Land Planning: Put Tech and Team on The Same Page

Technological advances allow Civil Engineering and Land Surveying professionals to perform, in minutes, tasks that would have taken days or weeks before computer usage became widespread. I have been fortunate to have been part of the technology industry from its humble beginnings. In the 1960s, working for a Land Planning firm, I began inventing devices to reduce the time it took to draft plans. These contraptions would hang on the wall, jokingly labeled Rickometer1, Rickometer2, etc. My systems allowed me to get the plans out faster, but the designs were no better because of these devices.

Fast forward four decades and nothing has changed.

For all the technological advances in the land development design industry, not a single design solution has evolved beyond today?s prevalent cookie-cutter planning patterns. We can knock out plans ever faster, but rarely better.

Why Has Technology Failed To Improve Planning?

This is something I?ve wrestled with over the past several years as I developed my latest industry offering: Performance Planning System (PPS). Originally I had thought the problem of moving the development industry forward was lack of communication, understanding, and in some ways respect between consultants in surveying, engineering, planning & architecture.

For example the numbers pros(civil engineers and land surveyors) fear working with the vague and terribly inaccurate freehand work of the artist pros (planners, architects, landscape designers, etc). The artists mistakenly think that if their work goes into a Computer Assisted Design (CAD) system, it somehow magically becomes accurate. To stereotype for a moment, these different consultants often have very different personalities. The artists and numbers people are not likely to be found in a friendly chat at the corner coffee stand, unless forced together by a business meeting.

The land development related software industry is competitive, but mostly controlled by the big three companies: Autodesk, ESRI and Bentley. All three offer land development design ?add-ons,? but none offer a true ?land planning? system expanding beyond the cookie-cutter recipe. Another problem is that software terminology is specific to the particular industry it serves. As such, the planning terminology typical of, say, a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) package would not be part of a civil engineering software package. Land surveying-specific terminology would never show up in an architectural package. All of these software giants have done a glorious job of allowing their ?users? to get the job out faster. But we need to create wonderful neighborhoods, not faster subdivisions.

Civil engineers and land surveyors must be extremely accurate, because the plans they produce are legal documents. The basis of their plans is coordinate geometry, which tracks points tied to a numbering system. This ?point numbering? system, introduced in the 1970s, introduces complexity; it?s an instance where automation increases tediousness.

Changing The Course Of Land Development

Putting technology aside, a host of other factors have prevented land planning from moving forward in the right direction. In the past two decades our land planning firm developed new methods to design neighborhoods that would significantly reduce the infrastructure and environmental impacts of development, while maintaining the density of conventional and Smart Growth design alternatives. This evolved into providing exciting neighborhoods with lower housing costs.

In other words we developed a higher level of land development practices through methodology that was not device dependent, but instead, knowledge driven. To teach this knowledge, we worked with Sustainable Land Development International (SLDI.org) to produce the book Prefurbia-Reinventing the Suburbs from Disdainable to Sustainable. The book sets a foundation for a new way to think about land development design and regulations.

When we wrote Prefurbia we retained Rickard Kronick, an author who specializes in the history of architecture, to investigate the various college courses in planning offered in the USA. All offered Urban Design courses. None were specific to suburban design. Suburban development represents 80% of the growth in the USA. Did you ever wonder why suburban planning and design has stagnated? Wonder no more!

Next, we developed an advanced coordinate geometry design software that eliminated the tediousness of point number management. This new software would blend common terminology of the various land development consultants, in an effort to break down communication barriers between designers and engineers.

Finally, we planned to expand the platform to a series of college level courses for low-impact suburban design. I approached a multitude of urban planning professors to seek help with this project. None were interested.

It was time to re-evaluate. Reality check: There will never be software functions that will create wonderful, vibrant neighborhoods that are environmentally sound and economically feasible. A software function only automates complex tasks into less keystrokes. This guarantees monotony if everybody uses the same package. In order to advance planning we must improve that other software? you know that stuff that lies between your ears!

Creating a New End User

So we decided to create a system that would create a better end user. This meant teaching those number pros design methods that create character and value, and giving the artist pros a foundation in engineering and surveying. Teach how to recognize the tremendous waste in design to create more efficient development. Teach the importance that architecture plays in every development, not just from a fa�ade (front porch) perspective. Teach how to integrate the interior floor plan as a component of the overall neighborhood functionality. The world is designed using ordinance minimum requirements that result in minimal projects. Teach how to design beyond the minimums.

In other words, teach low impact design that embraces the environment as well as the developers profitability. We teach what can go terribly wrong when attempting ?green? goals. We estimated that the entire cost to us to expand the product into something that educates is less than $10 a package (per student). We also intend for this system to be a portal inviting others to contribute to the educational material.

