Focus on sustainable urbanism

After a hiatus, I return to posting on Sustainable Dezine with a renewed sense of purpose and a refined focus.

If you've read my posts on New Urbanism, you know that I'm a believer. You also know that my advocacy for New Urbanism as a model for community planning and neighborhood design has been qualified due to the fact that the model has failed more often that not to integrate transit. While New Urbanism puts the auto in its proper place (narrow residential streets, garages on alleys, and so on), without transit, the impact on auto reliance, vehicle miles traveled and pollution is more qualitative than quantitative.

Recently, I attended a presentation in Madison, Wisconsin by Doug Farr. Farr is an architect whose practice is in Chicago. He is the author of Sustainable Urbanism - Urban Design With Nature. The book is both a primer on the subject and a call to action. Farr is also chair of the US Green Building Council's committee that is developing the LEED for Neighborhood Design standards. LEED-ND is in test now; I'll explore this set of standards in subsequent posts.

Sustainable Urbanism has three critical components:

1. The use of SMART criteria to govern the location of new development.
2. Transit-oriented new urbanism community and neighborhood design.
3. High performance individual buildings.

This approach brings together the critical components that are needed to create new habitat that is truly sustainable, and to rebuild existing habitat. I will explore these components in subsequent posts. In addition, the Sustainable Urbanism framework will serve as a lens through which developments large and small will be critically reviewed.

Is New Urbanism necessarily a model of sustainability?

Homes in Middleton Hills, WI from Web site - right

Utah's TRAX light rail - lower right

New Urbanism has become an important model for developing new neighborhoods, communities and towns, and for designing for the infilling and redevelopment of existing neighborhoods and communities. The Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU), formed to promote the principles of new urbanism, counts 320 completed projects in the U.S.

The application of new urbanism planning principles is intended to build community by creating environments in which the impact of the automobile is reduced and the scale of the place provides walking access to neighborhood and community-serving commercial and institutional uses such as schools, churches, post office, markets and shops. At the neighborhood level, new urbanism draws on Traditional Neighborhood Design concepts, including narrow streets designed to reduce the speed of traffic, garage access from rear alleys, and small front yards and functional porches that encourage interaction with neighbors.

At the level of individual structures, design standards assure the construction of homes and other buildings that support the intended look and feel of the place. Owner associations typically enforce the rules and provide services so as to assure maintenance of the community and associated values.

Developments like Seaside in Florida, and the others reviewed in previous posts on the subject, are successful to varying degrees in implementing these principles. They are very appealing places that have been received favorably by people who want to live or vacation in them. On the other hand, does that mean that they are necessarily sustainable? While I have visited a small sample of the entire new urbanism project universe to date, I've seen enough to have some concerns:

1. While autos have been downplayed within new urbanism communities, thousands of automobile trips are generated each day getting to, from and through each of these communities.

2. Many of these communities were designed without alternative or mass transit options in mind. Even if there is a transit option in the plan, it may be years before it takes form.

3. I have yet to visit a new urbanism community where significant numbers of jobs are located in the community.

4. It is only lately that energy efficiency has become a design criterion at the level of the individual building in these communities. However, current green building standards are too low to have the impact needed to meet even the interim standard of 50% reduction in fossil fuel use in buildings by 2010 as advanced by the Architecture 2030 Challenge. (More about the Challenge in subsequent posts.)

5. New urbanism projects are challenged to include housing that is affordable to start and that remains so over time. As a result, diversity in terms of age, race, and income level is often lacking in these neighborhoods and communities. Yet, it is an important principle, articulated in the Charter of the Congress of New Urbanism. According to a CNU survey, 234 of the 320 existing new urbanism projects are considered market rate projects. Only 15% of these projects included affordable housing in their mix.

