Avoid Urban Sprawl With ‘Smart Growth’

BY MARK WINEKA
SALISBURY POST

The buzz words in urban planning these days are ‘‘smart growth.’’

Maybe the best way to understand it, says Charlotte architect and town planner David Walters, is to say that ‘‘no one wants to grow stupid.’’

But Walters believes that’s what cities, including Salisbury, have been doing since World War II. Urban sprawl has become the norm, because cities continue to use development standards, a.k.a. zoning ordinances, that are 50 years out of date.

‘‘There is nothing as outdated as a terrible idea,’’ said Walters, one of four speakers Thursday night at the Salisbury 2020 Vision Plan’s second public education session. ‘‘... Growing smart is stopping sprawl.’’

Other speakers at the Meroney Theater included Ann Hammond, planning director for the town of Huntersville and mayor pro tem of Charlotte; Professor Owen Furuseth, a land conservation expert with the University of North Carolina at Charlotte’s Urban Land Institute; and Nate Bowman, a developer with a major project under way in Huntersville.

Walters, who also is a professor of architecture at UNCC, was one of two consultants who led the city’s recent Flowers Bakery Area Redevelopment Task Force. Several million dollars in new investment has been announced in connection with the Flowers Bakery area downtown.

‘‘I have never known a town to implement a plan so quickly and so effectively,’’ said Walters, who generally praised Salisbury for its preservation of the central business district.

But Walters said he wasn’t as enthusiastic about other places in Salisbury, citing Innes Street from I-85 to the downtown as an example.

‘‘They’re not memorable places, whereas the downtown is memorable,’’ he said.

Walters and the rest of his panel repeatedly stressed how ineffective urban sprawl is. Even as cities decline, they gobble up more space, Walters said, using Cleveland, Ohio, as an example. While Cleveland has lost 11 percent of its population, its land use has increased 33 percent.

Because of the way cities are building – and sprawling – they create more isolation, more drive time, more costs, more wasted time, fewer choices and less access, Walters said.

‘‘It’s not a terribly smart thing to do,’’ he added. ‘‘There are some things that actually worked better (long ago) than they do now. The way we build now doesn’t even work now.’’

Walters and the others spoke on the premise that growth was a given and that growth is good, if managed well. Cities can do a better job, they suggested, by prohibiting dead-end, disconnected subdivisions and promoting things such as connected streets, narrower streets, sidewalks, on-street parking, trees, infill development, dispersed affordable housing, open spaces, mixed-use communities and gathering places.

‘‘Everybody can be smart,’’ Walters said. ‘‘It’s just a matter of choice.’’

Walters urged Salisbury to choose the best models and work to make its zoning ordinance facilitate good ideas, not impede them. He warned against Salisbury’s taking its impressive, historical downtown and surrounding it ‘‘in a sea of slush.’’

Furuseth defined sprawl as low-density urban growth that’s auto-dependent and separates homes from the workplace, shopping and services. It has been a post-World War II phenomenon that reflects its time, but sprawl is expensive, an inefficient use of land and a large contributor to air and water pollution, Furuseth said.

Some of the inefficiency in sprawl comes in the lost time Americans spend in their cars. Americans lose 1.6 million hours a day stuck in traffic, Furuseth said. And 84 percent of all trips in the country are done by private vehicle – the highest percentage by far of all advanced nations, even though it’s the most expensive form of transportation.

Furuseth gave numbers showing how Atlanta has allowed sprawl to continue unabated, while Portland, Ore., has effectively kept sprawl in check by establishing an urban growth boundary around the city. Portland has increased its population by 50 percent since 1975, but its urban area has grown by only 2 percent.

‘‘Salisbury has a reputation as having done things right,’’ Furuseth said, urging the Salisbury 2020 Vision committee to look at what smart growth offers compares to urban sprawl.

Here are some other observations made by Thursday night’s speakers:

- Bowman, the developer, told Salisbury’s planners to hold onto their vision and resist compromise. Most developers will eventually adapt to the new standards, he said

- Most developers have big egos, Bowman said. Show them they can build a legacy that people will admire and talk about.

- When building, have the eyes of the homes and businesses (the fronts of the structures) facing the publicly shared green space or park. It creates a remarkable form of security for the park, Bowman said.

- Integrate prices within a development. Don’t make every home one price. Give a wide range of choices and, in the process, the developer will build four or five subdivisions in one.

- Put garages in back. Bring houses closer to the street.

- Builders have to vary what they’re doing. New developments should have grocery stores and gas stations, for example. They’ll just look different, Bowman said.

- Elevate new houses. Keep away from the standard slab on grade.

- Instead of building houses around a golf course, create a linear park that more people can enjoy.

- Growth in Salisbury should complement its unique character, said Hammond, the Huntersville planner.

- Measure things such as street widths, setbacks and planting strips. Which ones work and which do not? Find the things that are best for Salisbury, Hammond said.

- Build streets that by their nature tell a driver to go slow. Pay a lot of attention to streets – they represent the most public spaces and are an important place for people, Hammond said.

- Public space should not be the leftover land in the backyards of a subdivision, Hammond said. Give developers some kind of bonus for leaving open spaces that everybody can share.

- Blend apartments in with single-family houses.

- Don’t allow parking lots in front of buildings. Put them in the back or on the side.

- Building a community is making sure it’s designed for pedestrians, Walters said.