Ok here’s another short article from the July 2011 issue of Governing Magazine. Chances are you’ve seen more roundabouts and traffic circles over the past decade than ever before. The mayor of Carmel, Indiana envisions a city free of traffic lights by replacing them with roundabouts and traffic circles. Carmel was to have 60 intersection roundabouts by the end of 2011 with another 35 planned.

I like roundabouts. Those that were installed in downtown Windermere a few years ago have been very beneficial to all who drive in and walk in Windermere. I believe that many drivers out this way still need to be educated about maneuvering (and reducing speed) through some of the larger multi-lane traffic circles, like the one on Lakeside Village Lane/Reams Road. However IF treated correctly, such as placing an area of refuge by way of a median, even these can provide easier crossing access to pedestrians as this gives them narrower expanses to cross rather than a sea of traffic lanes.

Trying to get through my magazine stack, I found this article in the July 2011 issue of Governing Magazine. Yes, slightly behind.

Because receiving multiple volumes of unwanted yellow page books each year is a pet peeve of mine, I found it interesting. Even though I have followed the instructions to opt-out for multiple consecutive years, I still receive them. I usually mutter something under my breath and take them straight to the recycling bin at my back door. Except for this year. I delivered them to the phone company’s substation. Surely they enjoyed picking up their own litter the next morning.

Anyway, the article mentioned explains that the City of San Francisco has banned the indiscriminate and unsolicited distribution of yellow page books. Unless a resident is home to physically accept the books or provides prior approval by phone, mail, or sticky note, they are not to be delivered. This is the way it should work.

Last year alone, San Francisco received 1.6 million yellow page books for its 800,000 citizens, or roughly 700,000 punds of waste. What’s then thrown costs the city $1,000,000 each year to process.

Yellow page books are a dying model. Until the phone companies change this method, we all deal with their waste whether we ever open the books or not.

During the January 10, 2012 Orange County Board of County Commissioners meeting, District 1 Commissioner Scott Boyd raised an issue related to water management that I found particularly interesting. He showed an aerial photo of a section of Horizon West within walking distance from my home. This track of land consists of a residence and a pick-your-own blueberry operation. The blueberry operation was new last spring, but it seems to have already become part of the community. In fact, I already look forward to taking my kids to pick this spring.

Once the issue of whether reclaimed water can be used was answered (it can subsurface, but it can’t touch the fruit), the question was raised as to whether other types of agricultural commodities, like blueberries, should qualify for the same discounted rate for reclaimed water as citrus. Should there be a standard agricultural rate for this water?

Don’t know where this will lead, but the general response was positive that standardization should occur if at all possible. Regardless, I’m hoping to see continued support for these types of endeavors in our community, and especially right here in Horizon West. The demand for locally produced foods is certainly growing. This benefits the local community. Plus less energy and fuel are used to transport, process, and package foods that are used locally.

“In the future, when we practice a different kind of agriculture than the heavily subsidized, petroleum-intensive, single-crop system we follow today, farming may be down-scaled and regionalized, more food grown and consumed locally.” - James Howard Kunstler in The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America’s Man-Made Landscape

A couple of days ago, I attended the Orange County 2012 Redevelopment Conference which featured some great speakers.  These were my favorite comments as well as some interesting statements:

Galina Tachieva:

• Why do we need sprawl repair?  Exurban is too expensive to build and not sustainable environmentally.
• Must rethink the model for health and well-being.  We’ve been deprived of the simple and natural activity of walking due to the way we have built our communities.  We’ve built in a grand scale since the introduction of the car, but we need to build on a human scale.
• More urban environments are being sought by younger generations. (a recurring theme)
• Think of long-term – how will the next generation benefit?
• Higher density desired by younger actually performs better – more in municipal taxes, environmentally, well-being
• Most foreclosures in the exurbs. Affordability is wiped out by the long commute.
• Wall Street is using walkscore.com as an underwriting tool.
• Streets and thoroughfares have a social function, and we have forgotten this.
• Arterials to be adapted when go they through certain areas.  Fast traffic kills real estate. (Harping on it, but think CR 535 through Lakeside Village).  Repair slowly.  Start with landscaping and expand sidewalk.

Gregg Logan:

• Gen Y vs. Boomers make decisions about where to live and choice of real estate product based on difference reasons.  Young people are seeking more urban environments, or is it that they dislike driving and appreciate convenience?
• During a recession, the size of the American home decreases (new homes starts) and as soon as an uptick occurs, the size increases again.  We saw this is 2011.
• Much of home ownership growth will be homes without children and/or single people.  They don’t necessarily want an attached home, but what kind of products are we providing them?  How do we make their choices more desirable?  Smaller homes on smaller lots?
• When given the choices from rural to suburban with housing only to suburban with a mix of housing and businesses to denser options, the overwhelming top choice was suburban with a mix of housing and businesses.  People are looking for better suburbs which behave like cities.
• Baby Boomers are still coming to Florida and are looking for safe urbanism.  Generation Y is looking for more diversity, accessibility, and fun.  In housing, they desire to see smaller but better, green/sustainability. and technology.