Make no mistake ? this does not mean we have made anything ?easier? for the land development industry. Just the opposite. The knowledge base is extensive, and each new element adds a layer of thought to the planning process. In time we will know if this experiment in a new approach to design will yield the intended results, and create a more sustainable world.

Rick Harrison is President of Rick Harrison Site Design Studio and Neighborhood Innovations, LLC. He is author of Prefurbia: Reinventing The Suburbs From Disdainable To Sustainable and creator of Performance Planning System. His websites are rhsdplanning.com and performanceplanningsystem.com.

Full story at http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Newgeography/~3/doXZI57ceRo/001417-land-planning-put-tech-and-team-the-same-page

Follow The Money On Development Deals

?Follow the money? became a household phrase after the 1976 movie that told the story of Watergate, All the Presidents Men. Personal experiences over four decades in the consulting industry, working to create sustainable developments, often bring the phrase to mind.

In a meeting a few weeks ago concerning a potential collaboration between our planning company and large engineering consulting firm, I was coached to tone down the fact that the design methods we invented and utilize reduce infrastructure. You might ask, why would reduced infrastructure (one key to a more sustainable world) be a negative condition for an engineering firm whose main purpose is to design the infrastructure that society must rely upon?

Follow the money? Large engineering projects, as well as many architectural structures, are often quoted as a percentage of construction costs. The incentive is to increase, not decrease construction costs. We have the ability today to reduce the world?s infrastructure possibly up to 30%, which would be a major step towards reducing initial costs of commercial building and residential housing. It would have massive environmental benefits, and reduce the continual maintenance costs to the governmental authorities (forever) up to 30%.

Follow the money? If the income of consulting firms is based upon construction costs, the consultants' gross dollar billings would also be reduced by 30%. Firms that supply concrete, steel, pipes, etc would also have their gross income slashed by 30%. Does our world have a chance of becoming sustainable? Dream on!

Follow the money? A decade ago I met with the president of one of the largest engineering firms in Minnesota. He wanted to know how our firm can produce so much work with so few people (I personally design all of the developments and had a drafting staff of two people). In ten minutes I designed a development of about 15 lots that showed homes, driveways, and all the final geometry, using the commercially available technology we had developed. ?Oh my,? he said, and paused. I thought he would say, ?We could reduce our staff by half,? but instead said , ?You must put the plans on the shelf a few weeks, to justify the billing hours?. Then the enlightenment came to me. I had developed a software technology used in my own consulting business to produce engineering-accurate layouts in a fraction of the time of a CAD (Computer Aided Drafting)-based technology, but started to understand that this might be a hard sell.

Follow the money? Large consultants often look at the floor of employees as a multiplier, meaning that each workstation will bring some multiple of profit. Suppose a technician costs $50,000 a year, and the multiplier is 3.5. After overhead, that technician represents $100,000 in potential profit. At a 150 person company, replacing one third of the staff by using more efficient technology and methods in the above example reduces the potential consulting income by five million dollars!

Follow the money? Liability is another roadblock to sustainability. Why try something new when the old tried and true has worked for decades or centuries? In the consulting industry, licensed professionals risk their careers if a new concept causes a major failure, so they're more likely to discourage anything without a proven history. The loss of a license to certify plans would have a devastating effect on a consultant's personal finances. It is far safer to claim that the new method cannot work and talk the developer or municipality out of the idea.

Follow the money? Today, few consultants are making any. Most are either hanging on (barely) or have shut their doors. The unemployment rate among architects, engineers, draftsmen, technicians, planners, and related occupations is very high. The exceptions are those lucky few that have won lucrative government contracts and are holding their own, or even thriving.

Follow the money? The market reacts to design, innovation and value. The first Toyota Prius was an ugly miniscule car based upon the Echo, but it was highly efficient. Gas was cheap when it was first introduced, and sales were dismal. The first generation Prius had innovation, but lacked design. The next generation Prius came out as gas prices soared. When an attractive interior and exterior design was combined with innovation, it quickly became a symbol for a new era of green thinkers. Rising fuel prices turned the hybrid technology into an increasing value which fueled ? so to speak ? its success. Before the I-Pod there were many digital music players that were innovative. When players were combined with an attractive package design and the ability to download from the same vendor, the overall value created its success. Like the Prius and the I-Pod, land development itself is a ?product?.

Follow the money? The housing market crashed and many believe the commercial real estate crash to come will also be devastating. Funding for infrastructure keeps many consultants employed when the private development and building industry flounder.

Those of us in the consulting industry must make some significant foundational changes if we are going to have a sustainable future, and claiming "Sustainability!" on the corporate web site is not enough. Unlike building construction, where being ?green? typically increases costs, in land development, environmentally sound design and construction can cost significantly less if done right. That said, it does require more design effort with a greater attention to detail. It is possible to decrease both construction costs and environmental impacts say, 30%, but it could mean the consultant doubling his or her design efforts to do so. Not only does the firm lose 30% of its gross income if billing is based upon a percentage of construction costs, it must make a huge increase in effort to do so.

