Taxing Land at Higher Rate Than Buildings

This is an interesting article in Strong Towns and something to think about related to local revenue generation. I wonder if you could apply it to incentivize development in some areas while leaving the traditional model in areas where you want to retain rural character.

Residential Architecture Exhibition at Crystal Bridges Museum

I have had the pleasure of being one of the first visitors to the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, AR. It was astonishing both from a collections perspective and also the form of the building itself, designed by Moshe Safdie. It isn't located on a well worn path as it is over four hours from Kansas City, but certainly worth a visit if you can detour from another destination.

That said, this year, the museum is hosting an exhibition on residential architecture, asking exhibitors from five firms to examine the specific challenges and opportunities present in Northwest Arkansas and, in turn, develop a full-scale housing prototype that explores the potential of domestic architecture to address an array of local and global issues. Clearly NW Arkansas residential challenges and opportunities are not necessarily shared by all communities, but I have no doubt that many are in common widely across the U.S. You can read about the exhibition in The Architect's Newspaper or on the museum's website.

Why is this of interest to me? I have semi-regularly pontificated about the importance of architecture and design in prior posts and this is another opportunity to talk about how critical it is to emphasize the design of a site, structure, or district. Design related both form and function are linked inextricably and success requires both measures to be excellent. Design arguably has a significant impact on happiness and well-being as noted here, here, and here. A more direct tie-in to residential design was noted in Psychology Today in this piece. Buildings should last more than a generation so when a horrible or even mediocre one is developed, you'll be living with it in your presence for the rest of your life, most likely.

Yet rarely do residential or commercial builders venture too far down a path of excellent architectural or site design. The formulaic is safe, cheap, and mindless. While straying from that recipe holds none of those characteristics. I've many times talked about what Columbus, IN did related to community design and no need to revisit that in depth, but the question is ever present as to why more cities and towns do not at least once try to hold a design competition for a public or critical building.

Most places consider themselves special, unique, and worth preserving with existing character. But they don't put the effort into ensuring this or requiring new development to match their purported qualities. It makes sense to populate local master plans with the blueprints for how a town is going to ensure optimal development outcomes. Following that, local codes, ordinances, or bylaws need to be equally clear, detailed, and ambitious. After that, there are any number of initiatives that can seed the cloud of good civic design such as public building design competitions, exhibitions and challenges such as Crystal Bridges, public-private partnerships, scholarships and prizes, and a variety of incentives that can not only address architecture but can also apply to decarbonization or a broader measure of sustainability.

The effort to focus on excellence in design seems daunting but can actually be a lot of fun and quite rewarding. This is the way to make a lasting impact.

Suburban Retrofits: One Way to Make Up for Mistakes of the Past

The Congress for New Urbanism, the group that advances the concept of the Form-Based Zoning Code, has an interesting article on retrofitting suburbia to be more walkable, functional, and sustainable. I've pasted the first few paragraphs to whet your interest and provided a link for the rest of the article.

"The transformation of specific underutilized places in conventional suburbs is gaining momentum for several reasons. Suburban municipalities with little or no walkability are losing younger generations who are enamored with walkable urban places. From a regional standpoint, a balance of supply and demand of walkable places is needed. Suburbs can help to meet the growing demand for mixed-use urbanism. There are now more than 2,000 “suburban retrofit” projects in America, according to Ellen Dunham-Jones. 

Dunham-Jones and June Williamson, coauthors of Retrofitting Suburbia, presented 11 tactics to transform conventional suburban places at CNU 27 in Louisville. This evolving set of stratagems can be used anywhere, even in a central city, that has suburban form. But different tactics will be more applicable in different contexts and market conditions. Here they are:

1) Garner community input. The community must come to a consensus on transformation, and that means a public process that gathers wide-ranging input and ideas.

Click HERE for the rest of the article.

New Economic Development Facebook Group

I thought it might be worth seeing if a Facebook Group for Harvard Economic Development could have some legs. I'll be posting upcoming projects and events and also share some best practices or projects elsewhere. Hope you drop by for a visit.

