Changing the Land Planning Paradigm

by Ken Shelin

In recent years, our area has experienced annual in-migration of up to 13,000 people per year from out of the State of Florida. This in-migration will continue and expand as the baby boomer generation begins retirement and movement to a climate that allows them the level of activity and interests to which they have become accustomed year round.

Since WWII, an important goal of every happy family has been a single family home on a large lot with a manicured lawn and a beautifully landscaped garden. The adverse impacts of our suburban land planning model have resulted in significant adverse effects on our fragile environment.

If we adopt standards that provide for increased density in our urban and nearby areas, we will reduce oil dependency and make public transit more economically viable. We can reduce our transportation and utility infrastructure capital costs. The number and distance of travel trips will be reduced because workers can use alternative means to get to work as well as public transit. Climate warming will be mitigated because of less fossil fuel usage. Our carbon footprints will be smaller. And we leave more open land.

Housing costs can be made more affordable with compact development because unit prices are reduced. Our unique and fragile lands will experience less development pressure.Downtown retail becomes more robust with customers living nearby.

So what is more sustainable for our environment, lands, economy, and climate? It will be a changed development paradigm that acknowledges the wasteful suburban model we have used for the last 60 years. It will be a paradigm that minimizes transportation needs, fossil fuel use, respects our environment and fragile lands, but provides an exciting and stimulating place in which to live, work, play, retire and enjoy the assets of our City and County. That changed model has got to use less land and require less reliance on motor vehicles. In a word, it is called “density.”

Myths about Higher Density

OpEd Piece – 9/2/08 by Ken Shelin

Several months ago, the Herald Tribune started a public discussion of the issue of higher density in land development. This issue is usually controversial in Sarasota. And it is clear that there are some beliefs about the topic that have achieved the status of conventional wisdom, but are actually myths.

A coalition including the National Multi Housing Council, the Sierra Club, the American Institute of Architects and the Urban Land Institute have taken the issue on squarely and have jointly published a booklet entitled Higher-Density Development, Myth and Fact. Eight myths that indicate only negative consequences of higher density are examined at length in light of many recent studies that document the errors of those myths.

Myth 1 – High density overburdens infrastructure. The fact is that compact development cuts the cost of roadways, water lines, electrical lines, sewer systems, police and fire protection, trash removal, mail collection and distribution and other services because less is needed.

Myth 2 – Higher density lowers property values. Studies show no discernible difference in property values. In fact, in the City of Sarasota, the highest property values are usually in the areas with the highest zoning densities.

Myth 3 – Higher density creates more traffic congestion. It actually reduces traffic congestion because there are more opportunities for hiking, walking and bike riding. It also stimulates public transit development and use.

Myth 4 – Higher density leads to higher crime rates. Higher density increases foot traffic and puts more eyes on the street which reduces opportunities for crime.

Myth 5 – Higher density is more environmentally destructive. Just the opposite is true because low density gobbles up land through large lot zoning destroying the very thing people want to protect, natural areas and farmland.

Myth 6 – Higher density is unattractive and doesn’t fit in a low density community. – Mixed use, architectural variation and mixed income housing has proven wildly popular all over the US where it has been created in recent years. Low density isolates residents from shops, offices, retail and their neighbors.

Myth 7 – No one in suburban areas wants higher density. – Our demographics are changing and many households now prefer higher density even in the suburbs. People want a more convenient and vibrant lifestyle and single person households now outnumber married couple with children households.

Myth 8 – Higher density is only for lower income households. – Multi-family housing has historically been the housing of choice for the wealthiest individuals because of its convenience. See Myth 2 above.

A low density suburban type lifestyle is not a sustainable one because it encourages sprawl, increases infrastructure needs and costs, increases our carbon footprint, creates more pollution, discourages the healthful benefits of walking, hiking and bike riding encouraged by walkable cities, destroys our natural resources and wildlife habitat and increases the social disconnectedness of our general population which our country has experienced since the 1950s.

