Blog Title: Planning Commissioners Journal

Conflicts of Interest; Ex Parte Contacts; Bias; Political Influence; and more -- Our October Special Offer

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How We Zone

From PCJ Editor Wayne Senville:

As I noted in an earlier post, I'm back serving on my local planning commission (I had previously served from 1991-1999). I'll be posting occasional reflections on issues we're dealing with -- a "Planning Commissioner's Journal" so to speak. Perhaps they relate to issues you've faced or are facing -- so feel free to add your comments at the end of this post.

Let me briefly mention two recent zoning amendment requests as they raise some questions about "how we zone."

1. We received a request from our public high school to install a digital electronic messaging board. Currently, we have no provision for them in our zoning ordinance. In response, our planning staff did some research and drafted a fairly restrictive addition to our ordinance that would allow these signs -- but not the flashing, animated variety -- in some of our non-residential zoning districts. The high school's proposal would be permitted under this approach.

The planning commission's ordinance committee, in reviewing this draft, further narrowed the proposed amendment so that it only applies to post-secondary schools. The committee's reasoning: we need to move cautiously in this area, and view this first digital sign as a kind of experiment -- and gauge public reaction -- before opening the doors any wider to digital electronic signs.

2. Our city has a mental health crisis center located in a residential zoning district. It wants to expand, but it's a nonconforming use. We're now considering a zoning amendment that would add a definition of "mental health crisis center" that would allow them in just one location in the city: the area our one and only mental health crisis center is currently located in (and wants to expand in).

Based on my previous experience, and what I've seen elsewhere, these are not atypical requests. In fact, most zoning amendments seem to be in response to specific site-based requests. Zoning codes seem to grow or "accrete" in this way.

Is there a down side to this? Or is it just being responsive to specific, unanticipated needs? Is it a form of (bad) spot zoning, or a reasonable approach?

To me, our approach is both responsive and reasonable. But one key factor is that the two amendments I mentioned provide public/community benefits. Another factor that certainly has played a role: there's been no opposition (at least so far) to the proposed zoning amendments. Finally, the two amendments don't seem inconsistent in any way with the policies of our comprehensive plan.

For more on spot zoning, take a look at an article we published back in 1993 (but still relevant), Understanding Spot Zoning. In it, attorney Bob Widner also notes the importance of determining the consistency of zoning amendments to the comprehensive plan. We're making the article available at no charge to download -- just click on the above link.

A Gallery of Planners

From PCJ Editor Wayne Senville:

I've been sorting through the thousand plus photos I took last Summer during my six-week trip across the U.S. -- weeding out many; seeing which to save. As many of you know, I met with many planners, planning commissioners, and others interested in local planning and development issues.

One of the things that has long struck me about planners (citizen & professional) is how they often work in the background in their communities, out of the limelight. In fact, it can be a sign of trouble when they become the focus of attention!

But planners should be acknowledged for the key role they play in making our towns, cities, and counties better places to live and work in.

The "photo gallery" I've put together is also a "thank you" to those who took time out of their busy schedules to show me around their community.

Use this link to take a look at about forty of these dedicated planners.

Recently Received Draft Articles

Walking through Pilsen

From PCJ Editor Wayne Senville: You never know what you'll encounter in Pilsen -- a Chicago neighborhood I visited last month. The street art (in at least one case encompassing the exterior of an entire house) often involves political or religious themes of particular importance to the neighborhood's many Hispanic residents.

Murals can strengthen communities -- something I highlighted in a blog post last Summer while visiting the small town of Ely, Nevada. Take a look at some of the other Pilsen murals. This highly visible art seems to attract not just amateur photographers (like myself) but film crews, like the one we happened on while walking through the Pilsen neighborhood on a hot Friday afternoon.

Pilsen is one of a number of neighborhoods that make Chicago truly a mosaic of a city. For more on Pilsen's history.

