Are you willing to walk further than a quarter mile? -
Roger Lewis explains that people are willing to walk further than planners assume if the environment we create is aesthetic and safe.
The impact of Gen Y on the Master Planned Community -
What impact will Generation Y have on Master Planned Communities in the future? This article gives some insight from Robert Charles Lesser & Co’s Todd LaRue.
Ellen Dunham Jones speaks of major retrofitting to improve the financial and social sustainability of suburbia. This is an inspiring video however I tend to believe in small suburban retrofits like connecting streets, allowing business and multifamily in single family residential buildings, using our unused landscape and providing walkways off of arterials. If we do these small things first we set the foundation for the more exciting suburban-urban environments Jones speaks of.
By Kristian Kelley
Many jurisdictions throughout the country have attemped to battle garage dominated suburbs by creating ordinances designe to create a more attractive street scene. Here in my city of Chandler, Arizona, we find this in the Residential Development Standards which limits the garages home builders build to 1/3 of the front elevation. This sounds pretty effective; however the City has provided builders several ways out of this restriction. The ordinance reads as follows:
“De-emphasize garage fronts as the most prominent architectural feature of the dwelling front, e.g., incorporate side access garages, “in-line” garages, L-shape floor plans, etc. Garage forward facing plans shall encompass a maximum one-third (1/3) of the street front elevation or not extend out from the main body of the house by more than eight (8) feet or include low courtyard walls that extend out from the garage face or other de-emphasizing techniques approved by the City. Structures such as casitas and sideloaded garages may extend further from the main body of the house at a reduced building setback.”
What is the purpose of these ordinances? Aesthetics. It appears that many municipalities are hoping to discourage the type of tract home building that is characterized by street after street of garage doors and very little residential quality elevations. The mindset of our cities planning staff is that garages are ugly and should be remedied. I don’t think garages in and of themselves are that unattractive but when coupled with a 400 square foot concrete driveway they certainly are. Unfortunately, Chandler’s ordinance is ineffective as demonstrated in the following photograph. Here we can see the home builder did in fact rotate one of the garages to a side load configuration. I suppose if you looked at it from the elevation view on a set of plans it looks descent. In the photograph, however, we can see the reality that this ordinance has allowed. Clearly the street scene remains garage dominated.
Instead of focusing on the evils of garages, we should focus on the benefits of livable space adjacent to the street. The most important benefit is the concept of passive surveillance, the notion that the criminally minded are less likely to commit crime when they believe they are being watched. We can better create this environment by providing more real livable space along our street frontages. It is important to note that I am not talking about attractive windows on the side of a garage or the windows of a street fronting bedroom. For passive surveillance to work the space on the other side of the window must be a living room, great room, family room, study and to a lesser degree a dining room; a space that is used for a majority of the waking hours of the family inside.
While the best solution to this problem may be for cities across America to adopt Form Based codes, I offer a simpler Euclidean solution. By simply rethinking the above mentioned ordinance and focusing it on the positive as opposed to the negative, we can get the result we are looking for. If we require new suburban homes to dedicate a minimum of one half of the ground level front elevation to semi private interior space we have fixed both the safety and aesthetic issues. To further the affect I would also suggest that garages be recessed from the front elevation allowing a greater street visibility from the interior spaces. This revised ordinance would have two additional side effects; lots would have to be wide enough to accommodate 20 feet of garage and at least 20 feet of livable space (providing better solar orientation) or if lots are not wide enough to accomplish this it would require alley loaded or drive back garages. Both side effects are much more attractive and safer options than the current suburban model.
Let me know what you think of this conceptual revised ordinance. Do you agree that it would create safer more aesthetic streets? Is there a better ordinance in your jurisdiction that accomplishes the same thing?
Peter Calthorpe on Benefits of Real Estate Diversity -
Just providing transit opportunities does not make a Transit Oriented Development, it requires a diversity of real estate opportunities as Peter Calthorpe illustrates in this video.
Great presentation on New Urbanism -
“30-40% of buyers want to live in walkable urban places and only 5-10% is being provided in any given market”.
If this is true, let’s get to work on building what the market demands.
What do home buyers want today? -
Short video on housing market trends.
Great video post showing the difference between two street sections.
Walkability increases home values -
In this piece Ken Benfield dicusses the financial benefit of living in a walkable community.
Arizona home builders buying up land once again -
Hopefully these builders know about Planit Design Studio!