between the shackles of the past and the promises of the future.”

In Jerusalem, a municipal administration rides a pendulum between sustainability and geopolitics.

Greenbelts, light rail, complete street-making, and the storied demolition orders for Palestinian homes in a floodway: all live on a world stage.

Last week, addressing Pacific Northwest professionals visiting with Seattle-based i-SUSTAIN, Deputy Mayor Naomi Tsur prescribed the ultimate sustainable urbanism, drawing from a Hebrew phrase. Jerusalem must “emerge from its [many] walls,” old and new, she argued, and enhance the city’s diverse, public areas largely already shared by all.

The Jerusalem of gathering spaces and neighborhoods is already present, she claimed, and should no longer grow out in rings of settlements, but should preserve compact neighborhoods based on affinity, interlinked by public transit and defining connectors such as the Jaffa Road and the Street of the Prophets.

The tools? Public process, for one, even in areas annexed after the 1967 Six-Day War, to help define a collective local voice.

Her systemic analysis of the city is familiar and compelling, as she simultaneously seeks to avoid a Nicosia outcome (a reference to the divided Cyprus to the northwest). Arguably, she is peacemaking on a platform of the sustainable city.

For instance, Tsur thinks at night about the infrastructure lacking in East Jerusalem, and how the city should rise above the intractable and remedy untreated eastern watershed drainage, which flows directly to the Dead Sea. It would be feasible, she says, to pump this sewage to the state-of-the-art treatment plant that already treats the western watershed sewage, and create drinking water through sustainable technology.

Meanwhile, in the East Jerusalem village of Silwan, along the Kidron Valley, just below the City of David and Hezekiah’s water tunnel, Fakhri Abu Diab thinks at night about other things — like what to tell his children about the potential fate of the family house which still “carries the smell of his mother.” As recently reported by The New York Times’ Ethan Bronner, the Abu Diab house was one of several that received a demolition order, because it was expanded without a permit and is the potential location of an archaeological park at the base of excavations already mired in the complexities of political archeology — a search not only to document biblical events, but seen by detractors as a Jewish land-claim process in disguise.

In Abu Diab’s view, the post-1967 municipality has ignored him before, and he lacks confidence in the proposed relocation offer, which is under negotiation for a move to higher ground.

Walls, sleepless nights, conflict, water, and a future for children. The human condition speaks loudly in this most urban of cities, as the debate over the future of Jerusalem brings a reality-television aura to local land-use administration.

The original article also appeared in Crosscut, here.


Portland: framing the question of place

Posted by Chuck – May 15, 2011

Visits to other cities can easily create “grass is always greener responses” which are hardly complete analyses of a place and its problems.

Yet these human, spontaneous gestalts are worth noting, because they say something about the immediate look and feel of location, and can constitute authentic perceptions of the best of urbanism.

My role in Portland, Oregon last Friday was to present the results of my recent, co-authored study on transit-oriented and urban center development to a meeting of the American Bar Association’s State and Local Government Law Section—and then to co-lead a bus tour on specific, local examples—from the Lloyd District to the Pearl District and beyond.

In keeping with the spirit of gestalt, something very human happened along the way.

For the past few years, Portland has inspired urbanist writers because of an advanced transportation system (including light rail, streetcar and bicycle), a highly walkable downtown, and development practices which have captured the imagination of a new generation of city-oriented populists.

In particular, two of the best urbanist articles about Portland, William Fulton’s summary of why Portland works and Dan Bertolet’s comparison with Seattle, led me to my own gloss.

From a fundamental, “read the city” perspective, downtown Portland and its close-in neighborhoods capture the best of an urban experience. The scale, street surfaces and sidewalk furnishings occur amid integrated, yet appropriately separated transportation modes and supportive green spaces. Innovative business and community groups have leveraged proximity to transit and managed parking through successful development strategies.

All lead to irresistible memories of examples from elsewhere and a universal question:

How can we capture this experience in my city?

Perhaps such a fundamental human response is the best metric of all, and the key to achieving a livable place.

All images composed by the author. Click on each image for more detail. Cross-posted in The Huffington Post and Sustainable Cities Collective.


busting barriers and achieving the urban balance

Posted by Chuck – March 16, 2011

Cities are the focal point of interaction between human and natural systems and are the laboratories of how best to live—call it “achieving the urban balance”. We all have pictures of what that balance should look like, both visually and in terms of environmental impact.

