Memorandum

City of Lawrence

 TO:

Mayor and City Commissioner

City Manager and Assistant City Managers

FROM:

Planning Staff

Date:

April 15, 2005

RE:

Follow up on Neighborhood Development Workshop:

Recommended  “NEXT STEPS”

 

Background Information:

Two events preceded the development of this memorandum:

 

§           The Neighborhood Development Workshop held on February 11th and 12th

 

Commissioners’ direction to staff at close of workshop was to develop a proposal for what would be the logical ‘next steps’ in the process to: 1) bring the neighborhood design and community planning/development concepts to a larger audience and, 2) engage in a planning activity to implement the concepts learned by applying new urbanism/ traditional neighborhood development design criteria to an area within the city or UGA.

 

Four planning professionals were brought in to Lawrence to present the February workshop.  Of these four, two were private sector planning consultants who have been involved in new urbanism types of new development or redevelopment/infill development.  These individuals, Chris Shears and Kevin Klinkenberg, offered to work with staff to develop a ‘next steps’ approach and a draft of this memo was shared with them in March. 

 

§           SmartGrowth Leadership Grant

 

In Fall 2003, staff applied for a grant from the SmartGrowth America group to study fringe and commercial inner city retail sites, with the premise being to make these more accessible to non-motorized travel and more integrated with the neighborhoods they are in and serve. A contract was signed in March 2004 and the final report was submitted to City staff in December ’04.  The principal involved in the study, Will Fleissig, was scheduled to make a formal presentation of the study recommendations to the City Commission in February, after the Neighborhood Workshop, but this date was rescheduled by Mr. Fleissig and a new date has not been determined. 

 

This group’s work was funded by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) through the creation of a teams of consultants across the US. Our specific team was created using the Smart Growth Leadership Institute (SGLI), the University of Southern California, and the Real Estate Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder.  The final report’s recommendations for Lawrence, KS were developed to serve as a template for the implementation of Smart Growth policies and codes in similar sized communities throughout the nation.  

 

Next Steps.

 

From discussions with design professionals active in the SmartGrowth and new urbanism movements, the next step for the community is to hold a larger, more encompassing charrette or visioning process.  There are five basic steps that we should follow to accomplish this and they are set out in the recommendations that follow.

 

RECOMMENDATIONS

step one        Determine a Geographic Area to be Studied [staff recommends this be based on natural watershed or sub-basin boundaries]  

                  

For many reasons, it is recommended this not apply to the entire city and that a greenfield site is a better first choice than an inner city or redevelopment site.

 

step two        Identify Stakeholders and Participants for the process.  Establish ground rules for participation (so expectations can be relied upon and participants will see the value of their participation) in Charrette process

 

Involving a large, diverse cross section of the community is encouraged to make the visioning and charrette successful.  A cautionary note, however, was that there needs to be consistency in who the participants are throughout the process to provide for continuity and to avoid getting stuck in a repeating “training” cycle.

 

step three      Pre-Charrette work [Series of Community Forums]  to provide education and an introduction to the basic concepts and development premises of SmartGrowth

 

A series of Community Forums, some term this a “community dialog”, can be used to get base parameters agreed upon.  For example, in leading up to the Charrette or Visioning process, a series of forums, over 6-9 months,  would be held with a specific area covered at each.  The first forum would focus on getting everyone “dialed in” to the language of SmartGrowth; the second forum would be used to identify community values (what is important to the community); a third forum would then explore the key issues to address in the visioning (transportation, environmental/natural resources, acceptable residential and commercial densities in mixed developments, connectivity); the last forum would be a broad look at conceptual options to consider in the visioning, perhaps down to the level of some preliminary design work.  All of these steps (forums) prepare the community for the larger goal which is a charrette or visioning process. 1

 

* A key factor to remember is that education is the single most important component of any visioning or charrette process. 

 

step four       Multi-day Community Visioning or Charrette Process led by design professionals [in fields of urban design, architecture, landscape architecture, planning, and or engineering] 

 

 A multi-day charrette would be from 3-5 days.  Another visioning option is what some term a “design dialogue”. If there is a concern with participants attending or being able to commit to a ‘week long’ charrette process, the design dialogue is an alternative approach. An example of a design dialogue process is:

          A design team comprised of 4-5 design professionals comes to Lawrence for three days and spends this time meeting with diverse groups from a wide cross section of the community. They discuss the vision of these individuals and sketch ideas from the many conversations held.  At the end of this time, a summary meeting is held by the design professionals with the community disclosing what they have learned and getting a direction on how this information is to be used to develop a vision. The professionals go away, design a vision based on the input they have received and come back and present this vision to the community with a plan for implementation of it.1

 

step five        Outcomes from Visioning Process [Charrette or Design Dialogue]

                     

1.      a concept plan that recommends the types of revisions necessary to the Comprehensive Plan (Horizon 2020) and Development Code [Zoning and Subdivision Regulations] to support walkable, mixed-use neighborhood development

2.      identification of other development policies that need review/reconsideration, and,

3.      the conceptual basis for a pattern book for neighborhood development

 

*  A flow chart for achieving the recommended outcomes of the charrette process is a follow-up step that is not listed in the above recommendations but is important to successful implementation.

 

 

Resources and Websites:

   www.nationalcharrette.org    National Charrette Institute who are the leaders in programming and organizing community charrettes to consider new planning concepts of form-based zoning, transect planning and other aspects of new urbanism and traditional neighborhood design.

 

  www.cnu.org    Congress on New Urbanism is the professional organization that has emerged as the leader in the new urbanism movement by bringing together professional from the multiple design & development professions  of architecture, landscape architecture, planning, urban design and  transportation engineering.

 

1 Information on the community forums and design dialogue were provided by Joe Dill, OTAK, a consultant I met at the APA conference. [www.otak.com]