Tracy Davis

Mothballed

2007-12-29T18:31:05Z

I need to put this blog on the shelf for awhile. As one of the Triumvirate, I seem to be spending all my discretionary computer time blogging over on Locally Grown, and many of my posts there have to do with planning and development.

Cool Google Mashup - Northfield's "Walkability" Score

2007-08-08T16:54:54Z

A couple of our recent posts and comment threads have alluded to walkability, pedestrian-friendliness and multi-modal transportation in Northfield. I just found a nifty new site that utilizes the power of Google to rate how walkable different cities (and neighborhoods) are. It's a cool example of the kind of mutation that can happen when cross planning geeks with web developers and cross-pollinate with a few eco-Nazis. I like it.

According to the authors, some features that make an area walkable are:

A center: Walkable neighborhoods have a discernable center, whether it's a shopping district, a main street, or a public space.
Mixed income, mixed use: Housing is provided for everyone who works in the neighborhood: young and old, singles and families, rich and poor. Businesses and residences are located near each other.
Parks and public space: There are plenty of public places to gather and play.
Well connected, speed controlled streets: Streets form a connected grid that improves traffic by providing many routes to any destination. Streets are narrow to control speed, and shaded by trees to protect pedestrians.
Pedestrian-centric design: Buildings are placed close to the street to cater to foot traffic, with parking lots relegated to the back.
Close schools and workplaces: Schools and workplaces are close enough that most residents can walk from their homes.

I played around with the walk score and came up with the following results. As expected my downtown office location scored highly (94 out of 100). My house wasn't so bad either, scoring 72. My previous residence was slightly lower at 63. I tried a couple of friends' addresses, one near Sibley Swale and the other on Mayflower Hill; those didn't do so well (scores of 8 and 3, respectively). My mother's old address in Apple Valley scored 43. I guess it just shows that Apple Valley really does kick Northfield's butt.

Caveat: I don't believe the mashup takes true connectivity into account (i.e., sidewalks, pathways, etc.) so it's basing its scores purely on distance away from certain features or amenties that are cataloged by Google (grocery stores, parks, movie houses...) I blogged this mostly for fun.

Plus I wanted to show that I know how to handle its and it's.

Podcasting the Northfield Planning Commission?

2007-06-15T04:29:26Z

I'm experimenting with my newest gadget. Since my preferred learning modality is so overwhelmingly visual, it's taken me awhile to get into this audio thing; but having purchased a digital audio recorder for other, non-blogging reasons, I thought I'd take it with me to yesterday's Planning Commission meeting with the consultants from ACP to test it out. In addition to being a relatively successful test of the recorder's technical abilities in being able to pick up a roomful of discussion, I'm able to share some interesting material which was presented at the meeting.

As a teaser, here's a two-minute clip of consultant Randy Gross of Randall Gross/Development Economics talking about some of his findings related to the housing market in the Northfield area. This got my attention because it was an economic development argument I hadn't really considered before.

Our Nielson ratings indicate that the Planning Commission meetings on NTV have quite a following, but I like having options, and some may prefer the ability to listen to the meetings while doing something else that's actually productive at the same time. If you're a masochist, you can download and listen to the whole darned almost-three-hour thing here.

Commissioner Prepares for Camel-Racing Competition

2007-04-01T00:53:20Z

Made you look.

The Planning Commission and City staff have a big week ahead of us. The consultants from ACP Visioning and Planning will be in town most of the week, and some of us are involved in meetings Monday night, Tuesday morning, Tuesday night, Wednesday night, and Thursday morning (whew!). Check out the official schedule on NorthfieldPlan.org.

Note: The photo above is of planning commissioner Alice Thomas, taken today in Oman. She may be jet-lagged for next week's series of meetings, but she appears to have a good shot at being relaxed and happy.

This Whole Blogging Thing... I Dunno

2007-03-27T13:41:00Z

Upon Griff's urging, I'm experimenting with using Zoundry to try to manage my blogs. It really is important to be posting regularly, and I find that there are both technical and psychological obstacles that prevent me from posting as frequently as I'd like. On the technical side, I manage or contribute to five blogs, and the different publishing platforms, while fairly easy to use, each require their own learning curve and interface. Since I have my notebook computer with me almost all the time, it makes sense to use desktop tools like Zoundry. If I get into the habit of using Zoundry as my daily blogging journal and post to the appropriate blogs, then all I have to deal with is the psychological issue. That has something to do with a mental block that kicks my perfectionist tendencies into gear whenever I do something that displays in print (psychological obstacle #1).