Follow the money? In this new age of engineering and designing sustainable development, it is no longer possible to get the best result by simply using an off-the-shelf software to calculate the hydrology of the site (the drainage) within sewer pipes. Using surface flow along with natural materials that can filter pollutants from the run-off before drainage leaves the site requires a botanical engineering solution that blends knowledge of natural and manmade engineering. This requires a specialist, and the complexity that's required to successfully design these systems with fail-safe methods goes far beyond pressing a software button. Small errors could have devastating results, and the consultant will be liable.

For example, I installed a no-mow ? low watering ? fescue lawn, instead of sod, when my home was built last year. This landscaping worked great during the first year, giving us the look of a lawn look without having to mow it. We were told to water twice daily to get it established by the landscaping firm that claimed to be experts on this exciting new low impact landscaping. Well, watering fescue twice daily, it turns out, is the worst thing you can do, according to the prairie restoration consultants. We inadvertently turned our lawn into a fast growing prairie that needs more mowing than sod! But this is just one example of what can go wrong in this new era of sustainability. I was willing to invest, and I believe mistakes can be corrected and documented to reduce future errors. My landscape contractor installed something quite new in the industry, and took on a risk compared to suggesting safe sod. After the bugs are worked out the company will have a market edge and an example to show (but maybe not this year).

So how can we force an industry to change?

Lead with Money? Cities and developers hire firms assuming that they are going to use the latest techniques available to get the most efficient design possible. If the bidding process changed from seeking the lowest bidder to looking for the most advanced and efficient bidder, the industry would be rewarding innovation, competition, great design, and risk. Give priority to solutions that exceed the specifications. Contractors and consultants could be rewarded for coming up with revolutionary solutions.

Lead with Money? The reward could be in the form of a bonus for innovation: For example if a plan saves 100 million in right-of-way purchasing, give half of the savings to the winning contractor and consultant. If the consultant is being paid a percentage of the construction costs (lets use 5% as an example) on a 100 million dollar project, then he or she would gross five million dollars. If they could win the consulting (engineering) contract by demonstrating the most efficient design instead of being the lowest bidder (or the most politically connected), and be paid a percentage of the demonstrated benefit, they would be making more for providing a higher degree of effort and perhaps taking on more risk. In the above example, if 30 million dollars is demonstrated to be a savings or increase in functionality, and 20% of the savings is rewarded back to the consultant, then the consultant would make 5% on the 70 million dollars (3.5 million dollars) and 20% on the 30 million in savings (6 million dollars). The gross revenue to the consultant would almost double.

Lead with Money? Our military often awards bids for those projects that exceed the specifications. Vendors should compete not just on price, but to demonstrate how they exceeded the specifications. Governments as well as private developers could pick and choose based upon innovation, design, and value. Those taking the extra effort would flourish, and eventually the new higher standards would become the norm.

How about forcing change through regulations? Regulations can only control minimum standards, pretty much guaranteeing monotony and stagnation. Instead, follow the money: To create a sustainable world, we need to exceed minimums, and foster innovation by rewarding risk, effort, and investment.

Flickr photo, "George Is Keeping An Eye On You," by peasap

Rick Harrison is President of Rick Harrison Site Design Studio and Neighborhood Innovations, LLC. He is author of Prefurbia: Reinventing The Suburbs From Disdainable To Sustainable and creator of Performance Planning System. His websites are rhsdplanning.com and performanceplanningsystem.com.

Full story at http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Newgeography/~3/xPHXRCh9zdk/001629-follow-the-money-on-development-deals

Irvine, by Design

Different is not necessarily better or worse. I took notice of this upon moving from the Echo Park district of Los Angeles to Irvine. Some acquaintances and casual observers viewed it as a shift from ground zero of hipster chic to the center of conformity. Neither comes close to capturing the truth about either place.

Irvine is very different from Echo Park?not necessarily better or worse. That?s my point of view as a resident who appreciates aspects of both places.

Here?s a viewpoint from a broader perspective: I can see why a lot of observers and even some residents of Irvine see the city as a paean to conformity. The cityscape obviously conforms to any number of standards, some of which seem to be downright capricious. Must earth tones dominate the palette of the entire city? Must opportunities for legal U-turns be so rare?

There?s no denying that anyone who?s unfamiliar gets little help from landmarks as they find their way around Irvine. A lot of the streets have a similar look and feel. Many are bigger and busier than they seem at first glance. Cars are the boss, and it can take a while to get one?s bearings amid the slight distinctions of streetscape and zippy pace of traffic.

It?s taking me awhile, but a few things are coming into focus. I find it helps to think of the city as a canvas and to get to know its brush strokes.

There is a street grid, with major thoroughfares generally oriented on north to south and east to west. It helps to think of them as freeways. The housing subdivisions are like small towns. The shopping centers are downtown commercial districts.

