Posted Sep 19, 2010, 7:43 PM
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Jubilee on the Bay !!
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Join Date: May 2007
Location: Mobile
Posts: 1,077
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Quote:
MOBILE, Alabama -- Elizabeth Sanders, president of the Downtown Mobile Alliance, hoped to create a buzz when she brought in renowned urban planner Andres Duany to speak at her group’s annual meeting earlier this month.
To that end, she said, the move was a success.
Duany’s presentation, a frank indictment of suburban sprawl, resonated with people, Sanders said, and they’ve been calling and e-mailing her to ask what’s next.
“They want to know what we are going to do to right the course we’re on for the next 20 to 30 years in our city’s future,” she said.
Duany pioneered the New Urbanism movement in the 1980s, a planning ethos that calls for walkability and quality design, development akin to the evolution of cities in the age before automobile travel dominated growth patterns.
While New Urbanism initially focused on creating planned developments from scratch, the movement’s cousin, Smart Growth, seeks to apply the principals in preexisting cities.
In coming weeks, Sanders said, she would like to gather city officials, developers and property owners to discuss how Mobile can foster such growth, particularly in its urban core.
The effort sounded familiar to Laura Clarke, director of Mobile’s Urban Development department.
Andres Duany: Pioneer of the New Urbanism movement spoke to downtown planners in Mobile, Alabama.
Clarke’s department led an effort to overhaul city ordinances to encourage Smart Growth in the early 2000s under Mayor Mike Dow.
The City Council of the time adopted a statement declaring a pro-Smart Growth philosophy, but balked, Clarke said, at putting the policies into effect.
According to Richard Olson, the city’s head planner, the council flinched in large part because of concerns among builders and development interests.
Sanders said that attitudes toward Smart Growth policies seem to be evolving.
Duany conferred with developers and real-estate agents in small-group settings during his visit to Mobile. In interviews with the Press-Register, many of those who attended the meetings said that they appreciated what Duany had to say and expressed their support for Smart Growth, at least in theory.
Burton Clark, of Cummings and Associates, said he largely agreed with many of Duany’s points. He said he particularly liked when Duany pointed out the irony of suburbanites flying to Disney World so they can walk streets meant to replicate a traditional downtown.
Asked whether he thought it wise to alter Mobile’s code system to foster walkable neighborhoods, Clark said he wasn’t familiar enough with the current code system to say whether it needs to be overhauled.
Merrill Thomas, a developer who has been involved in creating strip commercial centers — which Duany abhors — said that he enjoyed the presentation and favors many Smart Growth principles, particularly mixed-use neighborhoods where people can live adjacent to shopping and work opportunities. But Thomas also was skeptical about whether it’s possible to re-create and grow a city in a way that marginalizes car travel.
John Peebles, of Grub and Ellis, said that the best way make Smart Growth a reality, at least downtown where his business emphasis is, would be the adoption of a form-based code.
Form-based codes — distinct from the use-based codes that prevail in American cities— focus on how buildings relate to the streetscape.
Clarke said that form-based codes would be ideal, but such a major change would require political support and the backing of the development community.
Peebles said, however, “The development community is reactive. They react to the rules in place. If they are waiting for developers to get behind it, they will be waiting a long time.”
Jeremy Milling, of White-Spunner and Associates, said Mobile’s attitude toward development in general needs to change. “We need to have a bigger vision of what we want our community to be and hold people accountable to that. And you may lose some people on the front end. It may take some time,” Milling said. “But in the end, it will be better. It may not be a very popular comment in my own industry, but I do believe that.”
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http://blog.al.com/live/2010/09/developers_discuss_smart_growt.html
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Mobile,Al home of the first skyscraper in the southeast !!
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. I have noticed that there are more housing developments such as condos and luxury apartments being built in areas I would have never thought of. Also there are more signiture housing devlopments being built in the areas of midtown. So I believe the city is embracing the new urbanism movement well.
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