Charles Marohn: Strong Towns

Curbside Chat

The mission of Strong Towns is to support a model for growth that allows America's towns to become financially strong and resilient.

With foreclosures at record highs competition is high and housing values low. A certain amount of people's income goes to paying for housing. The proportion from their total pay goes up and down. In 2000 houses were 214% above the value that they should have been.

Between 1990 and 2005, consumer spending per capita rose 14%(inflation adjusted), yet retail space per capita rose 100%. We have six times the retail space per capita of any European country. Vacant retail space is up 42% since 2006.

Can we change our current development pattern? In the modern area "Mechanisms of Growth" have included government transfer payments, Federal/State transportation Spending, Debt (both private and public), the Growth Ponzi scheme.

The government transfer payments has not been sustainable. Our priorities have not included infrastructure and community development.

Federal Transportation Spending went into a deficit in 2008. In Minnesota a study was done on a projection on what needs to done to current transportation in the next 20 years. The results were $65 billion was needed and there was only $15 in projected revenue. This means that $50 billion is needed.

Private Sector Debt dwarfs our public sector debt. When General Motors went out of business they lost money making cars but made money financing cars.

Growth Ponzi Scheme induces new growth that solves existing problems. The initial cost to the public for new growth is minimal in respect to the benefit to the public budget for new growth. Either growth continues at ever accelerating rates or the pattern of development ultimately generates more revenue than it costs to maintain.

Mar. Marohn is now going into technical examples including Leewood Lane Street Project. The neighborhood will cost the local government $6,600 per lot. It would take a substantial amount of time to be paid off. Another example, The Afton Hills Road Rehabilitation road maintenance project would be paid off in 79 YEARS. The North Sleuter Road Project to break even in this case they would have to raise property taxes by 25%. An Industrial Park Investment cost $1.9 million for 25 lots served. These are all examples of unsustainable development projects.

More Examples:
An urban industrial park development was built in the mid 1990s it cost $2.1 million inflation adjusted to make the improvements needed.

Backus Wastewater System sewr rehab project would cost the a family the same as their median household income.

Implications for the future:

• The "Mechanisms of Growth" we have become accustomed to are waning
• Local governments are going to be force to absorb the local cost of the current development pattern.
• This can't be done in the current pattern of development without large tax increases and/or large cuts in service.

New Economy: Emphasis on building resiliency

How do local communities create return on investment for infrastructure?

• Concentrate on High Amenity Areas

A strong town need age diversity to be sustainable.

Big Concepts:

• The current path cities are on is not financially stable.
• The future for most cities is not going to resemble the recent past.
  
• The main determinant of future prosperity for cities will be the ability of local leaders to transform their communities.
  

Questions:

1. How does rail service would factor in to the way of life that is discussed?

• We need the rails for future transit. Our trend of building rails to trails might actually hurt our ability to develop the rail system. Small cities are hurt by the lack of rail transportation.
  

2. What do you think about the small towns ability to cope with the rising population?

• It is important for infill development to slow down the rate of annexation of small towns. We have lost our concept of growth.
  

3. Give some examples of community leaders transforming communities.

• We do not need to grow, we need to build resiliency.
  

strongtowns.org Check It Out

Amy Owsley: Where do we want to go with our towns?

Focus Exercise

1. Do you feel there is a vibrant future for your and other Eastern Shore towns? What are the strongest forces influencing?

• Expansion of local businesses draw people in
  
• Larger size attract mores new people, has infrastructure and a vibrant future
• Planning efforts is one of the strongest forces influencing vibrant towns
• A growing awareness of growth control and getting the right people elected with a strong downtown are strong forces influencing the vibrant future of the Eastern Shore
• Strong downtowns are defined by no empty stores with diverse stores that cater with a range of affordability
• Vibrancy is not sprawl, it is what brings the community together
• Long term Sustainability
• Home ownership is a strong force on a vibrant future

2. What characteristics define our Eastern Shore towns and make them unique from other places?

• Connection to landscape
• people
• life style
• community events
• architecture
• scale
• water
• natural history
• Being Local
• artistic community
• friendliness
• historic buildings
• safety
• wildlife
• diversity
• recreational opportunities
  
• economic diversity
• isolation
• mom and pop stores
• resource based economy
• farming

3. Solutions for Vibrant towns

• strong preservation ordinances
  
• regional vision
• Diversifying farms
• consistency in vision
• Educate outsiders on the principles of the community
• Building a New Economy
• focusing on assets and building on them
• more political weight
• people need to know how to get involved
• leadership with vision
• Engage the public
  

Mr. Kaid Benfield

Sustainable Communities: Where, Why, When, How


The Eastern shore is special. Having vibrant small towns and a successful natural landscape gives the Eastern Shore a large advantage. The population of the Eastern Shore is expected to grow by 37% from 2005 to 2030. An increase in housing by 43%. There will be a reduction in forest and farms by 96,000 acres. How will we manage this Growth?

