Mary Newsom's archived writings on Charlotte, cities and urbanism
In my non-blogging, editorial board job, I write an op-ed column that runs Saturdays. This past Saturday’s (link here) was about Obama’s penmanship (sort of) and speculating whether having an African American in the White House who is unashamed to act intelligent might have a positive, peer-pressure kind of effect, especially but not exclusively, on African American youths.
Guess what? Here’s a link to an NY Times piece on a study that found something very similar.
During an e-mail exchange that included background data on some proposed changes from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg planning staff to the transit-oriented development requirements, I came across this. It’s from an official with REBIC, the Real Estate and Building Industry Coalition, which no one should be surprised to learn is opposing some of the changes and trying to get the staff to dial back on them.
I’m not passing judgment here on whether the proposals are good or bad. (Among the changes at issue are some involving parking requirements, and with transit-oriented development parking is a key issue, as you’re dealing with conflicting needs: Trying to encourage people not to drive and trying to encourage walkable environments, yet also trying to help development projects offer enough parking so as not to lose potential tenants and customers.)
But the note sheds light on why some staff proposals seem to start out like icebergs and end up as a half-cup of lukewarm water, before the nondeveloper public gets much of a shot at them. The public hearing isn’t until next week, and the developers’ lobby has been working on this for weeks. One developer even pointed out: “Our best chance to influence is before the public hearing.”
Here’s what REBIC said:
“The public hearing is January 26th.
“The best way to affect [effect] a change is to get staff to see the ‘error of their ways’ prior to the public hearing. The staff responsible for this TA is John Howard and Laura Harmon.
“I will assemble a variety of comments & handle with John & Laura but it will be most effective if you could send your comments to them directly (changes of a few sentences of course). I always like to see how they respond to the various constituencies – to figure out what they are really trying to accomplish & what they are willing to bend the most on.”
Now we live in a democracy, and all interest groups are welcome to weigh in to the process. Charlotte’s development community is skilled at that, and some of nondeveloper groups are also skilled — although they tend to have full-time jobs doing other things. The planning staff is diligent in trying to get public input for most of its proposed changes.
But too many things go on behind the curtain. That isn’t good for public discourse.
And if public hearings are really just for show, can’t they at least offer some popcorn and Cokes to the audience?
Ahem, someone needs to get out more. Up in Greensboro, there’s a discussion over whether the city should no longer be exempt from the law that allows protest petitions against proposed rezonings. The city council is to vote on Wednesday whether to ask the legislature to lift its exemption, so its citizens can file protest petitions as in most other N.C. cities.
One argument being raised against protest petitions is that they would strangle development. Whoever is saying this clearly has not been to Charlotte, where (until the recession slowed everything) it was quite clear that development here has been anything but strangled.
(What’s a protest petition? When a rezoning is proposed, if enough adjoining property owners sign a protest petition, then the deciding body, e.g. Charlotte City Council, must pass the rezoning by a three-fourths vote. And the mayor gets to vote on protest-petition rezonings, unlike other rezonings.)
If you’ve ridden the Blue Line you’ve probably noticed some of the art at the transit stations. Most noticeable, of course, is Thomas Sayre’s red-clay disks, “Furrow,” in the South Boulevard median at the Scaleybark station.
From the foot and bicycle traffic I’ve seen, the rail-side path along the new Lynx Blue Line is popular. It’s a great way to walk or bicycle and avoid traffic. Too bad there might not be a similar path along its extension up to UNC Charlotte and beyond.
At a Tuesday night public meeting on plans for the extension, Charlotte Area Transit System and city planning department folks said it will be much harder to find money for, and build, a similar path. One key reason: The city owns the railbed from uptown south to Scaleybark — where the path is. But heading northeast out of uptown, the rail right of way is owned by the N.C. Railroad, and CATS will lease space in the ROW. That section already carries freight as well as Amtrak passenger trains.
The bike/walking path was paid for mostly by city bond money for the so-called SCIP (South Corridor Improvement Project). The city hasn’t yet prioritized its list of proposed NECI (North East Corridor Improvement, and they’re calling it “nee-sie”) — and it’s a bigger laundry list to start with. And a time of pinched local government budgets and tight credit all over the country.
Andy Mock of CATS tells me CDOT and the county park and rec department are working to see what can be done, perhaps with a walking/biking path that leaves the trackside and goes up North Tryon Street — which the light rail will do, probably north of Old Concord Road.
If you think the city absolutely should put this project atop its NECI priority list, be sure to let your City Council representatives know.
About four different readers pointed me to this intriguing blog posting at the New York Times by Allison Arieff, “What Will Save the Suburbs?”
I hope all our city council members, city staff, county commissioners, planning commissioners take time to read it. Arieff points out that unlike the development of the 19th and early 20th centuries, the postwar suburbia is going to be difficult to re-purpose (ugh, horrible word). Yet in Charlotte, you can still build a three-houses-per-acre single-family subdivision without any City Council rezoning needed — auto-pilot growth .
Empty big-box stores are just one of the problems. (I wonder if the book she cites, Julia Christensen’s “Big Box Reuse” mentions that one old K mart in Charlotte was reused as a charter school.)
The difficulty of re-purposing development that was badly designed to start with is one major hurdle for attracting any serious uptown retail: There simply aren’t enough good sidewalk-front spaces clumped together to attract enough stores. After all, retail loves to be near other retail. (See “shopping centers.”) If you don’t understand what I mean about good sidewalk-front spaces, take a field trip to downtown Asheville.
Maybe this development downturn will inspire the city of Charlotte to finally look with purpose at the kind of by-right development (meaning no rezoning needed) it’s allowing.
Let’s see, Charlotte Transportation Director Jim Humphrey left in late 2007. So why did it take until 2009 for the city to name a replacement? Today City Manager Curt Walton announced he was promoting Interim Director Danny Pleasant, who came to CDOT as deputy director in 2002.
A good source tells me one reason for the delay was nervousness in the development community about Pleasant, whose initiatives in the department have pushed the envelope for good community design. Apparently City Manager Curt Walton was able to get the City Council members comfortable with Pleasant as CDOT director.
As deputy director, he oversaw transportation planning that is putting more emphasis on walkable streets, bicycling paths, connectivity. One of his responsibilities was the six-years-in-the-making effort to rewrite the design guidelines under which streets widths and sidewalk widths and other such essential rules are written. Those urban street design guidelines came under criticism from the development community who didn’t like the requirements for wider planting strips, required street trees and shorter block lengths.
Pleasant has a master’s in urban planning, is a member of the Congress for the New Urbanism, the American Institute of Certified Planners and a fellow of the Institute of Transportation Engineers.
