Metro Jacksonville

Retrofitting Suburbia.  Ellen Dunham Jones

(http://photos.metrojacksonville.com/photos/655714432_pBFEw-M.jpg)

Visionary Jacksonville Planning Department Director, Bill Killingsworth, recently brought the meteoric Dunham Jones to speak with our planning department.

Ellen Dunham-Jones teaches architecture at the Georgia Institute of Technology, is an award-winning architect and a board member of the Congress for the New Urbanism. She shows how the design of where we live impacts some of the most pressing issues of our times -- reducing our ecological footprint and energy consumption while improving our health and communities and providing living options for all ages.

Full Article
http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2010-jul-retrofitting-suburbia-ellen-dunham-jones

She is a professor at my school...I have seen her talk there and at ULI in Atlanta and have read her book and it is revolutionary!  :)  We need to use her ideas everywhere, but her idea to retrofit old dead malls is especially good for Regency I think.  Another good read from faculty at Tech is Megaregions.  It is not as good as Retrofitting Suburbia though and it is another example of how people outside of Jax just don't think of Jax ever because that book talks about every other city in the SE/FL a lot more than Jax.

This is a fantastic talk on retrofitting Suburbia. This topic was briefly touched in the movie 'End of Suburbia'.
The mall at the corner of Old Baymeadows and Southside is being used by FSCJ. This goes in line with Ellen Dunham Jones's talk. I would like to see empty parking lots becoming wetlands.

All her examples seemed to talk about the involvement of transit. I wonder why!

I would like to see a reaction(talking points, vision) based on this video from mayoral candidates and council leaders.  I believe that public investments will need to be sustainability-minded in the future.  I think the ideas of retrofitting could do wonders for reinvigorating depressed neighborhoods throughout Jacksonville.  We've seen ideas like this for Regency and a few other areas but this concept isn't being driven by city leaders.  All of her examples show how public investment can drive private growth!  Our city has lots of money but is not using it wisely.  Transit and regreening would be a great place to start.

Quote from: simms3 on July 05, 2010, 09:30:39 AM
Another good read from faculty at Tech is Megaregions.  It is not as good as Retrofitting Suburbia though and it is another example of how people outside of Jax just don't think of Jax ever because that book talks about every other city in the SE/FL a lot more than Jax.

I have noticed that the Tech definition of Megaregions did not include Jax. as part of the Florida megaregion....that's why I lik the America 2050 version better.

btw, as the article noted, she spoke to Planning Department staff....but she was actually brought to town as part of the ULI Reality Check series.

To be fair, has the guy even been director a year yet?  It's hard to blame any newcomer for 1950s era sprawl and for the blight that has plagued downtown for decades.

A retrofit Regency Mall would be of little utility or perhaps not even possible as long as the surrounding neighborhood proves dangerous.

There are huge swaths of America in need of retrofit.I bet most of populated Florida is in need.

(http://photos.metrojacksonville.com/photos/608145436_xW6fy-M.jpg)
Town & Country Shopping Center - Arlington

A retrofitting of neighborhood shopping centers with high vacancies (like Town & Country) would be more important to communities like Arlington, Cedar Hills and Emerson than anything taking place at Regency Mall.  The redevelopment of these centers have the ability to spread infill and adaptive reuse to adjacent residential communities.  This would be more difficult to achieve with regional mall sites like Regency because our zoning regulations over the years have isolated them from residential areas. 

Sign me up on asphalt and concrete ripping crew. I love revealing soil to the sky.

I think some of the trends in development are rooted in some of these ideas. You'll notice that the town center concept has overtaken the idea of shopping malls around the country although some of them are done very poorly. The idea of building new developments in walkable street grids is applaudable. The problem in our city and some others is that we're draining swamps and cutting down forests to build these places rather than retrofitting and there's still an abundance of surface parking in a lot of the town centers we're building so they aren't as dense as they could be. So what makes it so easy for developers to continue to sprawl in Jacksonville and what changes can we make to make infill and retrofitting more attractive than building on the fringes?


You can see what I mean looking at SJTC.
(http://www.simon.com/utilities/resizeimage.ashx?image=/assets/mall/857/floorplans/857_floorplan.gif&w=650)

Easy.  A change in land use and zoning regulations.  There's no reason we must force development to have large front setbacks or a certain minimum number of parking spaces.  On the transportation side of things, there is no reason we can't require sidewalks on both sides of the street, pedestrian and bicycle amenities on all future streets.  While the market can certainly play a role in development style, in most cases our public entities are there worse enemies.

That's along the lines of what I was thinking. So I'm not so familiar with how zoning and land use regs work exactly, but the basic principle is that each parcel is assigned a specific designation telling what type of development is allowed on the property such as office space or residential and it designates guidelines for how buildings should be constructed on the property. Is this how it works? And I'm assuming there's a zoning board or commission for Duval county, so how are these people who make zoning decisions chosen?

^^ Both of you make excellent points.  We really should start with land use and zoning.  First of all, require every new development to connect to the surrounding developments with sidewalks, bike paths, etc.  This would then allow office parks to connect to surrounding retail and other offices.  People end up making paths through the bushes anyway!  Sidewalks should not even be negotiable, and both sides of the street should have them.  The city should also continue to incorporate more bike paths into street repaving.  I have liked how both Gate Parkway and now Touchton Road are getting bike paths as part of their upgrading.  Most of Belfort has a designated path as well.  It would also be a good thing to start saving room for bike paths through neighborhoods, but off the street.  Any new housing developments and infill/retrofitting should have these features.  It isn't unreasonable to ask this of developers.

