Tuesday, March 31, 2020

Wednesday, March 18, 2020



Friday, January 31, 2020

Strong Towns : A Bottom-Up Revolution to Rebuild [North] American Prosperity

In an endorsement of Charles Marohn's new book Strong Towns, A Bottom-Up Revolution to Rebuild American Prosperity, Jeff Speck, author of Walkable City and Walkable City Rules, writes, "Somewhere between Small is Beautiful and Cities and The Wealth of Nations can be found the gem of Strong Towns, our current moment's most cogent, practical, and necessary response to the problem of urban economics."
While I can't quote Schumacher's Small is Beautiful chapter and verse, I do know that Jane Jacobs thinking is baked-in to Strong Towns thinking. Speck's point is perceptive. Among the several ways Marohn’s book impresses, informs, and challenges one finds the influence of Jacobs’ thinking, particularly, and this is rare and timely, her insights into the economics of resilient city building, Cities and the Wealth of Nations certainly, also The Nature of Economies. ("...nature affords foundations for human life and sets its possibilities and limitations," Jane Jacobs, The Nature of Economies)
Ernest Hemingway is often quoted saying that going broke happens gradually then all at once. Going broke gradually, so gradually you’re not quite aware of it is a central theme here and the alarm is raised that what Strong Towns has long called the Ponzi Scheme of post WWII development will bankrupt our cities if we don't take strong action now.
"There are city politicians who will justify the same thing [demolitions of old viable buildings and sprawling growth for profit’s sake] by saying it increases the tax base. This short run increase of a tax base is one of the most destructive ideas that ever hit a city. You can increase the tax base of a city and at the same time create so many problems that no amount of increased taxes is going to be able to contend with them.” Jane Jacobs, 1971, National Film Board, City Limits.
Marohn writes, "In the context of human history, the [post WWII] North American development pattern is the largest human experiment ever attempted. In the blink of an evolutionary eye, we have transformed everything about how we live, get around, interact with each other, make decisions, conduct commerce, fall in love, and countless other aspects of human existence." We've traded the stable wealth of the traditional incremental development model for new growth, growth without the revenue-generating potential to ever meet the long-term obligations incurred... "Any community serious about their own financial stability is going to take the obvious first step and stop adding more liability."
If you ask City Councillors and City admin managers, they will almost without exception describe themselves as fiscal conservatives. And yet multiple tens of millions of dollars are spent by these folks on infrastructure without a credible analysis of return on investment. Every public investment must return not only its capital cost and future maintenance costs but also, and this is key, a contribution to the overall prosperity of the community. Where any infrastructure investment does not do this "other places in the system must produce excess wealth to make up the difference."

Can a sprawling city like Nanaimo with such a low population density (only 997 people per sq km, City of Victoria : 4400 people per sq km, White Rock : 3900 people per sq km—2016 Census) hear what Marohn is saying? Unlikely. "Most cities prioritize maintenance based on the incorrect assumption that they are going to maintain everything they have built, that it is all worth maintaining, and that any future shortfalls can be solved by future decision makers. Intentional or not, this mindset embraces a long decline. A different approach is needed."

Wednesday, January 8, 2020

@FormBasedCodes : Have we zoned
great, walkable places out of existence?

Zoning codes are the unseen, yet decisive guiding force that can either help or hinder the creation of great, walkable, people-scaled places. This primer gives you the basics on form-based codes: what they are, where they work, and how they can help create and sustain great places. More at Form Based Codes.