John Ringling’s vision for Sarasota was a cosmopolitan city. This city is infused with a different spirit because of him and the interesting, highly qualified and gifted people that have been attracted to his ideal. If we are to face the future growth that we know is coming, including a projected possible doubling of our population by 2020, we need to change our land development model from the old model existing in our city of barriers to people, separation of uses and low population density. After all, isn’t it people, as well as our natural environment that create an attractive place to live and work.

Letter to the Editor: Roundabouts

Revisiting the issue of Route 41 traffic management and bayfront connectivity proved unsatisfactory at the September 11 City Commission workshop because  neither roundabouts nor signalized intersections appeared to provide relief from the traffic congestion that the community believes should be resolved at those locations. More disturbing for me was that professional staff offered no alternative options in order to deal with the unsatisfactory traffic conditions at these two intersections. So, no decisions were made about anything except to look at the de-designation issue again.

The City Commission is a policy body and not trained traffic engineers. We rely on qualified staff and consultants to give the technical advice needed for us to provide policy direction. The underlying strategic discussion that did not occur and should have occurred, if options had been produced by the staff for discussion, was description of other traffic management options which might be available to us for moving people around an increasingly urbanized downtown core.

A couple of times during the workshop, there were hints of the underlying strategic issues, but they never surfaced sufficiently to generate real discussion. The first of these is that, whether we like it or not, we must shift from a suburban model of traffic management – adding multiple lanes to downtown arteries – to an urban model which diffuses traffic through a grid rather than concentrates it on collector arterials. The second issue is that we must develop public transit that takes city dwellers and visitors out of their individual cars and puts them into widely available, frequently scheduled, attractive and convenient public transit or onto other personal mobility devices. Our existing bus system is not designed to get people out of their private cars.

We are going to have to change our approach from moving vehicles to moving people and recognize that in an urban core, movement occurs at a different pace and in different ways. Sarasota has a compact urban core which could make this relatively easy to do.

Finally, we need to come to grips with land development issues in the urban environment that generally we have not understood as beneficial. Higher densities, intensities and mixed use are appropriate to the city because that’s where it belongs in our world, – not in the suburbs. Higher urban densities and transportation oriented development will make more affordable housing available where employment occurs while reducing automobile trips, reduce gasoline usage and air pollution, reduce our carbon footprint, mitigate our current contributions to global warming, avoid urban sprawl, and prevent suburban sprawl – anybody been east of I-75 lately to any of those golf course communities?

Ken Shelin   9/21/07

The Case for Changing the Transportation Paradigm

The Case for Changing the Transportation Paradigm—by Ken Shelin

For many years we have used a suburban standard for movement through our city. It has focused our roadway design on moving vehicles. It has encouraged streets that went nowhere, often passing through courts and culde sacs emptying on collector streets concentrating traffic onto major marterials that eventually become relentlessly congested encouraging more and more lanes to carry the traffic that had no where else to travel in order to get to their destination.

We need to move from that paradigm to a new one which shifts from a focus on moving vehicles to one which provides a variety of means of movement for people including, not only motor vehicles, but various types of public transit, bicycles, personal mobility devices, walking and running while diffusing traffic instead of concentrating it.

The challenge for us in Sarasota is balancing the interests of travelers and community stakeholders. One will be most concerned about travel time and speed and the other about the character of the community.

There are new tools being used in forward thinking communities for making that shift. One approach is called “Complete Streets” and another is called “Context Sensitive Solutions.” Context Sensitive Solutions look at the built environment through which streets pass such as the suburban context, the urban center and the downtown core and selects design criteria for those streets taking its context (a new urbanist would call it a transect) into account. It also takes into account the type of street it is such as arterial, boulevard, avenue or street. It’s ultimate goal is to create a walkable community by creating multimodal transportation systems with an emphasis on walkability. The solutions take into account speed, on-street parking, sidewalks, pedestrian scaled lighting, street trees, landscaping, placement of buildings, their height and mass.