Here's where I'm blogging from today - my "morning room" just off the kitchen. The window's open and I'm listening to the cardinals doing their spring concert. It's pretty awesome.

(The above paragraph was brought to you courtesy of "overcoming psychological obstacle #2", which isn't comfortable revealing much about my private life. I've always had a sneaking suspicion that bloggers are either megalomaniacs or exhibitionists or both, but I'm trying to reconcile myself to the spirit of Web 2.0 and the whole social networking phenomenon.)

More on the Comprehensive Plan

2007-01-13T17:05:54Z

My posts to different blogs (here, LocallyGrown.org, NorthfieldPlan.org) are scattering me all over the web, and I may have to strategize about exactly what I post where in order to retain some consistency. But, in conjunction with my belief that it's not possible to overcommunicate about local government issues, I'm posting the timeline for the Comprehensive Plan review and revision process put out by our consultants, ACP Visioning and Planning, even though the timeline is also posted on the NorthfieldPlan.org site. Please post any questions or comments to NorthfieldPlan.org.

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EDA Meeting Summary, 11/30/06

2006-11-30T23:55:40Z

The EDA held its regularly scheduled meeting on Thursday morning.

Items of note:

The EDA will be presenting a brief update on activities at the Dec. 4 City Council meeting.

Rice County is planning to hire an Economic Development director by the end of this year.

Updates from the Land Development subcommittee and Fiberoptics Initiative task force were postponed till the next EDA meeting on Dec. 14.

There were three impromptu presentations/ Q&A sessions by organizations requesting funds from the EDA for the upcoming budget cycle (applications had to be received before today's meeting to be considered for next year). The applicants were the Northfield Downtown Development Corporation, the Northfield Chamber of Commerce. No action was taken; decisions about funding will probably be made at the Dec. 14 or Dec 28 meeting.

That's a wrap. Agenda and past minutes can be found here on the City website.

Gimme a Tomato to Throw at Ross Currier

2006-11-17T04:01:31Z

I had intended to say a few words about ArtsPlan06 to follow up on this week’s podcast; instead I’d like to respond to Ross Currier’s blog post in which he criticized my aversion to mediocrity, because it’s relevant to the implications of the Arts Plan.

I maintain that there IS a difference between fostering “an environment that gives emerging talent an opportunity to perform”, and a community that achieves the distinction of being recognized as an Arts Town. It is to be hoped that Northfield can do both. But to accomplish that, we need to recognize the difference. My point is that if we want to be seen as an arts town, we need to foster a standard of excellence, and not confuse it with our egalitarian desire to boost everyone’s self-esteem.

My daughter’s performance in the high school play was brilliant, but it’s NOT the Guthrie, and no one would confuse the two. That’s okay. I would suggest that emerging talent and demonstrated talent might best be served by different venues, rather than jumbling them together and making Northfield look like it can’t distinguish its ass from its elbow (or critically recognized art/artists/artisans over hobbyists who paint ersatz-impressionist landscapes for hotel lobbies, or make sock dolls with button eyes to sell on eBay.)

Having a community that provides opportunity for residents to perform or exhibit can contribute to our community vitality and quality of life. The NAG is an excellent example. On the other hand, we’re not likely to generate much of interest to the “creative class” you’re so fond of, Ross, unless we also have artists and performers who rank on at least a regional scale, if not nationally or internationally. (Spider John Koerner, anyone?)

Again, I don’t think this is an either-or situation (either we foster an environment for emerging talent, or we promote excellence); ideally it would be both-and. But in order to do that, I believe we need to distinguish which is which, and not confuse the two. My concern is that too many people in Northfield won’t know the difference, or won’t care; my fear is that, in our desire to gain “Arts Town” status, we’d instead end up looking like the cast of “Waiting for Guffman”.

By the bye… the local rug merchant might supply examples of material culture that are more ethnographically significant, or contemporary carpets designed with a higher level of artistry, than the child-labor-factory stuff sold by the bale at RugMart. But in Northfield, we lack a critical mass of people who can tell the difference.