I found a version of this article in the December issue of Governing Magazine.  I’m posting a link to the online version.  It explains how federal policies limit the non-residential portion of projects, in effect limiting multi-use opportunities.  Due to codes and general fear of multi-use opportunities, we continue to build single-use developments, each segregated from each other by their use and only connected by asphalt.  I can attest to the fear as well as the regulation.

“Ask members of Generation Y where they want to live, and chances are you’ll hear a common answer: urban environments where there is plenty to do within walking distance. For younger people (and many other Americans, for that matter), the cul-de-sac is no longer key.

Yet national housing policy isn’t reflecting those changing preferences, say some advocates. These advocates are pushing the federal government to do away with practices they say discourage the type of walkable, sustainable communities – think condos and apartments on top of coffee houses, clustered around transit stops – that a growing number of Americans desire…”

It’s worth a read.

As we begin a new year, I plan to begin two new series on my blog. The first will be Architecture No-Nos and will include (often blatant) design flaws found around us. The other will be Missed Opportunities. The missed opportunities often will apply to development that would have been perfectly suited for mixed uses.

I’m no advocate for fake, but when adding a fake element, it is important to, at the minimum, place it in front of building mass that makes it reasonably appear as to not be fake. We can all see that the header for this “window” at Lakeside Village Center sits above the roof immediately behind the thin parapet wall. Not sure if the designer failed to look at it three-dimensionally, but it just looks goofy. And fake.

The neighborhood school, Sunset Park Elementary, is on one side of this dangerous intersection, and the families it serves reside on the other. Though it was not designed for this (but should have been), children walk to school each weekday through the intersection. I’ve spent some time considering the design of this intersection. The link below will download a PDF and explain the current conditions as well as safety features that should have been implemented.

535&Overstreet

Over the last few weeks, residents in Lakeside Village have come together again. They have been organizing to plea with county leaders to deny a request by Avatar Homes to remove the required southern connector road in Lakeside Village from the planned development. The planned development is a set of guidelines attached to the property that define how it can be developed.

The decision was continued from September 13 and September 20. The majority of those speaking in support of denial live in the neighborhoods of Newbury Park, Grande Pines, and Lake Mabel Shores. Since the closure of Reams Road, they have seen drivers short cut through their neighborhoods to exit onto County Road 535. The intended route from Reams is to drive north on Lakeside Village Lane, but this adds several minutes and approximately a mile of travel. The safety issues are self-explanatory as these are small neighborhoods with families with young children. [...]

I do like a good pen. It doesn’t have to be an expensive pen.  It just needs to feel nice and write well. One of my favorites is the Pentel Sign Pen.  This capped felt-tip is perfect for quick diagramming.

One of the most interesting urban renewal efforts occurred in my hometown of Rock Hill, South Carolina. As a young person, I remember visiting the Town Center Mall moreso than my peers because my mom’s office was in a 70′s shiny corporate-looking building on the end of the mall.

Town Center Mall was actually built on our Main Street. In the 1970′s Rock Hill leaders recognized the movement of shopping and merchants away from the downtown district and to Cherry Road, a commercial drag that stretches from the Interstate. As people began shopping in locations along Cherry Road, like Beatty Mall and Rock Hill Mall, activity followed.

To mitigate the problem of abandoning the downtown core, city officials came up with a plan to compete. They put a roof on several blocks on Main Street. The Town Center Mall was born quite literally at the town’s center.

I remember Town Center Mall was rather dark and often empty. There was a large gazebo and some enclosed spaces added to the center. A shiny paver type flooring was added. The original buildings lining this portion of Main Street could be accessed from their rear or from the inside of the mall. The central promenade could be accessed from either end of the mall or through the stores.

Girl Scout uniforms from the original Belks.  Shoes from Stride Rite.  Necco wafers from Woolworth’s or McCrory’s dime stores. Eventually, however, the mall became a conundrum. A large relatively empty space sitting at our very core.

In 1993, the roof was stripped off and the building facades were refinished. Lunch eateries, specialty shops, the arts center, offices, and even residential condos materialized. Main Street is beautiful again and though it certainly no longer is the the source for shoes, hardware, and other necessities, it is back to its former grandeur. Lucky for us, those buildings are too beautiful to be covered anyway, and we know now how important it is to maintain the urban fabric. At the time though, covering Main Street was probably an innovative solution to try.