Get that in mind and it helps put the city in perspective. Once you put Irvine in perspective you begin to realize its design.

Yes, the city is designed to a T?so much so that the ?conformity? tag gets affixed by critics in gentrified neighborhoods filled with hipsters, including many who don?t realize that they themselves have gotten comfortable with uniformity.

Listen closely to those same critics and you?ll realize they actually crave the sort of design that defines Irvine. Go to a community meeting in a gentrified neighborhood and you?ll likely hear all sorts of calls for strict design standards on everything from signs for mom-and-pop stores to street lights and dog parks.

The difference between the design-obsessed enclaves of inner cities and Irvine owes to Donald Bren.

His Irvine Company shares its name with the city. He grew it out of acreage that had been the historic Irvine Ranch. Bren?s vast landholdings have given him an unusual scope of control over how Irvine has taken shape.

Bren is apparently obsessed with design. It?s also apparent, however, that his obsession works toward a clear purpose. He seeks a profit in the marketplace.

The same hipsters who knock Irvine for conformity should appreciate the profit motive. Many of them look back fondly on pages of history that tell the stories of captains of industry who built company headquarters, stores and even factories as monuments and legacies.

Ask a hipster about the Chrysler Building in New York or the Wrigley Building in Chicago. Get ready for a stream-of-conscious review of the elegance of those structures. You?ll hear about the glory days of magnates who were not beholden to quarterly profit reports and could freely direct their wealth to aesthetic pleasures for public view without questions from shareholders.

You won?t hear Bren mentioned, but he should be.

I know this much from my brief time in Irvine: The place is a big canvas, and much of it has been filled by Bren. The conformity that critics see actually is design. It just happens to be on such a grand scale that it requires a broader perspective than can be gained with drive through and a look around. You have to live with it awhile?or perhaps take it in from several thousand feet in the air.

Nobody has to like Bren?s design. Fair is fair, though, and it should be understood that nothing of the scale and scope of what Bren has created can be fairly called conformity.

Sullivan is managing editor of the Orange County Business Journal (ocbj.com), where this column originally appeared.

Photo by maziar hooshmand

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How Tough Times May Lead to Better Architecture

By Richard Reep

While Ben Bernanke fantasizes about the Recovery, most people in the building industry ? especially in overbuilt Florida ? will correct this gross error immediately and emphatically. The recession may be over for the Fed Chairman, but unemployment in the design and construction professions is probably in the 25-30% range, matching that of the Great Depression.

Even so, tiny glimmers of light shine in what many design professionals call the ?microeconomy? of building ? small commercial renovations, house additions, tenant improvements, and other projects normally too small to even be counted. Although they lack the whallop, or the profits of big stuff ? hotels, hospitals, or new towns ? these do count, and are anecdotally turning towards local vernacular design and even contemporary architectural design as a strategy to beat the system, possibly pointing the way for the future.

Architectural styles are a slow-moving parade of fashions, too often divorced from climate, regional characteristics, or the cultural backgrounds of those who choose them. For most commercial and residential architecture that sprang up around neighborhoods, a mix of Victorian and Spanish Mediterranean styles seemed to be universally implemented by developers trying to please the largest quantity of people in the shortest period of time. Homes with terra cotta tiles and beige arches seemed to lurk behind bland Victorian Main Streets that sprouted everywhere from Montana to Alabama, betrayed by skin-tight fixed windows and paper-thin detailing. As branding elements, these styles nationalized what was once regional and climate-specific design.

Once again, we seem to be repeating history. In the 1870s and 1880s, suburbs began in many cities, and for the first time homeowners could choose custom-designed houses rather than production homes. Relative peace and prosperity begat a rush to consumerism matched only by our recent ambitions, and the Victorians became well known for an architecture and interior design style that promoted fussy detailing, the display of ornate and exotic materials, and homes overlaid with a frenzy of patterned wood siding, stained glass, carved woodwork, and high-pitched rooflines so that even the roof shingles could be a place to show off wealth. Furniture makers and material suppliers invented new products to feed the demand for consumer goods.

Yet this all crashed right at the turn of the 20th century, mostly because of the economic transitions suffered going back to the Panic of 1893. Suppressed until that time, modernism came out as a style in the Edwardian era that was much more sensitive to the modest budgets of homeowners building in the 20th century. Even Frank Lloyd Wright, whose career was famously independent of the vagaries of fashion, conceded that affordability was part of the appeal of his style ? his ?usonian? architecture reveled in simplicity and he took low-budget commissions to prove that good design need not be cluttered with doodads.

Today, after a similar consumerist run-up, residential architecture is suffering from a similar hangover, as we recover from the granite countertops and carved stone lions of the pre-recession era. These egregious displays of affluence may be gone for a long, long time. But people are still going about the business of adjusting their homes and businesses to suit their needs ? and there is a steady microeconomy of residential and small commercial construction.

