5. Onsite parking requirements are eliminated and made voluntary (currently in US. Metropolitan areas every single family home must provide a garage for at least two cars). Loading zones and offsite designated parking facilities are established instead.
As long as every residence is required to provide a two car garage we will not be able to move form an unsustainable suburban era to a vital and people centered urban era. The current North American standard parking requirement has turned street faces into assembly lines of garage doors and drive ways. This is both unattractive and destructive to a sustainable city, presuming that there never will be an alternative transportation method to the car and disallowing its development. Under the new rules, people could still choose to have a garage, but on a voluntary basis. Instead, the space could be used for any other purposes and could even be sold off as described above.
Neighborhood parking structures would provide people the opportunity to park their car in the vicinity. The parking structures would also allow for an easily accessible city wide on-demand car system where users pay participatory or use-based fees and do not need to own their own vehicle. This would relieve a lot of economic strain on people and create a more sustainable city with its fleet of electric and green cars without removing the convenience of having access to a car at any given point in time and any in neighborhood across the city.
6. Every neighborhood designates at least one street as pedestrian zone.
This creates an instant push for economic gentrification as has been shown in every living example of a pedestrian zone. Moreover, it and adds significant quality of life to the neighborhood. The pedestrian zone becomes the vital core of the neighborhood, hosting weekly farmers markets and other occasional street fairs and festivities. The businesses along the pedestrian street, especially restaurants, cafes and retail, will have an instant and permanent boost in business and all the residences in the surrounding area will see an increase in property value. This is an easy, inexpensive and permanent economic stimulus that can be applied anywhere.
7. Restore existing rivers, storm drains and seasonal runoffs into riparian urban parks.
The parks should include bicycle paths and nature walks and the bicycle paths should connect to and supplement a network of bike paths. These linear parks will physically and psychologically tie neighborhoods together, bring natural resources to the communities, create sanctuaries for natural habitat and with today’s improved understanding of flood control, keep adjacent neighborhoods safe. Most cities across the world have a number of concrete encased water channels that represent a natural and financial opportunity to be uncovered.
8. Easy processing of licenses to operate a small, home cooked food and beverage service businesses.
This point would create a whole new entrepreneurial class of small scale food businesses, giving people of all backgrounds economic opportunities. It would also create access for citizens to many convenient, healthy, home cooked food choices within walking distance from their house and work. It would create a real competition with fast food chains, which, under the performance guidelines would clearly have to clean up their act to open new businesses and would get taxed after a certain grace period if they kept existing facilities running in the current depleting manner, thus disadvantaging such unsustainable operations economically.
Since zoning laws have been replaced with performance standards, small scale home cooked food businesses could be located anywhere, from within private homes to roof tops, courtyards to front yards, thus creating lively neighborhoods and social places for exchange and to meet neighbors. It would also give the opportunity for food establishments to be located in attractive areas and have outdoor seating away from busy through streets, which, in cities across the United States are currently the only places zoned for commercial/restaurant use. In essence it would create nicer places to eat on a daily basis, with more, better and healthier choices of food and in closer vicinity to the users.
9. Percentage of property sales tax of each parcel (including portions of previous parcels), as well as a percentage of business tax of any business goes directly into the local community fund that is 100% managed by the local community and serves as a direct reinvestment into the neighborhood and the people.
This would give the local community a budget and a voice for self determination. Whether it’s to plant trees, create a community center, a playground or improve a neighborhood parking structure or introduce new youth programs that help kids stay out of trouble and keep the neighborhood safe, the priorities of each community would be implemented in a direct fashion and without the financial waste of top down bureaucracy. The selected improvement project would also reinvest into the local community by employing locals to direct and construct the projects whenever possible. This then creates a positive feedback loop with the area getting more valuable, thus attracting more businesses and residents and then again collecting more money to reinvest into the community. And since every community would work this way, every community would have the same opportunity for positive feedback loops leading to true economic prosperity based on real values.
This is an excerpt of an article by Laura Burkhalter and Manuel Castells addressing urban issues of the polycentric city in relation to quality of life and the current multi-dimensional crisis with is distinct urban dimension. This excerpt addresses urban landuse issues in a point by point proposal, offering a window into a radically different way to construct cities from the current status quo.
