February 21, 2011 by admin
From signonsandiego.com
Add another category to President Barack Obama’s “Sputnik moment”: redoing America’s close-in suburbs.
Like Clairemont, Point Loma, National City, La Mesa — the so-called “first-tier” suburbs that were built after World War II.
Close to transit and jobs, containing the pipes and parks that make livability possible, these communities represent the focus of the next round of redevelopment, now that downtown San Diego and central business districts in other cities have been largely rebuilt.
They are the “sweet spot for redevelopment,” according to Patrick Phillips.
“They have a distinct urban feel but not quite the urban grit. They are close to transit, jobs, cultural and entertainment facilities. They are walkable, architecturally interesting — and they are employment centers.”
He is the CEO of the Urban Land Institute, a Washington, D.C., think tank, who keynoted a recent conference in North Carolina and elaborated on his views in a subsequent interview.
“This point in time might be considered our industry’s Sputnik moment, when we readjust our thinking and our expectations about real estate,” he said.
In the interview, he said the challenge will be to get residents of these neighborhoods to rise above NIMBYism — not in my backyard attitudes opposing change around them.
“We see it everywhere,” he said, “despite the fact that these neighborhoods are well located to receive additional density, particularly in transit investment or other new investment in infrastructure.”
The trick, he said, is better design for new development on underperforming sites, such as commercial strip centers, not necessarily on blocks containing well-maintained single-family homes.
“It’s good design, not density,” he said. “It’s how much we can vary the form from the existing building pattern.”
San Diego urban designer Howard Blackson, in a separate interview, couldn’t agree more that design is key. But he said ULI and local planning agencies have failed to come up with tools beyond the 50-year-old system of zoning and building codes.
“We’re trying to do high-density, mixed use, transit oriented development without following a very good regional plan,” Blackson said. “We have a good smart-growth map but it’s not grounded in any sort of tools. The locals only know what they know.”
He said San Diego does have some successful models, from 1920s neighborhoods like Kensington and Rancho Santa Fe to the Uptown District completed about 20 years ago on a former Sears site in Hillcrest.
“We have a lot of great stuff and a great environment,” he said. “We don’t have a lot of great places.
In his speech, Phillips said the mistake in recent times is that new development occurred in ex-urbs, such as Temecula and the rest of southern Riverside County. Many buyers moved there where they could afford large homes, but then ate up a lot of their savings in commuting costs.
Now, he said, younger people desire to live in vibrant neighborhoods close to work, and their aging Baby Boomer parents plan to keep working and not move.
“In the area of workforce housing, it’s clear that despite the housing collapse in many areas, there is still a shortage of affordable housing that is close to jobs,” Phillips said. “Yes, home prices declined, but that does not address the fact that in most of urban areas, the bulk of the mainstream workforce lives far from employment.”
He said the return to the city — downtown — “is only part of the urban evolution.”
“There is a demand for this development that stretches beyond downtown cores and into the suburbs. And it is the first-tier suburbs that are best positioned to accommodate this type of development.”
Ironically, these suburbs were developed without the strict planning, zoning and design codes in place today.
But housing developers have since adopted a mass-production model that resulted in master-planned communities linked by freeways. Builders acknowledge their tried-and-true model doesn’t work when it comes to working on small, infill lots that don’t offer the same economy of scale they’re used to.
But now that the building industry in California and other places “doesn’t exist anymore” in the wake of the housing slump, Phillips said, the building industry will have to find new paths to profit.
“It’s going to have to adapt,” he said. “As long as there is market demand, companies will be able to figure it out.”
Blackson said adapting to the new paradigm is necessary in planning circles as well.
“It’s not taught in our schools,” he said. “It’s not valued in planning departments.”
Blackson is a proponent of something called “form-based” or “place-based” zoning, where the goals of a building project dictate the outcome and allow for more flexibility. The promise is that people will be able to live and work in walkable communities and leave their cars behind.
The widely used “prescriptive” zoning approach specifies use and design. Critics say that approach has divided residences from workplaces, shopping from recreational areas, and led to too much reliance on the car.
The bottom line, Blackson said, is development has to acknowledge cultural and social values, as well as standard real estate measurements.
“We’ve been building for economic value in the heydays and lost touch with cultural and social values that are important,” he said. “Rediscovering that will help build toward economic value.
Foreclosure filing activity was down throughout the coverage area in