While I am firmly in the camp of the new urbanists, believing that its principles provide strong counterpoint to the realities of urban sprawl, much work needs to be done to make the model truly sustainable. In fact, the CNU has a number of initiatives in place to focus resources and bring about the changes needed in building codes, transportation and land planning, and consumer attitudes and habits to address these concerns. During my travels I plan to visit as many of the new urbanism neighborhoods and communities as practical, with this perspective as a lens.

New Urbanism is now a pervasive model

Alys Beach pictured at right, Loreto below right

Seaside was the start of what has become one of the most significant models for development of the built environment. While its roots are in Walton County, Florida along the beautiful Emerald Coast, the impact of new urbanism can be found in neighborhoods and communities throughout the country and abroad.

Duany, Plater-Zyberk (DPZ) developed the concepts involved and has pretty much owned the space since designing Seaside in 1980. Recently, they returned to Walton County as designers of the newest project in the County, Alys Beach. This new urbanism community has also embraced regional green building standards of construction.

I was surprised to learn that Alys Beach is a DPZ design. The community is starkly white, apparently influenced by styles seen in Bermuda and Antigua, Guatemala. Perhaps purposefully different from the DPZ-designed Seaside and Rosemary Beach, what is off-putting is the very fact that it is so completely disconnected from the other vernacular references in the area. To buy in, lots are offered at $400K and finished residences at $1.9M.

From a style perspective, another new coastal project that was influenced by DPZ has greater appeal. Loreto is connected to the historical fishing town of the same name on the east coast of Baja California Sur, Mexico. My attention was drawn to Loreto by a recent article in the New York Times. Several years ago the government of Mexico identified a number of areas that would be developed as tourist destinations. Somewhat belatedly, investment in Loreto has begun, driven by the vision of The Trust for Sustainable Development, a group from Vancouver, British Columbia. Loreto will ultimately have 6K homes on 8K acres situated between mountains and the Sea of Cortez. Prices in Loreto range from $300K to $900K - approximately $350 per square foot.

Closer to home, I've had the opportunity to explore other New Urbanism communities in Wisconsin and Utah. Middleton Hills is another DPZ-designed community, located west of Madison in the city of Middleton. Architecturally, styles include contemporary interpretations of prairie, craftsman and bungalow. One of the intended consequences of new urbanism and its use of traditional neighborhood design is an increased sense of community. A resident of Middleton Hills recently observed that it took 2 hours to walk around the community of 400 homes, not because of the rolling topography but because of the success of the place as a community and the conversations with neighbors that bear witness. As elsewhere, consumer response has been very strong. Available homes are listed at $150 - $250 per square foot.

The first sign of New Urbanism appeared in Utah when a neighborhood was built at South Mountain, at the south end of the Salt Lake valley, more than ten years ago. More recently and more dramatically, Kennecott Land (part of Rio Tinto) kicked off the development of 80,000 acres on the West side of the Salt Lake valley with its Daybreak community. The entire 80K acres has been master planned by Calthorpe Associates, a California planning and design firm that has embraced new urbanism and sustainable design. One of the progressive requirements in place at Daybreak is that all builders have to build Energy Star homes. Consumer demand has been strong and values fall in the range of $150 - $200 per square foot.

Finally, DPZ has also had a hand in designing a mixed-use infill project called Cottonwood Mall on the east side of the Salt Lake valley. This project replaces a tired shopping mall and is owned by Capital Growth Properties. Take a minute to view the extensive list of projects that DPZ has designed using the interactive map on their Web site.

In the next post I will look at the limitations of new urbanism as a development model reflected by experiences to date.

Seaside spawns other New Urbanism communities

Click on image of Rosemary Beach for larger view

Seaside is recognized as the first neotraditional town, based on the principles of new urbanism developed by Duany Plater-Zyberk (DPZ). In response to its success, similar developments took form along Highway 30A in the panhandle of Florida and in other parts of the country.