In the next 25 years there will be an additional 70 million people in the U.S.

Developed land has been growing over twice as fast as population. Mr. Benfield shows a map of if the different land use cover between 2002 & 2030 produced by the Maryland Department of Planning.

Car dependency in the U.S. must change because of rising gas prices, destruction of the environment, climate change, and sea level rise. Sea Level rise is a big deal on the Eastern Shore.

U.S. citizens are not walking as much as they did before. There is a serious obesity problem in this county from inactivity.

Disinvestment is hurting not only large cities like Detroit but also the small towns of America.

The key to sustainability is to reduce the amount of land for development. We also need to make these lands great. An example of a city reducign the amount of land that can be developed is Ontario. They have a well established greenbelt.

Should the Eastern Shore have a regional planning authority? We do have PFAs (Priority Funding Areas) but these can be seen as weak.

Reneweable energy development should be an initiative throughout the whole Eastern Shore.

"Putting Smart Growth to Work" http://icma.org. Check it for smart growth applications in small towns.

When living downtown your per capita carbon footprint is much lower than living in car dependent suburbs.

The Character of Neighborhoods

Higher Density = Less Driving

Per capita Storm Water Runoff sharply decreases in increases in Density.

"Doubling nearby jobs increases walking 19%" Research does show urban design does have an effect on obesity levels. Urban Design should be characterized by connected grid like streets. Public green space is very important to Urban Design it reduces the need for large backyards. A green roof brings amenities to the neighborhood. It absords storm water and provides natural cooling.

The market is ready for Smart Growth. The demand for housing has changed. 75% of the market is for more compact style homes.

Highland Garden Village in Denver, Colorado is a good example of working landscapes within out communities in an efficient and sustainable way.

Artist have become involved in the community and have helped upgrade housing with led to many affordable attractive houses.

Sunrise Trailer Court was invovative in how they laid out the park by allowing green space.

nrdc.org/smartgrowth Go watch the transformation of neighborhoods.

On the Eastern Shore we need to build on what we have now. We have a unique natural landscape.

Questions and Comments from the Audience:
How do we accommodate all the need growth? The annexation laws within the state of Maryland allowing towns to grow as much as they want. What restrictions should we do to keep our foot print small? There are many political issues that must be considered.

Americans love their SUVs and Big yards what we will do in the future to change their opinions. We need to show them the attractive Urban Villages.

Research has shown that LEED deisgn will increase building costs by 2.5%. We need to be careful in imposing the regulations within town because it could be harmful to economic growth.

Smart Growth and Historical Preservation: They are tied into each other because Smart Growth emphasizes the use of current development.

Robert J. Etgen

Mr. Etgen has taken the podium to begin the conference. The Eastern Shore Land Conservancy has protected 50,000 acres through hard work and dedication from exemplary efforts from the ESLC staff.

Growth management is working on the Eastern Shore. There are many forces acting on what has controlled growth. The Eastern Shore is expected to grow by 37% in the next 20 years.

Mr. Etgen is now introducing Kaid Benfield.

Eastern Shore Land Conserancy "Vibrant Towns" Conference

Vibrant Towns
12th Annual Planning Conference

Asking for Better Edge Retail

At the edge of many small towns – and on the periphery of larger cities – you will find a landscape of single-loaded shopping centers, indoor malls, myriad parking lots, neon signs and standardized, vanilla landscaping. One town has been taking tentative steps toward altering this landscape by articulating what it wants and asking for more from retailers who want to develop and locate on Easton’s edges. Before we talk about the example of Easton or the characteristics of better edge retail, we should think about the power of this simple statement. By taking the time to articulate what it wants to be, wants from its development and wants from developers, a town is tremendously empowered to negotiate. This is not a difficult proposition – though it does require a time investment. The power to negotiate based on a clearly articulated standard should result in higher quality (though not perfect – as you can see by looking at even the best examples of standards for strip retail development) development.

Over the course of the last month, the Easton Star-Democrat newspaper has run several articles (1, 2) about the second phase of a suburban retail project on the west side of the town of Easton. The paper also ran a story this week on the debate representatives of Olive Garden restaurant had with Easton’s planning commissioners over their inability to adapt the architecture of their restaurants to Easton’s citizens’ expectations. Easton is one of a few towns on the Delmarva Peninsula with a relatively vibrant and healthy retail district at its center. The retail downtown is a tremendous draw for visitors from around the greater Chesapeake region. Easton is often featured in the Washington Post, Baltimore Sun and even New York Times travel sections. The built environment in Easton is a major draw for tourists and contributes to the viability of the town’s retail and tourism industries.