Join Us for a Week in Italy next Spring

 

The Planning Commissioners Journal is teaming up with Adventures in Italy for a Place Making trip to Orvieto, Italy, next Spring.
	Sitting 700 feet above the Umbrian valley, Orvieto is rich in Etruscan, medieval, and Renaissance history and architecture.  The flat hilltop provides both easy walking and amazing vistas. Orvieto is renowned for both its wine and olive oil -- and it boasts what is arguably the best Gothic cathedral in Italy.
Join the staff of the Planning Commissioners Journal as we:
Discover how this small city applied urban planning principles to create its extraordinary public realm, while savoring Italian food, wine and culture.
Gain the insiders perspective by meeting face-to-face with the people guiding Orvieto in maintaining and enhancing its superb people-friendly environment.
Investigate CittaSlow, the international Slow Cities movement headquartered in Orvieto, which focuses on improving the quality of life through a local economy, excellence in the physical and natural environment, and by welcoming outsiders.
Observe and document the qualities that make dynamic "people places."
Relax at the end of each day, and enjoy conversations with fellow planners and their companions. We'll share insights and reflect on how each days' discoveries can be applied in our own communities.
About our trip: Civic designer and experienced Orvieto guide Bill Steiner will lead our group through a series of planning activities, with time each day devoted to enjoying Italian life: a vineyard tour, wine tasting, local market, a cooking lesson. Accompanied by Planning Commissioners Journal editor Wayne Senville & general manager Betsey Krumholz -- both experienced planning commissioners -- there will be ample time for participants to gain valuable perspectives on town and city planning to "take home" after a stimulating week. Our group will lodge at San Lodovico, a convent B&B which is spacious and relaxing, and within easy walking distance of the beautiful Piazza Ranieri. Together we will experience the warmth of Italy, while slowing down and absorbing the feel of this spectacular city.
Dates:  May 31 - June 6th, 2009 Anticipated Cost:  $ 2,150 per person* Interested?  Receive more information, including the planned itinerary, by adding your email address to the form on the right (we will get back to you right away), or call our office: 802-864-9083. * Fee includes six nights double occupancy lodging and breakfast and all program activities. Travel costs to and from Orvieto are not included.	Please send me more information on the planned trip to Orvieto, Italy.     * required     Email Address:    *                     Email Marketing by VerticalResponse

Contentious, Non-Productive, Public Hearings

Food, Farmland, & Open Space -- August Special

Get special introductory pricing on Food, Farmland, & Open Space, the newest in our Taking a Closer Look series. Offer valid through Sunday, August 31st.
Order all of the following articles for delivery by first-class mail, as a bound 62-page reprint collection at a special discount price of $18.50 (will be $23.50 as of Sept. 1st). Flat shipping & handling fee of $5.00 regardless of quantity of reprint sets ordered. No additional subscriber discounts on this special offer.

Table of Contents of Food, Farmland, & Open Space:

Saving Fenway Park

From PCJ General Manager Betsey Krumholz:

Being from Vermont you'll have to excuse our personal interest in the Boston Red Sox. But we think you'll find the following Red Sox story worth hearing about -- especially in light of the article on charrettes just published in our Summer issue:

“For ten days [in August 2000], an air of controlled chaos characterized Room L308 in the Library Building at Simmons College in Boston. Chalkboards were crammed full of random, late-night-inspired ideas written in a vaguely decipherable scrawl. Reference books, rolls of trace paper, markers, and miscellaneous drafting tools piled high on a ragtag collection of worktables. Clumps of wires and cords stretched across the room to power laptop computers, CAD stations, printers and copiers. Empty Coke bottles unceremoniously scattered the floor. Amongst it all, clusters of casually dressed professionals and curious visitors feverishly debated the intricacies of traffic counts, aisle widths, and historic preservation standards above the combined din of ringing cell phones and a borrowed boom box pumping out strains of Elvis Costello and the Attractions.”

-- From Design Symposium A Rousing Success! Summary Report by Jeffrey Harris of Save Fenway Park.

Charrettes gather professionals, community leaders, and passionate citizens under one roof for one purpose. When done properly they harness imagination, balanced by fact and reason, and the results can be surprising. While many charrettes are organized by planning officials or development interests, this is the story of how community advocates used the charrette process to reframe one very important development discussion, and challenged public officials to see things differently.

