DDA

[thelakelander]

They are all necessary on some level, but we have to find a way to modify them so that the process is streamlined in a manner that benefits the private sector.

[urbanlibertarian]

Hopefully the folks going on the Chamber of Commerce trip to Houston can learn how it's done.  I understand that you can get approval to start a business there in one day and city zoning regs are pretty much non-existent.

[ChriswUfGator]

Hopefully the folks going on the Chamber of Commerce trip to Houston can learn how it's done.  I understand that you can get approval to start a business there in one day and city zoning regs are pretty much non-existent.

+1

Lack of restrictive zoning is how sucessful cities became cities in the first place. We have managed to forget that.

[urbanlibertarian]

stephendare wrote:

There have been two goals over the history of urban planning, public health has been the foremost, and workable commercial spaces.  But there needs to be another goal, and that is vibrant self organizing economic activity.

You are totally correct that government involvement has been a problem, but uncontrolled chaos was also a problem and resulted in even more long term misery.

Vibrant self organizing economic activity is not imposed by government.  I think urban planing should produce suggestions not legal restrictions.

[urbanlibertarian]

stephendare wrote:

But I think you agree that there are some restrictions that should continue.  For example, metal foundries that produce an inordinate amount of arsenic and mercury shouldnt be located in a residential district with a bunch of children or next to the water resevoir right?

Yes, but I believe Houston does this through neighborhood associations rather than zoning.

[Demosthenes]

The fact that it ISNT a residential area is what its missing. A strong residential base would help solve many of the issues you guys talk about.

[Timkin]

But , was downtown residential  ( I mean densely ) back in the day?  I thought it had lots of Hotels and destinations in the downtown area (the core)

[ChriswUfGator]

Lots and lots of residential. Asinine conservative social reasons led to the demolition of the original residential neighborhoods downtown with an unnecessary and largely unused (een 50 years later) expressway, projects that never materialized, and walling off what remaining residential they couldn't demolish, got rid of most of it. Now we have acres of vacamt lots that used to be residential. In order to have a thriving downtown, you need residential.

[thelakelander]

The reality is that it isn't going to have lots of residential infill anytime soon.  Thus it makes sense to do things that better connect and pull the adjacent dense neighborhood's residents in with downtown.  This is another reason I've become a fan of systems like streetcars and LRT.  They instantly connect urban destinations with existing pockets of dense residential and also spur infill development in the blocks between.

[ChriswUfGator]

The reality is that it isn't going to have lots of residential infill anytime soon.  Thus it makes sense to do things that better connect and pull the adjacent dense neighborhood's residents in with downtown.  This is another reason I've become a fan of systems like streetcars and LRT.  They instantly connect urban destinations with existing pockets of dense residential and also spur infill development in the blocks between.

There's no reason it can't have affordable residential immediately. Let go of pies in the sky and release the mile after square mile of vacant city-owned land in Brooklyn, LaVilla, and the western half of the core for private development with incentives for affordable housing. As long as the city owns 1/2 of the land area and is content to let it sit vacant, still waiting on Jack Diamond's golf resort 20 years later, or only considering suburban-style low-density office park buildings as appropriate uses, then no, nothing will ever happen. The market there doesn't want that, that's why there haven't been any takers other than one law firm, a credit union, and a restaurant that never opened and became a de facto homeless shelter.

So a place to start is getting it turned back into what it actually worked as. Our attempt to turn it into a giant suburban office park has had two decades to work, and faiked miserably. A streetcar connecting riverside is fine and dandy, and we should definitely have one. But a far more pressing problem, though, is removing the need to commute from the downtown equation, and reintegrating the lost residential is key to that. And with residential density will come the stores and restaurants everyone wants.

[thelakelander]

Immediately equates to tomorrow in my book.  Even if some developer came to town and proposed a single project today, you're probably still looking at another 18 months, 2 or 3 years before the first residents move into that building.  Probably more if its some place that's been abandoned for 20 years, grants are needed or a rezoning is required.  For example, just look at the Ambassador Lofts or the Lerner Shops projects.  They've been on the books for at least five years with no completion date in the near future.  Also, let's not forget that during downtown's heyday, the majority of its dense residential units were in subdistricts like LaVilla, Brooklyn, the Cathedral District, Sugar Hill, etc., not the heart of the Northbank.  Anyway, I'm not saying getting residential back in the heart should not be a priority.  I'm just saying in the short term, we'll have a better chance on the residential side of things strengthening the connection between the northbank core and surrounding residential districts and marketing the area as one large urban district.  Just from market conditions alone, its going to take a few years (probably more like a good decade) to attract enough infill residential within a compact section of the Northbank to support a decent amount of retail on its own.

[Jaxson]

But , was downtown residential  ( I mean densely ) back in the day?  I thought it had lots of Hotels and destinations in the downtown area (the core)

You must have been listening to my brunch conversation on Sunday ; ) A friend of mine was telling me how she went to the Roosevelt and Robert Meyer Hotels for a nice evening out.  She talked of getting dressed up and hearing a few good bands.  Being a history buff, I still love to hear the storied of downtown back in the day.  Sometimes, I wonder if consolidation was a case of destroying the village [read: downtown] in order to save it...

[thelakelander]

No. The events that started downtown's downward spiral (removing the docks and railroads) took place a decade before consolidation.

[Jaxson]

...And the bright idea of putting government buildings and parking lots on riverfront land, right?

[thelakelander]

I'm in Daytona and typing on my phone, but there are some things you've mentioned that are statewide building code requirements that can't be addressed by a local zoning overlay.  I'm all for residential infill in the core as quick as possible. However, I'm coming from a perspective, based off my educational and professional work experience that recognizes many of the things associated with what has been suggested are time consuming to address themselves.  Building code issues aside, we still have to deal with banks lending money, a bad real estate market, permitting, the construction process, etc. To sum it up, even with the most aggressive approach to encouraging residential infill (Philly style property tax abatement, imo), we're still years away from seeing the grand results of such a move.  Thus, it makes sense in my mind to develop short and long term strategies to address the residential component and work at the same time to move both forward.