Presentation on Low-Impact Development on 11/14/06

2006-11-12T20:00:17Z

This coming Tuesday, Nov. 14, a presentation on Low-Impact Development will be given by Jay Michels, Coordinator of the Twin Cities Project NEMO (Nonpoint source pollution Education for Municipal Officials).

If we can get beyond the trendy obfuscation of terms like "low impact", "nonpoint source pollution", etc., this simply means finding responsible accommodation between land use and natural resource protection. The "Low-Impact Development" concept has specifically to do with stormwater management in an environmentally sensitive and cost-effective way.

Stormwater management doesn't sound very sexy, but it's very much to the point when so much of our land use involves paved roads and ginormous parking lots. The Planning Commission is considering some LID language in our updated Comprehensive Plan and land use ordinances. Anyone concerned with growth, land use, and environmental issues would probably find this presentation interesting.

Part of the regular Planning Commission meeting at City Hall, which begins at 7:00p on Tuesday evening, the presentation is free and open to the public.

In Support of the Planning/Zoning Paradigm Shift

2006-10-29T18:49:47Z

(See Planning Commission Chair Ross Currier's post on the Locally Grown blog for the antecedent.)

Tracy takes one on the chin

2006-09-01T19:28:14Z

Northfield.org editor Anne Bretts confronted me on the ISSUES list regarding my extremely undiplomatic comment about certain new residential developments around town. Someday I’ll have to demonstrate that I can actually be tactful, but that doesn’t make for very interesting reading, and if we didn’t have interesting reading, readership would fall off, sponsors would lose interest, and we couldn’t continue to build Northfield.org into the terrific resource it’s become. So really, Anne, I’m helping! And I welcome the opportunity to clarify my position.

Most of the examples in your post have to do with architectural design features, and that’s not really a big concern of mine (except in the historic district). I personally don’t like the building trend for big-ass garages right in front of the house, but as you say, that’s personal taste. My real concern is with urban design and urban planning, which have to do with how buildings relate to each other and how they relate to the street, how they fit in with existing buildings, and most importantly, how they relate to the people who live there.

Northfield simply has not done a very good job of self-determination when it comes to directing or shaping (a/k/a planning) the growth of the community. Growth is a good thing, and I’m in no way opposed to it. I also don’t object to new construction. But as you’ve probably noticed, I have a big issue with what many of the developers are building in Northfield. As a group they are, shall we say, not the most creative and imaginative bunch, and contrary to their claims, they really aren’t interested in providing choice, either residential or commercial. They predetermine the choices available based on their understanding of what “the market” wants, which basically means, whatever they were able to sell on their last project up in Maplewood or wherever. There are developers and builders who are exceptions, but unfortunately there aren’t enough of them around here. (As an aside - one of my suggestions to the EDA is to look regionally and nationally for cutting-edge creative developers as a target industry for Northfield.)

This is where planning comes in. Some people think that planning itself is bad, because it’s “the government” telling people what they can or can’t do with their own property. But when it comes down to a local level, where the idea of government by the people for the people actually has a chance to work, planning is more akin to organization, like arranging your furniture or landscaping your yard – just on a slightly larger scale.

So the questions being asked shouldn’t be simplistic ones like “Should we build new houses?” or “Do we want a multiplex movie theater?” The real questions are along the lines of,

How much land do we have available for new development? Where is it?

What is the ideal balance between residential and non-residential development, what are the tax and cost implications of each, and how should that impact land use planning?

Where is the best place for new developments of varying types?

How should these things relate to and connect with the existing community?

To sum up, I’m not anti-growth. Growth, like change, is inevitable. Nor am I trying to keep Northfield in some idealized time in the past. But how things grow is a concern to me, and I’d much prefer the measured, incremental growth exhibited by a child than the growth demonstrated by a cancer cell. Which is part of the reason why I’d like to see our ordinances dictate a little more about how things are done here, so that we can plan and grow in healthy, effective, efficient and sustainable ways for the benefit of both current and future residents.

Preserving Northfield's Agricultural Roots

2006-08-30T23:32:43Z

There’s been discussion on the ISSUES list recently about balancing development and farm preservation. Obviously, like any complex issue, there are many angles from which this may be approached, and it’s particularly relevant to Northfield, with its strong agricultural base and its history as an essentially rural community.