Cost, however, is the single overriding factor in most small projects today, and a focus on localism favors the budget. For one thing, a region?s vernacular style usually responds best to the climate, and typically employs materials that can be locally sourced ? no stone from Chinese quarries is necessary. In Florida, for example, the vernacular style suspends the floor over a crawl space and includes deep roof eaves extending over the walls ? both in response to the combination of harsh sun and heavy rains that task the building envelope. The benefit of this style is lower construction cost (gone are all the elaborate carved woodworking pieces, the high rooflines with multiple dormers and turrets) and also lower energy costs.

Other clients are waking up to the simple fact that contemporary architecture costs less. Like the Edwardians before who developed a taste for the modern, owners building homes and additions in today?s economy have a newfound simplicity in their styles. With a few choice materials around the entry, some simple, strong lines, and a restrained approach to details, contemporary architecture is making a comeback in the residential market. Midcentury modern, a residential style all but forgotten in the McMansion era, was particularly suited to the returning GIs after World War 2 who desired a home but possessed the most modest of budgets. This affordability is the key driving factor to the rise of this style, and is also a naturally ?green? architectural style because of what it does without. Modernist Mies Van Der Rohe?s dictum ?less is more? can mean here that less ornament and fussy detailing means more money in the owner?s pocketbook at the end of the day.

Even more interestingly, house additions and remodeling still seems to exist in this economy. Owners are taking advantage of the construction market?s reduced material costs, are building in more home offices, and enlarging their homes to accommodate a multigenerational lifestyle ? parents living at home, or grown children living at home. Larger family clusters within single residences point to reduced mobility, and an evolving, relatively easy re-densification of suburbs that have been winnowed by a plethora of empty nesters.

This new respect for budget has some naturally green outcomes, as families cluster together to save money and energy, and home offices save commuting. By adapting a home in a budget conscious way, taking advantage of vernacular architecture and developing a taste for simple, clean design, many owners are unconsciously working with sustainable strategies already. If sustainability means the preservation of future generation?s choices, then by conserving money and aggregating closer together, owners have already implemented their own sustainability policy.

Green design should be seen as a grassroots response to the local climate, rather than a prescriptive code forced down from above. And it can produce a magnificent architecture in a timeless style. No federal program or international design guru can impact this like the microeconomy; instead people are making pragmatic choices, and once again discovering that the local vernacular architecture has a lot of good, commonsense clues about how to live a sustainable lifestyle.

Richard Reep is an Architect and artist living in Winter Park, Florida. His practice has centered around hospitality-driven mixed use, and has contributed in various capacities to urban mixed-use projects, both nationally and internationally, for the last 25 years.

Photo by cliff1066?

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The New E.D. -- Environmental Density

Developers often have an E.D. problem and are not even aware of it. No, not the type of E.D. temporarily cured with Viagra. Environmental Density ? E.D. ? is the measurement of the impact of man made construction on a site. In simple terms, E.D. is the average per acre volume of impervious surface due to land development construction. It has two very important impacts, one environmental, and one financial. One acre of land is 43,560 square feet. The lower the E.D. ? square foot of impervious surface area divided by 43,560 ? the lower the surface area of manmade structures that divert rain run-off, and the less environmental damage.

Some municipalities have impervious surface limitations in their regulations. These limitations can be counter to human benefits. For example, a developer faced with the limits of allowed impervious surface area would rather not propose a walking system; the regulations could mean a choice between walkways and homes. E.D., on the other hand, is not an imposed limit, but a way to measure the efficiency of the neighborhood design.

Don?t bother searching the internet for opposing articles on E.D., because we invented the term's use in relationship to modern land development right here at www.newgeography.com.

From a financial perspective, the lower the volume of manmade stuff, the lower the development cost. The savings translate into more money that can be spent on higher quality development and/or a drop in the cost of housing and commercial construction. In other words higher quality development at more affordable prices. This affects everyone, worldwide.

It doesn't matter if the site is a New Urban ?Smart Growth? design, a subdivision in ?Garage Grove Acres?, or a Prefurbia neighborhood. E.D. is the number that can easily indicate the direct environmental impact of land development. The E.D. is essentially the Efficiency of Development.

Assuming that New Geography readers are not all engineers, I?ll use some simple examples of E.D.:

If the design is wasteful (eliminating waste in design is NOT a subject taught in land planning schools ? but it should be), then costs and environmental impacts increase. Nobody but the paving and earthwork contractors being paid to build excessive infrastructure gain from wasteful development. The developer's profit decreases and the city's maintenance cost escalates from having to maintain excessive infrastructure? forever. We all pay for this!