LINK: https://www.facebook.com/groups/459880582332691

An Update on Current Projects

 Introduction

I want to continue providing the occasional piece that gives some greater depth to some of the projects that my office is working on. I also thought it might be a good idea to begin with just a brief summary of most of the current projects that the Planning Board is working on to ensure clarity and to distinguish between several projects that have similar names and areas of focus. I’ll conclude with a listing of future topics that are a good lead up to Town Meeting in May.

Current Projects

The most confusing pair of projects currently underway are the Ayer Road TIP project and the Ayer Road Corridor Vision Plan project. While these projects are distinguished in detail in the Blog (April 13, 2021), the cliff notes version is as follows. The Ayer Road Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) project is the federally funded reconstruction of Ayer Road from the Ayer Town line south to the Bowers Brook development. It will slightly increase the width of pavement, narrow the travel lanes, add a multi-use path for pedestrians and bicyclists, and reconfigure several unsafe intersections and stretches of road. The project is currently at the 25% design stage and a MassDOT public hearing on the project is anticipated on March 30, 2022.

The Ayer Road Corridor Vision Plan, also the subject of a three-part series in the Blog (starting on March 29, 2021), is the initiative to create a citizen-driven vision for the Ayer Road Corridor and the development of better zoning tools to bring the vision to a reality (and conversely this program is intended to prevent future degradation of the corridor as is currently occurring). A future column will dive deeper into the current status of the project, its history, and why it remains the lynchpin of local economic development efforts.

Other projects that are separate but have some connection to these two Ayer Road projects include an update to the Transportation Chapter of the 2016 Master Plan and the Climate Action Plan. Through a grant program called District Local Technical Assistance, the Montachusett Regional Planning Commission is currently working with Harvard’s Transportation Advisory Committee and other committees and boards to update the Circulation & Traffic chapter in the 2016 Master Plan. This effort will be evaluating the transportation projects and goals listed in the 2016 Plan chapter for current relevance and also add a climate action lens. This latter emphasis is important because of the parallel work by the Community Resilience Working Group on a Climate Action Plan for Harvard. Since transportation is one of the two primary sources of greenhouse gas emanating from Harvard, it made sense to tie these two planning projects together for economies of scale and the avoidance of redundancy.

Senior housing has been an emphasis of the Planning Board for the last two town meetings and the current focus is on revising the existing Open Space Residential Development bylaw (referred to as Open Space Conservation-Planned Residential Development or OSC-PRD) to make it more viable, to set aside more high value open space, and result in higher quality developments. The Board continues to review early drafts and make revisions based on feedback from members and other interested parties. The expectation is to bring it to Town Meeting in 2022 but the Board encourages the public to check out the project web page and attend meetings to give your input. A future column will go into greater depth on this topic as well.

Other ongoing or future Planning Board and economic development projects include an update to the Hazard Mitigation Plan, developing a specialized zoning for Harvard Center (recommended in several master plans), revising the Protective Bylaw (2016 Master Plan), an economic development survey and plan, and a range of other action items in the Master Plan. Each project will have a web page dedicated to providing public information and key plans and documents. As a future column will elaborate on, the Planning Board seeks meaningful citizen participation on all of these projects and hopes for greater attendance at regular Planning Board meetings as well as special meetings on specific topics. It isn’t enough just to hear about and evaluate the Board’s work at Town Meeting.

Future Pieces

As noted above, a series of future pieces on various aspects of planning in Harvard will follow in the coming weeks and months. The next piece will focus on the value of town planning and how master plans are the guiding tool. I will shine some light on why master plans are so important. The next piece will focus on some of the challenges that Harvard faces now and will in the near future. This is important to give some context to the planning initiatives currently underway or planned for the near future. Following that, I will begin a series of pieces on those initiatives including Open Space Residential Development, the Ayer Road Vision Plan, Protective Bylaw reform, and a zoning district for Harvard Center.

After this series, the hope is that Harvard citizens will have a greater understanding and appreciation of the local planning process and the citizens who volunteer their time to work to make Harvard the best community it can be.