Of the many human systems that contribute to the urban balance, land use regulation plays an important part, as the consensus constitution for forms of urban development going forward. Traditional land use tools need to evolve in order to assure a sustainable urban balance and to better wed land use and transportation issues.

The question is how to achieve balance amid the implementation barriers common to presentation of new urban land use approaches.

Many examples of innovation exist, from form-based codes to sustainable development regulations, all designed to move away from increasingly disfavored separation of zoning uses, to approaches which facilitate less reliance on the automobile where possible, encourage forms of transportation which emphasize human health, as well as more clearly enable sustainable development tools.

As a hopeful indicator, there are positive signs in the Puget Sound region. For example, in the time since a report identified regulatory, political and fiscal barriers to transit oriented and urban center development in 2009, initiatives at the local and state levels have turned renewed attention towards issues of concern in the transit and infrastructure-funding arenas. Municipalities have experimented with types of zoning which focus more on look, feel and mixed use than hard and fast, traditional techniques. In addition, last Fall, on behalf of the region, the Puget Sound Regional Council was awarded $5 million in the form of a federal Sustainable Communities grant to enhance planning for urban centers along transit corridors.

However, fallout from recent midterm elections has illustrated the risks of backsliding—a reminder that “achieving the urban balance” and related inventories of best practices and regulatory enactments are more often than not inherently political—and often fall short of lofty goals.

Backsliding can be offset by “stay the course” non-governmental organizations, professionals and citizens who will survive political change, and who will continue to parlay an evolutionary urban agenda.

Let’s both grow the toolbox, and keep it open.

Cross-posted as part of the inaugural series, “C200“, on Citytank.


the legal footprint of form-based codes in Washington state

Posted by Chuck – February 20, 2011

Here is an informational overview, not intended as legal advice (nor reflective of any client perspective), about the underpinnings for Form-Based Codes in Washington State. Thanks to Seattle attorney Erica A. Doctor for assistance as part of preparation for an upcoming Form-Based Codes Institute program in the Seattle area.

Form-Based Codes, with emphasis on built-environment form over land use elements, have been used successfully in a number of American cities, but have not been implemented on a widespread basis in the Seattle area.  Professional speculation has identified a range of factors for this lack of adoption, including challenging terrain, lack of a traditional, vernacular “look and feel,” and a reluctance to limit permitted uses or compromise property rights.[1] In addition, with some exceptions, limited local familiarity with drafting, adopting, and implementing Form-Based Codes may have led to maintenance of more familiar land use regulatory practices.[2]

Some local government officials may also fear that “over-regulation” or “new forms of regulation” could stifle redevelopment or revitalization.  But Form-Based Codes are built on familiar legal principles, and so long as local governments proceed with reflection and purpose in a willing marketplace, enactment of Form-Based Codes could reposition a city for compact, less automobile-dependent growth and redevelopment and revitalization of appropriate urban areas.

In addition to the implied, general police power that provides local governments the authority to regulate land use, the Growth Management Act (GMA) and the State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) add their own, Washington-specific gloss.  In the regulation of aesthetics, land use case law has also provided a specific, due process example relevant to Form-Based Codes, in particular, Anderson v. Issaquah, decided in 1993.  These elements of Washington law are explored in more detail below.

I. The Growth Management Act

In Washington, the GMA[3] champions the role of the comprehensive plan.  Prior land use enabling legislation such as the Planning Enabling Act[4] and the Planning Commission Act[5] authorized, but did not require, cities to adopt comprehensive plans.  After the Legislature enacted GMA, the state’s largest and fastest growing local governments were required to create and implement comprehensive plans.

While GMA grants a significant amount of discretion to local governments to craft comprehensive plans, it includes specific requirements, which in essence mandate preservation of rural character in rural areas, protection of critical areas and agricultural lands, and encourage  smart growth within urban growth areas.  Taken together, GMA’s goals discourage sprawl, while explicitly mindful of property rights.  In the context of Form-Based Codes, the Growth Management Act grants a local government the discretion to innovate, so long as the associated regulation meets GMA requirements. [6]

To implement comprehensive plans, local governments create development regulations, which must (1) be consistent with the comprehensive plan, and (2) satisfy the requirements of GMA, or face invalidation by a Growth Management Hearings Board. Accordingly, like all development regulations, Form-Based Codes must (1) be consistent with the comprehensive plan, and (2) satisfy the requirements of the GMA.  In order to pass muster under Growth Management Hearings Board review, drafters should consider how a Form Based Code meets the GMA’s planning goals.