The summer issue of the Planning Commissioners Journal had an interesting article about the growing interest in farmland protection, and the steps some municipalities have taken to create a solution that balances competing needs and tries to accommodate as many as possible. It isn’t too early for us to be pondering what we citizens want our community to be, and to look like, as far as the surrounding greenbelt is concerned. If we want to keep it as a resource and a part of our community identity, steps need to be taken and plans laid.

If we don’t want to preserve this resource, or we simply don't care one way or another, the good news is: we don’t have to do a thing! The mindless “free market” will make all the decisions for us.

And I'm sure the free market has our best interest at heart.

Northfield on the New York Times radar

2006-08-29T17:23:53Z

The Real Estate section of Sunday’s New York Times featured an article about urban planning issues and the controversy surrounding the use (or misuse) of the cul-de-sac by developers. Northfield was cited as an example of the controversy. (If you can't view the article with the link, you can download the article in PDF format here.)

Being “against” cul-de-sacs seems positively un-American. But rather than being viewed as against cul-de-sacs, I’d prefer to be seen as for multiple means of mobility and pedestrian-scaled planning. It’s my way of resisting unsustainable automobile-dependent development styles which are 1) a historical and cultural anomaly, 2) not well suited to a geographically compact community like Northfield and 3) a stupid idea whose time is long past, especially in view of rising fuel prices and greenhouse gas emissions.

Planning commission chair Ross Currier said, “I love the fact that what gets Northfield in the New York Times is our planning debates...”

Involuntary Sabbatical

2006-08-07T00:51:37Z

Between my business schedule this summer and the technical snafus in moving my blog, I'm still not fully functional online. Thank you for your patience as I resolve these issues.

Hell Redux: It's Also Zoned C-3

2006-06-07T01:12:47Z

As you may or may not be aware, the City Council voted last night to re-zone 22 acres of land from LI ("light industrial") to C-3 ("gateway commercial", a/k/a sprawl). A lot of the hoopla was due to the fact that the current landowner is negotiating with a developer who's interested in putting a multiplex cinema on the site, and the discussion of whether and where to build a theater is obscuring what, to me, is the real issue:

Our zoning ordinances suck.

This is very relevant to the property in question, because while the LI designation is nothing to write home about, C-3 is worse. The land development regulations governing the C-3 designation have precious little in the way of either urban design or architectural design standards, which means that C-3 property owners are pretty much free to build whatever crap they want on the land and cover the rest with impermeable surfaces, regardless of the long-term cost and consequences to the community as a whole.

Try this little exercise. First, close your eyes and picture the ugliest buildings and land use in Northfield. Then locate those areas on our current zoning map. I'll give you a hint: They're in the red areas, designated "C-1 gateway commercial". Coincidence?

Northfield is incredibly passive about this kind of thing. For a community that prides itself on creativity and intellect, it's ridiculous that we ask nothing of developers beyond money and a willingness to build stuff. Somehow we think that theater complexes and shopping malls are "economic development". No, they're a consumer convenience, but that's not the same thing.

I'd like to take a page from the books of more progressive areas of the country that have adopted and implemented strategies of "Community Preservation", which Northfield desperately needs. Massachusetts describes this approach in part by saying,

"Most communities often find themselves in a corner; they desire economic development, but are also concerned that the financial, environmental and social costs of sprawl will outweigh the benefits of that growth. With careful planning, however, economic growth can flourish while preserving the character of our communities. Community Preservation is not a "no growth" policy. Instead, Community Preservation promotes pro-active and careful decision-making to direct future development to the most suitable locations. The goal of Community Preservation is to empower communities to develop a unique vision and plan for a future that compliments rather than conflicts with their environment, history culture and quality of life."

The whole point of PLANNING recognizes that self-interest and market incentives alone do not a good community make. We have a good Comprehensive Plan for Northfield; what we don't have is land use regulations that support it. And until we do, we're going to keep getting proposals for generic development by people who simply don't know how to do anything else. Needless to say, I'm disappointed that the Council ignored the recommendation of the City's own Planning Commission and City staff in proceeding with this rezoning. But even more, I'm dismayed that this community apparently just doesn't have the balls to articulate a vision--and stick to it. If that continues to be the case, then the future will probably look a lot like the photo above, because it's the path of least resistance.

Doesn't that just make you proud to be a Northfielder?