The characteristics we’re talking about are:
• Buildings built close to the street
• Parking on the street or behind buildings – NOT in front of buildings
• Many openings (doors and windows) on the street facade of buildings
• Narrow street section with building heights in almost 1:1 proportion to street width (the purpose of this is to create a comfortable space for people, rather than an open moving district for automobiles)
• Street trees, bike infrastructures, benches and trashcans – important street furniture for attracting people














Washington Street, Easton, Maryland

These characteristics are known by us – if not by name, at least by sight – in relation to downtown areas just like Easton’s. However, they are not – and should not be – exclusive geographically to central areas. The decision to locate development further and further from town centers is a separate issue entirely. Development – whether retail, office, residential or otherwise – could still be designed to incorporate the characteristics listed above.

The new proposal for Waterside Village in Easton sheds itself of its initial effort to incorporate some of the principles of walkable retail urbanism (see the site plan and rendering from the web site to get a sense of what I’m talking about).




















Waterside Village Site Plan (Waterside Village web site)

The fact that the proposed senior apartments replace office space is a reasonable decision. Residential space over office space is preferable as it extends the hours of active use in the area. Office hours are between 8:00am and 6:00pm and are similar to retail uses. Longer hours of activity increase safety, vibrancy and longevity of the site.

According to the Star Democrat story, “the architectural design and community space that was proposed for the buildings in the Westport Commons application would remain the same” and “the Westport Commons development proposal has not been withdrawn”. This isn’t to insult the quality of the Westport Commons proposal, only to say that the decision to place the senior apartments behind the Target building should take into consideration the context of the site, and not simply be a plan for another site, moved onto this plot of land.

The Town clearly sees they are worthy of better, as the commissioners have “expressed concern that the proposal was not consistent with design aspects of the town’s comprehensive plan.” Easton’s planning commissioners – in this instance – “recommend” the applicants make two changes. (You’ll recognize the recommendations from our earlier list of characteristics of high quality retail districts – like downtown Easton.)

The two recommendations:
• Make the development truly mixed-use; change some of the retail buildings from one-story to two, by putting residential units above retail.
• Move some of the parking to the rear or sides of the buildings.

As the commission noted, the comprehensive plan “encourages” residential space above retail. The ordinances governing Easton’s built environment could better reflect the principles laid out in their comprehensive plan. However, the developer making a contribution to the built environment has a responsibility as well.

Let’s recall that the ingredients of a successful and attractive retail area as we consider the following statement: “…the developers specifically avoided that formula because it would create competition with businesses in the downtown area, where residential above retail is frequently found.” Rather than worry about competing with downtown areas, edge retail should be a complementary district that may have room for larger tenants. Edge retail can still learn from and mimic the characteristics of downtown retail districts that shoppers love.












New suburban development – incorporating the design principles of traditional downtown retail districts.


In the Easton example, the developers argue with my suggestion by saying residential uses are “inappropriate” because they are only targeting 5,000-square-foot-plus “junior box” retailers. Countless examples – and all trends – are proving this wrong. It’s working in Pittsburgh, Vancouver and in hundreds of other developments (nicely presented by CoolTown Studios here). I’m not comparing a shopping center in Vancouver to one in Easton, but if it works at a large scale, it is unlikely that at a smaller, more human scale it should be any more difficult. I am confident that the creativity exists among small town developers in Easton and elsewhere that can craft a workable coexistence of retail and residences.














Mixed-use development in Vancouver, Canada with housing above big-box development.












Plan comparing typical rear-loaded strip shopping mall with parking in front versus innovative mixed-use shopping district (Ten Principles for Reinventing American Suburban Business Districts, Urban Land Institute, 2002)

The other request of the planning commissioners was for the developers to move some of the parking to the rear or sides of the retail buildings. The applicants responded that retailers would not want to occupy a store where shoppers would have to encounter trucks, loading docks and other back-of-house functions. This ethic is more likely applied by retailers than reflected by shoppers.















Retail set into a parking garage in a new development with features of a vibrant street (Ten Principles for Reinventing American Suburban Business Districts, Urban Land Institute, 2002).

When citizens in Easton or other towns want to complain about low density strip development and fields of parking lots, they look to their leaders. The burden of local leaders is being met as they adopt design guidelines and ask these probing questions of developers. It is the responsibility of those who develop retail on the edge to recognize that these types of single-use buildings set behind parking are the opposite of innovative, creative development that our Towns are asking for and we should expect.