Generally, local governments must balance conflicting goals when drafting plans and regulations. Clear reference to local circumstances will help ensure a defensible record. Local governments may create a separate document that outlines the local circumstances and incorporate it by reference in the operative ordinance.

Like other development regulations, Form-Based Codes are also subject to SEPA review.[7] As part of the implementation process, the agency decision-maker must consider the information generated by the SEPA process, whether programmatic or project-related.  Where a local government is seeking to use an optional Form-Based Code as an overlay, a Planned Action under GMA and SEPA could serve as an incentive,  perhaps in concert with a Development Agreement. As with other planned actions, environmental review for a Form-Based Code district could be limited to (1) verifying the action meets the qualifications of a Planned Action, and (2) probable significant adverse environmental impacts were adequately addressed in the Planned Action EIS.[8]

II. Due process

Anderson v. Issaquah

Constitutional principles of due process stand behind permissible statutory and regulatory approaches to land use regulation.  In Washington, substantive due process requires that a regulation is premised on a legitimate government purpose, that the means to achieve that purpose should be reasonably necessary, and that the impacts of the regulation should not be unduly burdensome.   Procedural due process assures that those affected by a regulation should have adequate notice and a meaningful opportunity to be heard.

Both forms of due process risk violation where regulations are unclear, or vague, or overbroad. In Washington, zoning regulations do not have to meet an impossible standard of specificity, but they must be clear enough for a person of “ordinary intelligence” (in other words, someone who is not necessarily a city planner, engineer, or attorney) to ascertain what is required[9].

Anderson v. Issaquah[10] is an important land use case in the area of regulation of aesthetic criteria and design review, and is often cited nationally, including with reference to the defensibility of Form-Based Codes. The Washington State Court of Appeals in that case said that regulatory codes must give “effective, meaningful guidance” to developers — and to decision-makers, and to the courts, who must review contested plans — in order to be enforceable.

Anderson involved a developer seeking Issaquah Development Commission approval to develop a commercial project in Issaquah.  The code enacted by the city[11] required, among other things, screening on incompatible buildings, encouraged harmony in texture, lines, and masses, and suggested that efforts be made to make projects interesting.   Unfortunately for Anderson, the site for his project was surrounded by mountains and natural areas, a historic Victorian-era home, gas stations, a bank built in the “Issaquah territorial style,” an Elks hall described as a “box building,” and a veterinary clinic with a cyclone-fenced dog run.  He experienced difficulty making his project “harmonious” with its surroundings.

He appeared before the Development Commission several times, and was repeatedly given vague guidance from commission members.  One member drove up and down Gilman Boulevard identifying the design elements he desired for Anderson’s project and recited them during a hearing.  Anderson’s permit application was denied because his project lacked “a certain feeling,” with the suggestion that he start from scratch.  Anderson appealed.  Ultimately, the appellate court held the Issaquah Municipal Code was unconstitutional and violated due process, because it was vague and gave decision-makers too much discretion to approve or deny permits based on gut feelings.

Anderson remains an influential case for determining whether the aesthetic components of a regulatory review process pass muster, and it should be considered carefully in the creation and implementation of Form-Based Codes.  The takeaway lesson is that any “statements,” impression or visions that a local government wants to make must be included in the code in a clear and precise way in order to be enforceable.

Public process

In Washington, GMA mandates public process,[12] and failure to meet applicable requirements could be viewed as a “substantial interference” with GMA’s public participation goals.

Form-Based Codes typically require significant up-front visioning and public participation.  It is likely that the intensive public input native to adoption of Form-Based Codes would be adequate to meet the requirements of GMA.  However, in any incentive-based scheme, such as streamlined permitting or accelerated review for developers who choose to avail themselves of a non-mandatory Form-Based Code, the process should be stated clearly.  Review of a proposal cannot be arbitrary per Anderson; regulations, through text or illustration, should provide decision makers with understandable standards for approval, including allowable variances and conditions.

Conclusion

There are existing examples of Form-Based Codes in the Puget Sound region.  King County has launched a pilot project to adopt Form-Based Codes in three areas, and Bothell and Mountlake Terrace have both implemented Form-Based Codes to revitalize their downtown cores.[13] Meanwhile, Seattle recently amended its low-rise multifamily code to bring some elements of Form-Based regulation into the city’s more traditional zoning code.[14] The cities that have implemented Form-Based Codes have attempted clarity and precision, have provided graphics and photographs to illustrate the requirements, and have specifically stated goals and visions.  They have generally provided for extensive, transparent public involvement, as well as associated review procedures.