From the earliest whispers that the Boston Red Sox were planning to build a new ballpark, the Save Fenway Park (SFP) volunteers understood clearly the threat to the historic park.

The Red Sox organization had a comprehensive vision which included not only a brand new facility, but the major redevelopment of the surrounding neighborhood. With support from the Mayor’s Office (and a big advertising budget) it appeared that the deal was done, and Fenway Park would become yet another piece of Red Sox history.

But the SFP team was not out yet. The Fenway Community Development Corporation (FCDC) had been working for several years on its “Urban Village Plan” which envisioned new affordable housing and a more attractive environment for retail and other commercial uses along an under-developed section of the main thoroughfare through the neighborhood. The location and footprint of the beloved Fenway Park, and its associated uses, loomed large in this planning.

Both SFP and the FCDC were frustrated with the “public” planning process charted by the Boston Redevelopment Authority (and the Red Sox organization) as the city deliberated the re-zoning of the neighborhood to accommodate the demands of the team. The neighborhood groups felt that the process was geared only toward the development of a new stadium, and had not sufficiently considered the possibility that keeping the existing stadium could, in fact, be a better option.

Working on a shoestring, they contacted media outlets, handed out bumper stickers, called elected officials, and wrote grants. But they needed a real and convincing alternative -- something viable and visual -- to convince both the public AND the team that Fenway Park could be saved. They also needed experts, imagination ... and money.

Dan Wilson of Save Fenway Park contacted Philip Bess, an architecture professor (now at Notre Dame University) known as an advocate for urban ballparks. Intrigued by the project, Bess agreed to assemble a team of experts to lead the community through a comprehensive visioning process. Photo on left of Bess speaking at the charrette.

Carl Koechlin, Executive Director of the FCDC, signed on to offer expertise and credibility, and secured critical seed money from a neighborhood foundation. Computer support, food, lodging, and anything else that came up was organized by Erika Tarlin of SFP.

Volunteers called everyone they knew to ask for supplies, time, space, and money as they set a date in August for a week-long charrette (which they renamed a symposium because the term charrette was not yet in the public lexicon).

City and Red Sox officials were both informed of and invited to attend the event, but did not sign up to participate officially. Local architects, engineers, planners, transportation experts, citizens, and baseball aficionados did sign on. Photo on right: some of the charrette participants.

Timing proved to be everything. In late July of 2000, the Massachusetts Legislature passed a funding bill that provided a substantial chunk of money for the new stadium. However, it wasn’t quite enough. It was the opening this group needed -- and the charrette began with great optimism on August 5, 2000.

Despite the chaos described in the opening paragraph, the design teams were well prepared and well organized. Divided into teams representing three critical aspects of the project (transportation, historic preservation, and the “business” requirements for seating, improved facilities and training space), the process was led by professionals who understood the necessity for a plan that would work.

top above: section perspective drawing by Rolando Llanes; immediately above: potential Fenway improvements shown in rendering by Howard Decker. reprinted with permission of Save Fenway Park. Click on each image to view it at a larger size.

The results were proof of the charrette’s sensitivity to both the business needs of the organization and the desires of the neighborhood.

This story continues to be written. A change in team ownership, a review of the financial data, and other circumstances caused the Red Sox organization to take another look. The neighborhood’s enthusiasm for their iconic structure led to a process that opened up new ways of thinking for everyone involved. The City discovered that planning is not always controlled by the folks at the top, and the resulting plans for incremental changes to Fenway Park and the surrounding neighborhood will serve the team, the fans, and the community for years to come.

------------------------------------

For more details:

Jeffrey Francis, of Save Fenway Park, gives a great overview of the participants and the process in his excellent article, Design Symposium a Rousing Success.

The complete proposal based on the findings from the charrette can be viewed online at Homefield Advantage.

Related stories:

"...Not long ago, the Save Fenway crowd looked like crazies. The crazies turned out to be right. Who now will save Boston?" by Steve Bailey, Boston Globe, Aug. 18, 2006 (posted on the Save Fenway website).