Agricultural Urbanism and the Eastern Shore

Earlier this week, Grist posted an article on an evolving phenomenon that goes by the name ‘Agricultural Urbanism’. If your head just cocked to the side trying to understand how that isn’t an oxymoron – you aren’t alone. That’s how I responded when I first heard the term. I also reacted with quite a bit of skepticism. Take a look with me at some images from the articles. This is what passes for some type of urbanism:

Prairie Crossing

Natural Resources Defense Council

In my next post I’ll talk about why I use the term ‘urbanism’ and why it’s relevant here. In the meantime, suffice it to say that I’m talking about the characteristics of buildings that are not only suitable for small towns, but those which characteristics of the great parts of towns that we love, right here on the Eastern Shore.

Source: ESLC

A quick look at Prairie Crossing’s site plan and photos will tell you this development would be better described as Agricultural SubUrbanism. That’s not necessarily a bad thing; ecologically and economically speaking isn’t it better to have fields of food or energy crops replacing turfgrass? Probably, but that’s a small and weak step toward integrating agriculture and urbanism without plainly sacrificing either.

By maintaining significant areas of contiguous farmland sustain a more vibrant agriculture economy. The very nature of integrating farmland into suburbia (and vice versa) takes land away from farming and contributes to less viability of the concerned farmland. Does that mean we should discourage farming that is integrated into the built environment? Not necessarily.

In theory, using in-town land for farming or building new projects with agriculture integrated simply spreads out the footprint of the town, village or city. If our goal is to have vibrant, walkable, sustainable towns, spreading out the development footprint is a no-go. A possible exception, both to the integration of agriculture into towns and the need for large tracts of rural land to sustain farming, is the high-value produce or value-added products like grapes for viticulture. Community gardens and vacant land reclamation (excellent example: GTECH Strategies’ Larimer site) are other opportunities to integrate agriculture into the town landscape.

GTECH Strategies

The question is: how? Look again at the Prairie Crossing plans. Are their true opportunities for the average resident to walk or bike to everything they need? Is there any potential to replicate this project elsewhere? Is there a wise use of the land on the site? Compare this to a recent proposal from Charlottesville-area planner Daniel Nairn. Daniel has drafted up a ‘model block’ for Agricultural Urbanism. It might not work in every community – it was designed for a Richmond, Virginia neighborhood – but elements are not at all dissimilar from blocks in Cambridge, Denton, Easton, Chestertown and elsewhere.

Discovering Urbanism

Let’s think for a moment about why this block might have applicable lessons for Agricultural Urbanism on the Eastern Shore.

Street Wall

There is both a presumption and a legal framework that reinforce huge and unnecessary setbacks for buildings. These setbacks provide no benefits for human safety or welfare and only serve to erode the quality of streets as public spaces. Daniel’s block keeps buildings relatively close to the street (even with small front yards). This is a condition that exists in the heart of virtually every single town on the Eastern Shore from Betterton to Vienna.

Mixed Use

Mixed use does not mean having one huge swath of an enormous development devoted to commercial and another swath devoted to residential use (look again at the Prairie Crossing site plan). This does nothing more than encourage short-distance driving. Daniel’s proposal includes a corner market on the block (retail) and the integration of agriculture provides the opportunity for jobs within the block.

Use of Ancillary Space

Rather than use the block interior simply for parking or recreational space, Daniel proposes the block interior be primarily (and significantly) devoted to crops. There is little wasted space. As one commenter on Daniel’s post notes – an alleyway or structure for alleyways would be a nice addition, but I think there are obvious ways an alley could be integrated.

Scale

One of the issues I have with the block – for its application here – is the block size. The dimensions aren’t articulated in the post, but if we imagine that the block is something like 600’ x 600’, I would think a rectangular block (say 600’ x 300’ might be better suited to an Eastern Shore town – and to walkability. That said, it is the size of the block’s interior that makes it so potentially successful as a model of urban agriculture.

Building Height

At 3 stories, the tallest building in this block would be short or comfortable in any town on the Eastern Shore – with very few exceptions. The employment of architectural details that draw from the local vernacular would make the building even more likely to fit in.

Density

This proposal offers 15 dwelling units per acre – which could easily be increased or decreased with any number of design adaptations. If, for example, the yellow or red (presumably brick) houses depicted in Daniel’s block were to replace the gray-blue apartments, the density would drop to 9 dwelling units per acre. That density might be more appropriate for smaller towns like Queen Anne or Millington.

The potential applicability for our towns is very interesting. Obviously, agriculture must not be a gimmick used to sell an unwalkable, unlivable places, but that where strategically implemented, Agricultural Urbanism on the Eastern Shore should be both comprised of productive agriculture and real urbanism.

For a more in-depth analysis of this proposal, check out Daniel’s web site or NRDC’s Kaid Benfield’s (always insightful) analysis here.

Jake Day is Town Planning Manager at Eastern Shore Land Conservancy. He plans to be a regular contributor to ESLC’s blog on design, development, community and towns.