Does Washington State need more legislation to better set the groundwork for Form Based Codes? To address its own skeptics, the State of California adopted legislation specifically authorizing Form-Based Codes.[15] Adopting similar legislation in Washington would provide certainty of legislative intent, but is probably unnecessary considering that the legal framework in place already appears to be sufficient. Further, by following the existing statutory framework and the guidance set out in case law, specifically Anderson v. Issaquah, Form-Based Code implementation could move forward if consistent with a locality’s vision and marketplace.

[1] See Bob Bengford, “A Hybrid Approach to Form-Based Codes in the Northwest,” MRSC Planning Advisor, January, 2010

[2] Id.

[3] RCW 36.70A (1990)

[4] RCW 36.70 (1959)

[5] RCW 35.63 (1935)

[6] See RCW 36.70.090, encouraging innovation in “land use management”.

[7] RCW 43.21C; see also Kucera v. Dept. of Trans., 140 Wn. 2d 200 (2000).

[8] Id. See also the Washington State Department of Ecology SEPA Handbook .

[9] Burien Bark Supply v. King County, 106 Wn. 2d 868 (1986).

[10] Anderson v. Issaquah , 70 Wn. App. 64, 851 (1993).

[11] Issaquah Municipal Code 16.16.060(B) and (D)

[12] RCW 36.70.035

[13] See Bengford, supra; Mountlake Terrace Design Standards; Bothell Downtown Plan supporting documents; King County project detail.

[14] See Erica C. Barnett, “Rowhouses and No Parking Requirements: Coming to Seattle!” Publicola (Nov. 30, 2010).

[15] Assembly Bill 1268 was signed into law in July 2004; see Form-Based Codes: Implementing Smart Growth.


“report card urbanism”: Benfield’s 2008 smart growth challenge

Posted by Chuck – September 14, 2010

When I started contributing to local publications in 2009, one clear role model was Kaid Benfield, the Natural Resource Defense Council’s (NRDC) Director of Sustainable Communities and Smart Growth. His almost daily pieces from Washington DC provide a lexicon of best practices and useful imagery, and offer must-read perspective. (In addition, Kaid appears regularly in Huffington Post, DailyKos, Sustainable Cities Collective, Rooflines, and CNU Salons).

In the context of our September 8 and 9, 2010 inter-blog collaborations, Kaid kindly granted his consent to reproduce one of his signature pieces, an open letter and challenge to the smart growth community to address not just where growth will occur, but also green building and infrastructure, parks, and affordability, all in the same process.

The bottom line: Two years old, but prescient words, worthy of a report card. Even amid severe economic recession, there has been no shortage of attention to planning for sustainable communities, including the multi-agency collaborations and grant funding programs of the Obama administration.

Please take a moment to review Kaid’s observations from October, 2008, below. Have we listened and learned?
__________________________________

An open letter to the smart growth community

(Kaid Benfield, October 22, 2008)

There is no way we should be settling for, or applauding, this . . .

transit-oriented in Virginia (by: Rob Goodspeed, creative commons license) above Metro in Arlington, VA (by: EPA Smart Growth)

When we should be advocating this:

Vancouver, BC (by: NNECAPA, creative commons license)green transit on the Atlanta Beltline (courtesy of Atlanta Beltline)

It is time to take smart growth advocacy beyond “smart growth” as we have been defining it.  In short, we should be doing more for the environment.  And we should be doing more for the social health of our neighborhoods, too.

I am proud to have been at the center of the national smart growth movement since its beginning.  But I believe it is time for advocates and practitioners to embrace a broader, more holistic vision of what smart, sustainable development should be in the 21st century.

This will mean retaining, but also being more ambitious than, the largely ”infill, compact development, and transit” agenda for smart growth that has served us very well so far.  rendering of Via Verde in the Bronx (courtesy of RoseCompanies)It will also mean reforming the broader environmental community’s (yes, including my own group’s) advocacy for watersheds, green technology, and cities to place those issues in a context that more explicitly embraces growth and urbanism.  The environment demands this of us, and so does our aspiration to teach and to lead.

This may seem a bit remote to those of us who are focused intensely on an immediate legislative agenda (e.g., the upcoming federal transportation bill or the wonderful recent achievement of California’s SB375), a local community’s comprehensive plan, or the latest proposed highway (or even LEED-ND, a fine program over whose criteria I have shed more personal blood than I wish).  But I believe that we must think not just about the menu in front of us but where we want to – and where we can – take our communities over the next generation and beyond.