In an urban high density development which has a very large ratio of hard surface area to organic ground (sometimes the E.D. reaches 100%), there are often opportunities to lower the inorganic percentage. Green roofs (landscaped rooftops) have an impact on E.D. because, in theory, the rainfall is held in soils that water landscaping. However, this assumes existing building structures can handle the additional weight and can be modified to properly maintain an organic area. Organic space on ground level benefits 100% of the population, as opposed to a green roof many stories above the pedestrian ways. So for the purposes of this article we will define all rooftops (urban or suburban) as negative impact square footage. Walks, streets, and driveways are all hard surface areas that divert rain. Organic areas absorb rain. Run-off from hard surface area negatively affects the environment.

Velocity is another problem. Run-off travels on hard surfaces at a much higher rate than it does on landscaped ground. The worst rates are found where there are long runs of straight street with rain traveling along gutters; curved design slows it a bit . Velocity builds momentum as more rain collects in gutters, inlets and sewer pipes. Eventually this wall of water reaches the end of developed land and spills into a natural system, carrying pollutants into major bodies of water. That oil slick on your driveway can be carried to environmentally sensitive areas hundreds or thousands of miles away in a heavy downpour.

Lower the E.D. ratio and some magnificent things happen.

A gain in organic space can reduce the disruption of the earth ? the moving of dirt ? which can significantly lower development costs, as well as provide surface run-off conduits which cost much less than sewer pipe. The designer must learn how to identify waste, and then take the steps to reduce it. This adds an additional element in the initial planning stages, but an extra day or two in design could reduce development costs by hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Rooftop surface can be reduced by building up, not out. The trend to build single level housing for the empty-nester market results in sprawling homes with terrible E.D. ratios, and it adds to the costs of the structures; roofs and foundations certainly are not cheap. Sprawling homes require longer streets to be reached, another increase in costs and environmental damage. A residential elevator is about $14,000 (installed) for a two story home, and $22,000 for three floors . By using them, builders can construct compact structures and plummet the E.D. ratio.

Paved areas can be reduced by changing regulations to allow vast, commercial parking areas, shared. by users that have different peak times. Some cities use progressive thinking, and allow this simple technique to lower the E.D. ratio of a region. Paved areas built to municipal standards are incredibly expensive, making the E.D. ratio even more critical.

When we developed Performance Planning Systems we wanted to create the tools to easily determine E.D. while still in the initial design phases, as well as to provide the education to recognize waste and teach how it can be reduced. E.D. relies on this new technology; tracing accurate space for the calculations would have been too tedious and time consuming in the past. Environmental Density, unlike impervious surface limits, does not impede efforts to create great neighborhoods. It?s not a restriction on what can be built, but a measure of a design's efficiency that can benefit builders, developers, and environmentalists.

Rick Harrison is President of Rick Harrison Site Design Studio and Neighborhood Innovations, LLC. He is author of Prefurbia: Reinventing The Suburbs From Disdainable To Sustainable and creator of Performance Planning System. His websites are rhsdplanning.com and performanceplanningsystem.com.

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Suburban Design: Square Peg In A Round Hole

Remember that Fisher Price toy ? ?Baby's First Blocks?? It was supposed to teach us one of life's first lessons: Place a square shape in a square hole, and a round shape in a round hole. We're supposed to understand this idea before we learn to say our first words, or to walk. Yet in the development of our neighborhoods, we have put that square shape into every hole, no matter what the shape of that hole.

In past centuries land was primarily developed with one pattern ? the grid ? because it was simple to calculate the geometry and stake out in the field. No matter what you have read about the ?town square? and the advantages of the ?grid pattern?, the reason for the grid was simply that it sidestepped the painstaking task of manually calculating the land development plat when curves were involved. Forested areas were routinely clear-cut, and swamps (today?s wetlands) were filled in. Those were the days during which development was straight-forward and simple: develop land while destroying what nature provided on the soil. Natural topography, which is certainly not based upon the grid, was bulldozed into oblivion.

In the 1960?s, newer forms of site design became commonplace, primarily in the exploding suburban landscape that rose after urban-core riots fueled what was then known as ?White Flight?. This newer form of design introduced more curved patterns. Unlike the grid, the occasional curve broke up the monotony, and submitted site plans began to look more interesting. These new patterns were the start of a desire to follow the natural shape of the terrain.

But in the 1960s we did not have an awareness of the environmental damage of development that we posses today. As automation in computations, drafting, and land surveying technology began to reduce the workload of non-gridded designs, the curved pattern became more commonplace. This transition is easily seen by visiting any city's land records and looking at the changes in land development patterns of recorded plats since World War II.

For decades, the curved patterns were designed by individuals who concentrated on density goals by squeezing every hundredth of a foot allowed by ordinance. Curved streets conform to the random contours of nature much better than the grid, and the curved pattern, if correctly designed, can be extremely efficient while delivering connectivity for vehicles and pedestrians. That is, if the land planner knows how to design these systems. But patterns that would harness any delivered vehicular and pedestrian connectivity were not part of the plan. Without concentrating on harnessing the curved patterns to create functional traffic systems, so-called ?land planners? ? and anyone can still become a land planner simply by adding the term 'land planning' to their business card ? provided plenty of ammunition to the New Urbanism movement's attacks on curved design.