Image Bank | Congress for the New Urbanism

Sunday, October 20, 2019

Scorched earth : 1 : a failure of leadership

The Molnar residential project on Kennedy-Machleary application for Official Community Plan amendment and zoning variances was defeated 6-3 by Nanaimo city council at public hearing last week. There was well organized vocal opposition to the increased density and the citizens group successfully stopped the project but I doubt anyone in this process feels victorious.
The outcome as it stands now is scorched earth with much harm done and nothing accomplished. In my opinion the process that brought us to this point failed everyone and I want to a look at the process to try to find how it could have gone so wrong. How it could have done such harm and accomplished so little.
The large site is unlikely now to attract the kind of investment that building a badly needed mix of housing types in the city centre requires, Developers, investors, and lenders would know that the organized citizens group will effectively petition council for a lower level of density and they (developers, investors, and lenders) will instead build without resistance in car dependent sprawl. This city council has approved a number of these already, essentially putting sprawl on steroids by the introduction of hundreds of cars into unwalkable areas of the city.
And related, this outcome has made the pre-existing allowable institutional use probably the only viable alternative. This would allow a 240 unit seniors care facility to proceed with no requirement to consult with the neighbourhood: several dozen staff, 24 hours a day seven days a week with shift changes through the night; visitors; support workers; doctors and nurses; supply vehicles; maintenance and repair crews; and emergency vehicles.
I’m kicking myself now that I didn’t realize in time the red herring that the “corridor” designation introduced into an already complex discussion. I long ago came to the realization that what planners call things in their plans have little to do with what happens in the real world. They could have designated these streets “airstrips,” it being about as likely that this area could ever be what most of us would consider a “corridor” as it being airstrips.
I asked City of Nanaimo Director of Development Dale Lindsay if he’d explain why the application was coupled with the corridor designation. He responded quickly and clearly that staff felt that as corridor is used throughout the community in many areas transitioning to higher urban densities, that it was preferred over a new designation that would only apply to this one site. I'm thinking, and I figure some people within the planning and development department are thinking, this was a blunder, allowing the conversation to focus on the alarming notion of a corridor destination.

Scorched earth : 2 : council's authority given away cheaply https://nanaimocommons.blogspot.com/2019/10/scorched-earth-2-councils-authority.html
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Saturday, October 19, 2019

Scorched earth : 2 : council's authority
given away cheaply

This city council was elected on Oct. 24, 2018. Almost 30,000 votes were cast, 40% of eligible voters. This is council’s legitimacy, its authority and its responsibility to govern and guide Nanaimo in the interest of all citizens, in the interest of the greater public good.
Great responsibility comes with winning election to city council. This responsibility is not council’s to assign to another party, unelected and motivated by narrow special interest.
One of Nanaimo's most important and consequential land use decisions was made last week. But it was not made by our democratically elected local government, it was assigned to an organized vocal not-in-my-backyard group. This is a failure of leadership that will have negative consequences for years.
Under the stewardship of this young and inexperienced council this process was not guided to a better outcome that salvaged something for the greater public good. I’m concerned that our new council see themselves more as a passive advisory panel than the seat of local government authorized by tens of thousands of voters across every part of the city by citizens of every demographic.
The comments of councillors as published in the Nanaimo Bulletin require comment, as they seem naive and ill-informed. I’m concerned councillors are not getting good advice.
Councillor Ben Geselbracht worried that "Moving ahead with this project as is would be a break in the public trust in the city’s planning processes.” A fundamental principle in official community plans is the recognition that circumstances from, in this case, 15 years ago, will be reviewed and altered by future elected councils who will have the responsibility to adjust the plan to current circumstances. Failure to do that erodes the public trust in planning processes certainly. From the OCP:
To become an “official” community plan, the Plan must be adopted by City Council as a bylaw, and all future land use decisions must be consistent with the Plan. However, the Plan is a living document, and the City may amend the Plan to adapt to new trends in the community, or respond to changing conditions.
Councillors Ian Thorpe and Don Bonner were quoted that they were concerned about “spot zoning.” The red herring of the corridor designation aside, as Mayor Leonard Krog said, "I think everyone surely must have assumed at some point [this site] was going to be a significant multi-residential development.” The nature of the site, its size and location was always going to require special consideration.
“I simply do not see this as a corridor designation…” councillor Erin Hemens said. “This has three dead ends on it; it’s in the middle of the neighbourhood.” Point taken but why did councillor Hemens not have that concern addressed sooner in the process? As development director Lindsay told me, there was an alternative.
Councillor Tyler Brown said the development was a great proposal that met the goals of the transportation master plan, for example, but said the OCP is about the community’s wishes, not council’s. This and similar comments by other councillors is at best disingenuous. Councillor Brown and his colleagues accepted a responsibility to apply today’s 21st Century realities to (often cynically manipulated) planning documents from 15 and 25 years ago. The “community" by casting almost 30,00 votes assigned that responsibility exclusively to our local  government : city council. That responsibility is not council’s to relinquish to an unelected group that resists change. A failure of leadership.

Scorched earth : 1 : a failure of leadership
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