The Future Fenway Symposium, by Jeffrey Harris and Randy Divinski (published in Elysian Fields Quarterly -- The Baseball Review).

Envisioning Greenways: Our Summer Issue

-- Subscribe to the Planning Commissioners Journal starting with our Summer issue.

-- To order the Summer issue (without subscribing) or to download individual articles from the issue.

Contents of Summer Planning Comm'rs Journal:

Happy Trails: Greenways for Everybody by Hannah Twaddell Across the country, citizens are increasingly calling for improved and expanded multi-use trails, both for recreational and commuting purposes. Transportation planner Hannah Twaddell outlines a "four-step path" to developing a successful greenway trail.
	Developing at the Edge by Tom Daniels A continuing challenge facing many local planning commissions is how to best plan for new development at the edge of existing settled areas. This can be particularly acute in communities facing growth pressure. A look at some tools and strategies for guiding development at the edge.
An Introduction to Charrettes by Bill Lennertz, Aarin Lutzenhiser, & Tamara Failor Everyone involved in a community planning effort benefits from a process that is accelerated, well-planned, and productive. The goal of a charrette is to bring decision makers and community members together in one place to create a plan that represents a detailed, feasible agreement -- a consensus which can otherwise take months to achieve.
	This Plan's For You by Jim Segedy and Lisa Hollingsworth-Segedy In developing a comprehensive plan, one of the most important questions to ask is: who are we? This calls not just for demographic analysis, but an understanding of how your community defines its identity.
Visioning Can Be Planning Writ Large by Elaine Cogan Engaging in a visioning process for your city or town can be an exciting, but challenging, undertaking. A look at the key elements in this process.
	Planetizen Update The Editors of Planetizen highlight five new books of special interest to citizen planners.
Planning Commission Physics by Ric Stephens Does the "physics" of your planning commission reflect a mechanical or a systems model? How understanding of these models (with reflections from a butterfly) can help shape decision-making.

Subscribe to the Planning Commissioners Journal starting with our Summer issue, due out July 28th.

Mall Housing, Part II

From PCJ Editor Wayne Senville:

In my previous post, I highlighted the creative, albeit illegal, construction of a hidden apartment inside the Providence Place mall.

But in an interesting twist, the typical commercial-only mall is now being viewed by at least some developers and local officials as out-of-date. They want to add housing into the mix!

New Urban News, in its June 2007 issue, notes that: "General Growth Properties, the nation’s second-largest owner of shopping malls, has decided to start redeveloping its more than 200 properties by adding housing, offices, hotels, and other elements ... Thomas D’Alesandro IV, senior vice president of the Chicago-based company, told a session at CNU in Philadelphia that he foresees 'the reinvention of existing malls into mixed-use centers.' ...”

You can read about a growing number of older malls being torn down (or rehabbed) and replaced by (or reconfigured as) mixed use centers, where one of the key elements is housing.

There are literally hundreds of "dead malls" across America; just browse through the listings of dead or dying malls on DeadMall.com.

More and more of these relics are giving way to new mixed-use centers.

On Labelscar: The Retail History Blog, you can read about potential new life for the down-on-its-heels Eastland Malls in Charlotte, North Carolina. The blog posting includes a candid quote from Charlotte mayor Pat McCrory that “We built crap. We built pure crap. I call it corridors of crap ... and we’re paying for it now.” (As reported in a WCNC-TV news story, "Redeveloping a 'Corridor of Crap").

In Holladay, Utah, the old Cottonwood Mall is being torn down, to be replaced by a mixed use project.

As the Salt Lake Tribune reported on May 23: "Utah's first indoor shopping mall sprouted here almost 50 years ago. Now, Cottonwood Mall owner General Growth Properties hopes to replace the aging icon with a new retail model and a revived community hangout. On Thursday, the company -- with the help of Holladay Mayor Dennis Webb steering a bulldozer -- broke ground on its 57-acre, $550 million project. In place of the long, rectangular, peach-brick mall, General Growth envisions: a mixed-use village with 500 homes, 195,000 square feet of offices and 575,000 square feet of shops -- about 150,000 square feet less retail space than the old mall."