Planning and Landuse Policies for Urban Quality of Live
1. Zoning laws are turned into performance guidelines. This eliminates restrictions on landuse as long as the established performance requirements are fulfilled and safety building standards (per occupancy groups and per building code) are maintained.
Performance guidelines are based on the following criteria:
- Ecological performance
- Social quality to the local community
- Economic performance
- Aesthetic/artistic value
Replacing zoning laws with performance guidelines would singlehandedly address many of our current urban problems, especially in North American cities. It could transform monotonous suburban landscape into vibrant, thriving communities. It would turn every community into mixed use, not from a top down master planned approach of apartment living above a mall, but in a spontaneous, diverse and grass roots way. The fact that one can now open a business anywhere as long as the performance criteria are respected means the beginning of a new chapter of community entrepreneurism creating flourishing local economies based on real added values. This gradual transformation would automatically tailor itself to each and every community and give places its unique identity rather than the master planned or zoned “one size fits all” solutions currently making up our urban fabric.
Moreover, it would no longer exempt factories and polluting industries from performance standards. Regardless of the use of a building, performance standards would have to be met. For a certain amount of transit time, these performance standards may be based on the surrounding area, so that a new factory in an existing factory complex would have to perform better than all the existing buildings, but maybe not equally as good as if it were placed in a residential neighborhood. But beyond this short term grace period, all structures would have to meet the same standards. This way, manufacturing jobs could be placed in what once was a purely residential neighborhood, as well as retail, offices, restaurants etc. There would be no longer a “those neighborhoods” stigma, meaning the dirty industrial places, because there would be no longer any zoning laws allowing any business or residence to be dirty and depleting the quality of life and ecosystem of its surrounding areas.
2. Front yard and side yard setbacks are eliminated. (Seismic separation may be required between structures). Natural light and ventilation and emergency access must be provided for each structure. Each structure is required to provide a minimal, accessible and usable garden space that may be located anywhere within, around or above the building.
3. The minimum lot size is eliminated.
4. The legal process to subdivide and join land is freed from its current red tape procedures.
These three points again have a fundamental impact on the urban fabric. Under these new rules, each property owner could decide to sell portions of her property. For example two neighbors may agree to sell their adjacent side yards and partial front yards to a new owner by creating a new property out of these strips of land. The new lot may be quite narrow, but wide enough for the new owner to build an infill structure. Let us look at the benefits from various perspectives.
Economic benefits: By selling off a portion of their property both existing owners get a considerable financial relief. This can save owners from losing their house in foreclosure, save the banks from thousands of bad loans and the taxpayers from bailing out all the bad loans the banks accumulated. It also creates opportunities and economic accessibility for new ownership as small, affordable parcels that have previously not been available on the market.
Ecological Benefits: The denser communities with a mixed use program ensure that a good portion of the local residences can also work in the immediate community, thus reducing transportation needs and pollution. Denser neighborhoods allow for smaller city footprints and more opportunities for open space. Furthermore, small infill lots make for smaller structures which can help reduce carbon footprints and pollution associated with property maintenance. Removing the status quo of the front lawn means reducing very considerable amounts of toxins currently polluting our soil and water with pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers, reducing the wasteful water use as well as the loud and highly polluting lawn mowers and leaf blowers. Instead, yards would be encouraged to include vegetable gardens and compost and would be allowed to include small chicken coops etc as outlined by the performance requirements. This would have the added environmental benefit of food grown at the source, thus cutting out toxic processing and polluting transport for that food.
Social Benefits: The new spatial density allows for a much more integrated social structure. For one it makes it feasible for extended family and friends to be neighbors and thus attend to each other’s needs. This means taking care of each other’s children, cooking for each other and generally more time to exchange and socialize. The many new community businesses, such as community cafes and mini restaurants, daycare centers etc create places for people to meet and commune and give people a sense of belonging.
Spatial Benefits: The infill projects will piece by piece transform the visual disconnect of the suburban street face by providing the visual glue between the parts. Eventually the street face will gain continuity within diversity of expression and grow suburban monotony into attractive urban villages.