Thoughts on Local Government in a Time of Change

by Ken Shelin, 10/1/06

Men are inclined to cherish or value different things and therefore may choose differently, and yet all may choose correctly. A good society must be open, tolerant, flexible, and receptive to change.

This statement paraphrases an understanding of the fundamental nature of mankind described by John Locke in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Notes taken by James Madison, our fourth President, during debates associated with our Constitutional Convention of 1787, as well as ideas he included in the Federalist Papers, also incorporate Madison’s  understanding that honest and sincere people can come to different conclusions about the same set of facts and still be correct.

Recently, I visited Montpelier, the ancestral home of James Madison in Orange County, Virginia. While there, I purchased an extraordinarily comprehensive biography entitled James Madison  written by Ralph Ketcham and published by the University of Virginia Press. Reading it has reminded me that no matter how political conditions and circumstances change, certain principles are timeless. Many of the political issues and principles of government debated at the foundation of our country are especially relevant to the on-going discussions of development and land use in the city of Sarasota.

A fundamental constitutional principle arising from the Constitutional Convention debates was that human rights and property rights complement and buttress one another; neither trumps the other. Even the bicameral design of our Federal Congress is based on the principle that gave a freehold franchise to the upper house and a more “at large” interest to the lower house thereby protecting both the “rights of persons” and the “rights of property.” Our public discussions on land use matters here in Sarasota will only come to a just end if we ensure that every person, whatever their status, whether they be a resident, property owner, businessperson or developer is treated fairly and receives an answer that assures his or her rights. It is simply unfair to do otherwise.

Certainly unanimity is not expected in any great political debate involving significant change and this has been documented repeatedly, especially in the City of Sarasota’s efforts over the years to revive and redevelop its downtown. In such discussions, as Madison said, a spirit of amity and mutual concession is always necessary.

Too often, our public discussions — including the media reporting associated with them — offer only opinions and assertions. Each of us, in my view, has an obligation to expose his or her opinions and assertions to a fair and reasoned discussion which is likely to develop a proof of their validity. Further, our public debates are too often polarized by demonization of those with whom we disagree. Honest disagreement does not mean that the opposing side is wrong, stupid, or evil.

As the City of Sarasota morphs into a more diverse, urbanized, cosmopolitan and dense city, especially downtown and in near downtown neighborhoods, we need to recognize that time will bring change. The excitement of a vibrant city is its variety and differences. It is the juxtaposition of the differences in colors, shapes, sizes and uses which attract our interest and involvement. Sarasota has a downtown core which now attracts increased activity into a very compact area. This compactness is not only a challenge, but is an important asset because it is human scaled. Its scale has much to do with how quickly downtown has turned around from the empty and significantly unsafe era of the 1980s and early 1990s. It is certainly a work in progress because of public transportation and parking challenges that have yet to be met, as well as the lack of significant retail to serve not only our visitors but also the increasing number of residents living in the core. It is getting better and appears headed for even greater improvement.

We need affordable housing downtown. Many say that is unlikely with high land costs. There are tools available to us and actions have already been taken that have laid the foundation for future accomplishments in this area. In spite of multiple meetings and conferences sponsored by public and private organizations in the recent past, nobody has offered a more credible alternative than increased density to overcome high land costs. We need to manage increased density carefully, of course. Rejecting it, however, only increases the dislocation of our human resources in the city and encourages what this community understands better than most – that we need to prevent urban sprawl. The value of density is extensively discussed in land planning literature including Jane Jacobs’ 1961 book entitled The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Jacobs was the first writer in the last half century or so to recognize what caused American cities to die and what was needed to make them alive again.  Suburban Nation co-authored in 2000 by Andres Duany  has provided the intellectual underpinnings for the new urbanist movement in this country.

Let us celebrate the differences in our community instead of demonizing those with whom we disagree. Let us celebrate the excitement of these differences and the richness they bring to our lives and our city. Let us come together to gain the synergies for our community’s future by cooperating with others whose ideas are different than our own.

As James Madison said - “government that can overcome pettiness and give effect to the general and permanent good of the community finds safety in a multiplicity of forces.”