In any case, with the use of curved patterns land development broke away from sole use of the monolithic square shape, and introduced two new primary shapes: An inner pie shaped lot and an outer pie shaped lot. For more than a half century, these three basic shapes have defined the majority of the growth pattern for American development.

These three basic shapes have been the foundation on which we have built millions upon millions of new homes. We have been placing that square shaped home in the triangular hole as if one of the first lessons we were taught was meaningless. Those toy blocks were supposed to teach us to take advantage of the shapes in life that we are offered. Apparently the architectural community, as well as the building industry, ignored this opportunity, until now.

Home builders large and small have used the same basic shape, as if all lots were only rectangular. Even homes that have garage snouts and are often anything but rectangular in shape are set by civil engineers with a house ?pad? that is based on the square. I?m pretty sure most of these engineers were brought up with the Baby's First Blocks, or something similar. Forcing a square shape into a triangle shape results in a bigger triangle than need be, or making the square much smaller than necessary. In other words, we have built a quite inefficient world for over half a century.

In an effort to create a more sustainable world, we are developing new methods to design neighborhoods. Part of the effort to eliminate the tremendous waste in land development has been to reassess architecture as part of the overall function of the neighborhood. This became much more critical as we developed Performance Planning System, which was created to teach sustainable development design methods. It quickly became apparent that there was a tremendous void in the opportunities to incorporate new forms of architecture, especially in developments with curved patterns.

The square home that fits on the square lot does not offer much real opportunity for change. But the other two basic shapes invite new efficiency and value to the home buyer, critical in this down housing market. Homes that are shaped to fit on the inside of the curve can be wider in the front...much wider. This results in a home that does not have to be as deep, essentially making the rear area useable as well because of extra rear yard depth, while providing the same useable square footage. The extra width makes the garage less prominent, and creates much more viewable area from within the home that looks out on the larger rear yard and the streetscape. The home that's wider in the front allows a bigger porch area and greater opportunity to tie living areas to the street. Less of the side of the home is exposed, and the streetscape becomes more attractive, enhancing that all-important curb appeal.

The outer side of a curved shape is the opposite pie shape. In this case we can create a stronger tie to the larger rear yard (the outer curves have larger rear yards than a rectangular lot). Like the inner pie, there is more width opportunity to create a home that maintains a target square footage, yet is less deep, again creating an ever larger useable rear yard.

Perhaps even more important is that we can use these new patterns either to make larger homes, to create larger, more useable yards, or to create non-rectangular pad shapes that adhere to the letter of the law (ordinance regulations) while gaining density and reducing neighborhood sprawl. Actually we can easily accomplish all three!

So what do the home builders think? In this down economy there is little opportunity to for trends to develop, but in almost all cases where we have promoted this idea builders have embraced it. These developers have included one of the largest home builders in North America, and one of the most respected in Texas.

The amount of waste we can eliminate by using the lessons that were supposed to be taught with our First Blocks is enormous. And it comes just in time to give builders that extra edge in today's tough market.

Rick Harrison is President of Rick Harrison Site Design Studio and Neighborhood Innovations, LLC. He is author of Prefurbia: Reinventing The Suburbs From Disdainable To Sustainable and creator of Performance Planning System. His websites are rhsdplanning.com and performanceplanningsystem.com.

Full story at http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Newgeography/~3/4FusDWxeEGE/001440-suburban-design-square-peg-in-a-round-hole

Cookie Cutter Housing: Wrong Mix For Subdivisions

Nobody likes the taste of ?cookie cutter? development. In the forty years that I?ve been in the land planning industry, at meeting after meeting I hear planning commissioners and city council members complain about the same thing: That developers submit the same recipes to cook up bland subdivisions over and over.

But while the developers are the scapegoat, it?s those who sit on the council and planning commissions that are as much, if not more to blame. They are also the ones with the power to change the status quo.

Communities have a cookbook that tells the developer and the design consultant the ingredients that must be used; this is called ?The Ordinance?. Just as one might bake cookies using clearly defined amounts of flour and sugar, the cook looks to the ordinance to see that he will need exactly 10 feet between homes, at precisely a 20 foot setback from the curb, served up on a lot no greater than 5,600 square feet.

Thus, 100 cookies baked from the same recipe have about as much in common as the 100 lots built on ?Pleasant Acres?. The developer presents the plan to the council. The scrumptious, pastel-colored rendering promises a tasteful development. But the council and planning members remember the aftertaste of the promises of past submittals.