In Deschutes County, Oregon, "SilverStar Destinations LLC, wants to replace [the Sunriver Village Mall] with The Village at Sunriver, a mix of condominiums, retail space and other amenities that developers hope would transform the space into a “vibrant town center,” SilverStar principal John Goodman says." From the Bend Bulletin (April 28, 2008).

One of the challenges facing the transformation of malls into mixed uses centers is zoning. Local codes in many cities and towns have long been built on the segregation of different land uses from each other. Malls have been built in areas that typically only allow for commercial uses. But public attitudes, and the views of developers, are changing.

Housing at the mall. Perhaps not such a strange idea after all.

Mall Housing, Part I

July Special Offer

Save over 50% this month on six of our back issues, focusing on community planning topics -- just $6.50 each. - Safer Communities - Tending Our Communities - Diagnosing Your Community - Community Noise - Creating Vital Communities - Community Leadership For the contents of each of these back issues, and to order, go to our Special Offers page.

 

Energy Costs of Lighting

From PCJ Editor Wayne Senville:

How much does it cost to light America? While I couldn't google a quick answer, viewing this modeled image of sky glow over the United States, it's not hard to guess that the answer would be literally astronomical.

In our last posting, Betsey Krumholz wrote about a dispute over nighttime football lighting in Oak Park, Illinois. Interestingly, debates over outdoor lighting are becoming increasingly common. Besides impacts on neighborhoods, they also raise broader issues involving energy consumption and obscuring the natural dark sky (a "resource" that our society seems to undervalue).

Three years ago, as a sidebar to an article on Energy Conservation & Community Planning, we briefly covered some of the energy-related impacts of outdoor lighting. While most of us are not quite ready to turn off the lights at sporting events, it's getting harder to ignore the energy-related costs (both fiscal and environmental) of how we live and play.

Here's the Outdoor Lighting sidebar from our Winter 2005 issue:

"Communities can gain significant energy savings through more efficient outdoor lighting. Moreover, you don’t need to be a big city to achieve this. For example, the small Idaho mountain towns of Ketchum (population 3,873) and Hailey population 6,200) have adopted outdoor lighting ordinances. The ordinances have multiple objectives, including reducing skyglow to preserve views of the night sky, cutting down on glare, and reducing energy consumption.

According to Dr. Steve Pauley, who helped put together the Ketchum ordinance, one of its key features is the requirement that new municipal street lighting use full “cutoff” fixtures, preventing light from being emitted above “the 90 degree plane of a horizontal fixture.” As Pauley notes, “by shining shielded light straight down onto the target that needs lighting, one can often reduce the wattage of a lamp by 30 to 40 percent.”

Hailey followed in Ketchum’s footsteps. As Hailey planning director Kathy Grotto put it, “We had the full support of our Planning & Zoning Commission and our City Council, and also the support of the majority of citizens and business owners.” As to the future, Grotto notes that “Blaine County and other cities in the county are also considering outdoor lighting ordinances, so we hope to one day have valleywide regulations so we can continue to walk outside of our homes at night and see the Milky Way!”

Perhaps the most comprehensive approach to energy savings through better street lighting can be found in Calgary’s “EnviroSmart Streetlights” project. This Canadian city is retrofitting most of its 37,500 street lights on residential and collector streets with new, lower wattage, flatlens fixtures.

Public safety is a key consideration. While less light will be emitted from each street light, the city believes the new fixtures will decrease glare, “increasing visibility by directing light onto the roadway and preventing it from shining into the eyes of motorists.” Street lighting will continue to meet minimum Illuminating Engineering Society guidelines. Some street lights will not immediately be changed, including those in front of parks and playgrounds.

When the $6.6 million dollar project is completed later this year, Calgary expects to benefit from substantial electric savings, on the order of $2 million per year –- enabling it to recoup the costs of installing the new fixtures within four years. Another important benefit will be lower carbon dioxide emissions (as much as 16,000 tons/year) from reduced demand on the city’s gas and coal-burning generators."