Quote from: Fallen Buckeye on July 05, 2010, 07:46:50 PM
And I'm assuming there's a zoning board or commission for Duval county, so how are these people who make zoning decisions chosen?

As is the case throughout Florida, zoning and land use are quasi-judicial issues...as such, they are handled by the elected body....which means City Council.

Quote from: tufsu1 on July 06, 2010, 08:08:07 AM
As is the case throughout Florida, zoning and land use are quasi-judicial issues...as such, they are handled by the elected body....which means City Council.

Duly noted. I will definitely consider this during the next election.

Quote from: Abhishek on July 05, 2010, 09:47:13 AM
This is a fantastic talk on retrofitting Suburbia. This topic was briefly touched in the movie 'End of Suburbia'.
The mall at the corner of Old Baymeadows and Southside is being used by FSCJ. This goes in line with Ellen Dunham Jones's talk. I would like to see empty parking lots becoming wetlands.

All her examples seemed to talk about the involvement of transit. I wonder why!

Might as well list the mall at Philips Hwy and Emerson used as office park, YMCA, Skating rink, etc.

I've been thinking it would be interesting to invite someone like Ellen Dunham-Jones to Jacksonville and let her share some ideas for retrofitting.  How could an area like Tinseltown incorporate sidewalks and connectivity?  How could retrofitting encourage new development near Gateway Shopping Center or the Beach Plaza Shopping Center?  Should the city focus on some depressed neighborhoods by regreening or creating new public wetlands within them?  I think we need to be more proactive and creative in driving new development despite the rough economy.

The picture above shows the old Town & Country Shopping Center including the old Theater....Brings back memories...grew up in Arlington in the early 80s. It was a happening place. There was even a theater on Arlington Rd near Lone Star.

Ms. Jones was in Jax a few years ago for ULI Reality Check

Here's a novel thought... Why not return the urban suburb builder, to the urban suburbs? Imagine! Streetcars in:

Some Yuengling induced thoughts after midnight.  The ideas bouncing around are great.  I like the idea of returning some of the paved areas to green.  We have way too many empty malls and parking lots.

One reason we have a local government is so that it can visualize the perfect or the optimum for the environment and the citizen, and then to “force” by subtle methods such as zoning and permitting, and other “rules”, the private sector to move only in directions which will achieve those visions.  To allow the private sector, with motives too often only for profit at any cost to guide behavior and decisions affecting the environment and what is ultimately good for the citizen, is negligent on the part of government and potentially disastrous to the local economy and environment.  Any look around Duval County should convince the casual observer of this.

The “Vision” is the beginning... the vision of the ideal.  If the effective mechanisms to achieve the ideal are not in place, mechanisms such as enlightened local government, a viable economy, and strong leadership, then the vision is set to remain only a vision, dying in the wind.

Local government, if infected with too many individuals who cannot focus clearly upon the vision, or with too many individuals who see it, but cannot assist moving to it because they are excessively guided by habits of self-interest, or by simple greed, then we are also lost in stagnation.  Both of the above types might be some of the Good Ole Boys we talk about.  If the local government, and other local power centers, are infected with too many of these comfortable and self-serving types, we are looking at one cause of the stagnation of our efforts to force any vision to reality, a vision such as that of revitalization.

Another factor to consider as we weigh the causes of our predicament of stagnation and empty buildings and parking lots; a factor which has never affected our economy before this decade, is the negative impact of the Internet on the local business survival and startups.  The Internet is one reason we are seeing so many empty first and second generation malls and strip malls, as it has become an alternative to shopping at local shops, and therefore many local shops are gone, never to return.

For this reason, it makes sense to look at the option of returning some of the asphalt areas, the old malls, to nature.  Certainly some of them can be retrofitted to schools or whatever.  Let us hope that they do not become churches, as we have way too many of these.     

And I agree totally with Ock regarding the streetcar idea, not only concerning the clean running aspect of these machines, but the idea that the fixed route streetcar can result in establishing reliable transportation for citizens.  The routes, if established with some care, can actually force development according to any vision for infill.  One of the most important consequences of a successful streetcar system would be the reversal of the maddening automobile love affair we’ve endured since the fifties.  A good streetcar system in place will result in eventual high ridership,  the disappearance of our “parking problem” in the core, and a momentum to infill the core with businesses and residents.   

The trick in any effort to change large systems, environments, or established habits, things such as the goal of achieving the revitalization in our city core, is to build the infrastructure, which would include the removal of obstacles, no matter what it takes, for by doing so, one creates a continual pressure, a path, for a relentless, automatic movement toward the vision.   

The optimum infrastructure involves the removal of obstacles; some of which might be what some have called the Good Ole Boys, and those in local government infected with too much concern for their own self-preservation in office, their material or spiritual comfort, and their excessive self-interest. 

The road from vision to the achievement of it has no place for excessive self-interest, for comfort, for complacency, for greed, or even for prayer.  The road to accomplish the vision demands clear thinking, dedication, determination, the setting aside of excessive self-interest; it demands real work, and aggressive decisions which force progress toward the vision.

Fundamentally, we need strong leadership to move to the vision.  Nothing happens in our vision-demanding environment without strong and determined leadership.  One could go further, and say that it is impossible to achieve the vision without strong and determined leadership;  leadership able to thrust aside politicking, leadership able to thrust aside old friends demanding favors, leadership able to work the fundamental objectives and necessities while avoiding the fluff of political office.  We are confronted with powerful dilemmas and wartime-like problems.  Therefore we need a wartime mood of sacrifice and hard work.  We need to encourage, we need to demand, the mood of an Enlightenment in our city.