Developers do not design land developments. They hire consultants who design them. The consultants are likely to be engineers and land surveyors, who also acts as land planners. A cookie cutter development is called a "Subdivision? . A really large cookie-cutter development is called a ?Master Planned Community?. In the end, no matter what its size, when you look down the street on which people live, both Subdivision and Master Planned Community have the exact same feel.

Why?, Because the ordinance says so.

Yes, it's true that the ordinance does not say anything about how to make creative, wonderful, sustainable communities, it only demands certain minimum dimensions and area restraints. But the key problem is that the developer, the engineer, the surveyor, and the planners think that the term ?minimum? means the ?absolute? dimensions.

So who cooked up these ordinances? Who determined that 5,600 square feet was the ideal lot size for the zoning in a particular city? Why does the fire department demand the public streets be 40 feet wide, when in a nearby city the public streets are just 26 feet wide? Are the buildings burning down over there, and not here?

Citizens who have the power to create the changes that are needed - the councils, the planning commission members, and the Mayors ? unquestionably embrace these recipes that enforce the absence of taste in their cities. Those who write regulations are actually often being paid to boilerplate these nauseating formulas from neighboring towns, when they should be looking to create entirely new recipes for tasteful development.

It?s time to throw out the systems that don?t work. Ordinances should be more reward-based and less minimum-based. A town's regulations should ask developers to explain each element of the design and tell how it benefits the developer, the resident or business owner, and the city.

For example, most ordinances simply state: '10 foot side yard minimum (20 feet between buildings)'. What if the ordinance was written as '10 foot side yard', then went on to explain that staggering the homes could offer a better streetscape. It might go on to mention that, with windows placed along the staggered side, living areas would have better views, making the homes more marketable. In this scenario, side yards could be reduced, to, say, 5 feet (10 feet between buildings). This type of regulation guides developers by rewarding better design with denser development. Virtually every aspect of the regulations could be written in such a manner. Nobody loses ? everyone wins!

The developer?s consultants also deserve some of the blame. The developer will always hope for a project that will sell better than other developments in the area? always. Yet somehow, the developer trusts that the same consulting firm that designs all the other developments in town will have some special brainstorm that will somehow set this particular Subdivision apart.

This is one reason that nothing really changes. Another is that consultants who design Subdivisions (mostly licensed engineers and surveyors) are not likely to go against the rules. To a licensed individual who places his or her reputation and stamp on a plan, challenging a rule is very uncomfortable. Conflict between the consultant and the council and planning commission is highly feared? what if the change fails? The city's representatives might view the consultant negatively on the next project. It?s far simpler to use one cup of flour and a tablespoon of sugar.

Until only six years ago I felt as if I was the only one challenging convention. At every meeting I would present plans that went beyond ordinance minimums to make sustainable and functional communities. At every meeting, typically in the back row, was the developer's engineer, paid to attend. I had to defend against every question regarding engineering that was done outside of the recipe, and offer reasons for the benefits. Never once did an engineer who was paid to back me up offer support.

Then, in 2003 at a council meeting in the small town of Amery, Wisconsin, the impossible happened. On an engineering question, the developer?s consultant, Steve Sletner, owner of TEC Design, of Eau Claire, Wisconsin jumped right in and actually defended the changes we were challenging. A Licensed Civil Engineer became my instant hero (still is).

If every engineer thought more about the quality of life of those living in the developments that they engineer, this would be a much better world. Since then, Steve and I have been winning the war against the cookie-cutters in an enjoyable, relaxed atmosphere with councils and planning commissions everywhere.

Outside of the US, I've also found similar roadblocks to successful design. While in the Middle East, I met with the young head of sales for an extremely large developer. He complained about home designs that customers simply did not care for. I asked if he let his superiors know about the problems. Fear came across his face. Fear of confrontation is perhaps the biggest problem holding us back. Confrontation should not be an issue if there is supporting proof that the new solution offers less environmental impact and higher value, or is safer, etc.

An advantage we have in the US is that the citizens who sit on planning commissions and councils have more common sense than consultants give them credit for. When they don?t like the taste of what they are getting, they spit out negative comments at public meetings.

I wish that every planning commissioner and council member in this country could get this one message: If you don?t like the taste of what you are getting, hire a different cook to write a new cookbook for your community. President Obama recently stated that we must rely on the American spirit of innovation. A rewards-based regulatory system would be a major step in innovating the way our cities operate.

The planning industry needs a massive overhaul to replace our obsolete system with one that results in sustainable development. Minimum-based regulations are recipes that guarantee that only minimal cities will be built. Cities are the foundation of our society. And remember: You are what you eat.

Rick Harrison is President of Rick Harrison Site Design Studio and author of Prefurbia: Reinventing The Suburbs From Disdainable To Sustainable. His website is rhsdplanning.com.

Full story at http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Newgeography/~3/RDuyrWgEQtA/00983-cookie-cutter-housing-wrong-mix-for-subdivisions