Would the trulli of southeastern Italy work on Seattle’s hills?
Category: infill development
“A Better Way to Zone” comes to Washington Friday: a myurbanist exclusive, for now
In A Better Way to Zone, published last year by Island Press, Don Elliott, an accomplished Denver land use colleague, consultant and attorney, opens with “Zoning is not a sexy topic”. Obviously, he has not yet spent enough time in Washington State! This Friday, Don and I will share the presentation linked below at the annual conference of the American Planning Association’s Washington State Chapter, in Vancouver, Washington.
I first wrote about Don’s book in the July 14 seattlepi.com. The book’s subtitle is straightforward and foreshadows a direct approach: “Ten Principles to Create More Livable Cities”. Don spends some 220 pages on how zoning was supposed to work, and what went right and wrong. By page 137, he offers the ten principles of a better way to zone:
1. more flexible uses
2. the mixed use middle
3. attainable housing
4. mature areas standards
5. living with nonconformities
6. dynamic development standards
7. negotiated large developments
8. depoliticized final approvals
9. better webbing; and
10. scheduled maintenance
Don is not the first to surgically analyze the zoning tool and prescribe repairs. But in straightforward style, he offers each of his principles as specific “fixes” for patterned lessons of the past. And as someone who has worked in several major American cities and in developing countries, his “evolutionary… governance picture of the future” is based on experience as well as insight.
spare time urbanist
Ooops. Although the poster forgot the 97.5% law practice part of the resume, the click-through is an interesting summary of other cities’ regulatory efforts.
help with learning more about TOD, part 2
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.
photos from june visit to the eco-prince’s domain
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.”
This could only be Prince Albert II drowning his sorrows in front of the Grand Casino in Monte Carlo over his cancelled development plans