The second such development in the area was Rosemary Beach, incorporated in 1995 and so named because of the wild rosemary in the area. Rosemary Beach, also designed by DPZ, integrated many of the design elements found at Seaside as well as new elements:

• front doors that open onto boardwalks instead of streets
• garages located off alleys at the rear of the property
• density more like that of an urban village
• architectural style that is heavily influenced by the West Indies

A check of current real estate listings showed 90 homes on the market with asking prices ranging from $280 to more than $1600 per square foot. To give you an idea of the other costs of ownership in these communities, the Rosemary Beach association fees run $950 per quarter and annual property taxes on a home valued at $1M would be approximately $9K.

Surrounding Seaside is the new community of WaterColor, developed by the St. Joe Company. St. Joe is the largest landowner in the state and has several communities in development. WaterColor, designed by Jaquelin Robertson, covers 499 acres and does a reasonably good job of adjoining Seaside though it lacks the charm of the original. Density seems comparable to Seaside. Homes reflect various architectural styles including shotgun, craftsman, and classic southern with wraparound screened porches and metal roofs.

Values in WaterColor range from $350 to $650 per square foot. According to a local realtor, the development added too much inventory too fast, causing the relatively lower values seen today. WaterColor brought more commercial space to the area, including a Publix grocery store, providing competition to the small local markets and eliminating the need to drive 25 miles each way to find groceries and necessities.

WaterSound is the other St. Joe development in Walton County. Covering 256 acres, WaterSound is unique in that it is the only gated community of the group. Designed by Robert A.M. Stern, it is the most affordable of the communities. Lots are offered at $150K - $200K; homes are listed for $250 to $400 per square foot or $500K to $700K. The architectural style is fairly unappealing and regionally disconnected. I would describe it as evolutionary beach - you will find in the mix shake and shingle homes that would be more at home in the northeast.

These new urbanism communities are all beach towns located on one of the most beautiful stretches of shoreline in the country. They are not conventional towns in which residents live and work year-round and they are not affordable for most. They are connected by the beach and by the scenic drive that is highway 30-A but there is no public transportation connecting the communities to each other or to the world outside south Walton County. But, I'm getting ahead of myself. In Post 3, I'll look beyond Walton County at the now widespread influence of Seaside and new urbanism.

Seaside, Florida and the roots of New Urbanism

Family and friends have been traveling to Seaside, Florida for a week at the beach for at least a dozen springs. Several years ago, in response to the growing cost of Seaside rentals, nearby Grayton Beach became the place to stay. The higher costs in Seaside are testament to the public response to the place, the first community to be built using the precepts of new urbanism, or neotraditional town planning.

Property owner and developer Robert Davis worked with Miami husband-and-wife architects Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, to create a master plan in the early 80s that prescribed the use of a number of key traditional beach design principles:

- a highly walkable community of moderate density (20 residential units per acre) where every home is within a 5 minute walk of the town center

- automobiles are acknowledged but downplayed by the use of narrow streets and the absence of garages

- very individual interpretations of vernacular beach architecture, guided by a design code that encourages the use of

• functional and decorative belvederes (see slideshow upper right)
• porches
• deep overhangs to provide shade during the hot and humid summer months
• one-of-a-kind picket fences
• lots of windows to allow cross-ventilation

- landscaping that is mostly native vegetation and avoids the use of grass

- unique pavilions at the end of each street that serve as gateways to the beach

As Seaside was built, the size of the homes increased, in part, to maximize seasonal rentals and accommodate extended families. Today, you will find a total of 489 residences; only a few lots remain vacant. While resales are currently slow, reflecting the larger slowdown in the real estate market particularly for higher-priced vacation properties, values are still in the rarefied range of $750 to $2000 per square foot, varying with proximity to the beautiful half-mile long white beach.

What does Seaside feel like? It has the style and the feel of an earlier time, as was intended by the return to traditional town design. It is a great place to go to slow down, enjoy simple pleasures and appreciate its significance in shaping the way that hundreds of other communities have been designed and built because of its founding.

Subsequent posts will focus on the larger new urbanism movement as a model for sustainable development.