Sprawl as we have known it may not be dead but it is surely not well, and we are already seeing the beginning of its end.  The smart growth movement can take a lot of credit for developing and pressing the more compact and transit-oriented development that will replace it.  This is wonderful; but it is not enough.  We should now begin developing a vision and a program of advocacy that looks beyond fighting sprawl and focuses not just on where, how much, and by what mode of travel, but also on what, and how.

Smart, sustainable development for the 21st century should include not just infill, density, and better transportation choices but also the following:

  • Green building (there is simply no excuse for not doing it at this point)
  • Urban green infrastructure, including neighborhood parks (that can help heal ecosystems while also making the densities we need for transportation efficiency more hospitable)
  • Inclusive urban revitalization, with equity, affordability and historic preservation (most US central cities and older suburbs have so much capacity for growth, if we do it right)
  • 3rd St Cottages, Langley, WA (courtesy of The Cottage Company)Walkable neighborhoods that facilitate fitness and health
  • Livable, human-scaled, place-based neighborhoods that create good ambassadors for our movement and that NIMBYs want rather than fight

Most of us, if asked, will say that we already support these things, and we do.  But we almost never advocate them as a whole.

We’re all guilty of being too narrow.  Frankly, I think it is a disgrace that green building advocates have almost gleefully turned a blind eye to the locational consequences of building.  I was personally involved in an innovative housing partnership that has been remarkable in its accomplishment for green building and affordability, but that largely failed to embrace meaningful smart growth standards.  My very good friends in new urbanism can be inspirational and are the very best at placemaking, but can sometimes turn soft when it gets to location and green building.  Some of my colleagues in the environmental community still act parochially, as if growth and development will somehow disappear or become more benign if we chase it away from a place that occupies our attention, when in fact it is likely to find a place or a form that elicits less resistance but the prospect of even more environmental damage.

But we in the smart growth movement, too, are at fault.  Much of what is being constructed, for example, in the name of transit-oriented development — frequently with our applause — does little for the environment other than transportation efficiency and is just plain ugly.  I don’t blame NIMBYs for being resistant.  Yet we seldom push for models or incentives that ask for more.

We are all, nearly every one of us, being too limited in our vision.

planned downtown, Greensburg, KS (by: BNIM Architects)We know that compact development patterns can reduce carbon emissions from transportation by 20-40 percent or even more if ideally located.  But, if Greensburg, Kansas can set a more ambitious goal of reducing its total carbon footprint by half through walkability and green technology, no environmentalist should aspire to less.  If my favorite developer can build project after project after project that includes not only great density and location but also green infrastructure, green building, and affordability, we should not advocate less.  I am not suggesting that the smart growth movement abandon or replace our current sprawl- and transportation-based advocacy.  But I am increasingly convinced that we must make our agenda more robust.

What might this mean, you may legitimately ask?  To take the same examples of immediate advocacy I mentioned above, why shouldn’t there be a sustainable communities title in the new transportation bill?  The research makes clear that inner-city revitalization and transit-oriented suburban development dramatically reduce automobile use and the need for new roads.  inclusive redevelopment in Old North St. Louis (courtesy of Old North Restoration Group)It would make perfect sense to develop a dedicated program to invest a portion of federal transportation funds not on transportation facilities per se but on attracting more development to these areas, conditioned on making the neighborhoods affordable, green, and mixed-use.  We could focus the benefits especially where there are currently vacant or underutilized properties, and require or provide bonuses for parks, green infrastructure, and inclusive planning that will attract residents and businesses to these locations that have been proven to reduce driving.

For the kind of metropolitan land-use planning that will be undertaken to reduce carbon emissions under SB 375 in California, or pursuant to comprehensive plans in municipalities, why not address not just where growth will occur, but also green building and infrastructure, parks, and affordability, in the same process?  Let’s address a variety of issues at once, with the goal of reducing more emissions than would land planning alone while creating complete, cohesive, inclusive neighborhoods.  And, if you’re fighting a sprawl-inducing highway or subdivision, don’t just fight; propose the constructive alternative that meets the same needs without sprawl but in a greener, more appealing way.

These examples are just illustrative.  The key is to start advocating these elements together, in the same forums.  To close on a personal note, many of us who now work on smart growth were environmental advocates before we were smart growth advocates.  We must become that again.  And more.
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