You Can’t Go Home Again – Part 5, Oregon Land-Use Rules

In recent posts, the last of which is here, I’ve been describing a recent trip to the Pacific Northwest, a region where I lived for 18 years during the last century.  The trip allowed me to observe how urbanism has progressed in the region.

In this post, I’ll look at how the Oregon approach to land-use has affected its cities.  I‘ll also share an observation about how urbanism requires quality design.

Observation #9: Regulatory encouragement for urbanism is good, but not nearly enough – Many describe Oregon land use rules as controlling and anti-free-market.  Looking at the several Oregon cities I visited, it’s hard to see the truth in the charges.

It’s probably true that there are more recent urbanist projects in Oregon than in other states with similar demographics.  Northwest Crossing in Bend that I described in my last post is one.  Orenco Station described below is another.  And the Oregon approach to land-use regulation has been a factor driving those projects.

But if one looks beyond the handful of urbanist projects, land use in Oregon looks much like every other state.  When I visited the outskirts of Portland, Bend, Salem, and Eugene, it seemed that those places, except for the mountains on the horizon, looked much like Everywhere USA.  Having since visited Nebraska and Iowa, Oregon looked a bit less sprawling than those places, but not hugely so.

Through its legal underpinnings and philosophy, the regulatory system of Oregon has promoted urbanism.  But the strong national biases toward sprawl are hard to overcome at a state level.  There is little that a state can do to internalize the costs of automobiles that the national government chooses to make external or to modify mortgage regulations so the urbanism can play on a level field.

Also, Oregon politicians and regulators, in response to recent economic troubles, have weakened key elements the Oregon land-use approach.  Those decisions were a flawed attempt to chase immediate economic activity at the cost of long-term financial sustainability, the same doomed approach that politicians and regulators in other states have been following.

Thus, although more pockets of new urbanism can be found in Oregon than in other states, the overall ethos of Oregon land use, like the nation as a whole, remains sprawl.  And that’s a shame because where urbanist projects have been built, they’ve found an enthusiastic Oregon market.

Observation #10: Quality matters – In the Portland suburb of Hillsboro is an urbanism project that dates from the late 1990s, the dawn of the current era of urbanism.  Orenco Station was built on land that was formerly the manufacturing yard of the Orenco Pipe Company.  When a light rail line was constructed near the manufacturing yard, mixed-use urbanism became the higher and better use, so Orenco Pipe moved elsewhere.

Orenco Station is a delightful place, with nicely done residential over retail in the core and architecturally interesting small-lot single-family homes within a short walk in several directions.  Given the access to light rail, I pick Orenco Station over Northwest Crossing if I were ever to return to Oregon.

Orenco Station was developed by Costa Pacific Communities, an early high-flyer in the urbanism world.  After securing numerous awards for Orenco Station including being named by the Urban Land Institute as one of the top 25 communities in the world, Costa Pacific undertook several other urbanism projects, including a pair in Bend in which I was involved.

The Costa Pacific management team were committed visionaries which whom I enjoy working.  However, it seems that the recent economic turmoil has taken a toll on their operation, with their website showing little sign of recent activity.  Because of institutional barriers, urbanism remains a relatively low-profit land-use activity, so urbanist developers are particularly subject to economic hard times.

During my trip, I spent a pleasant afternoon at a sidewalk table in the heart of Orenco Station, catching up with old friends and with the development.  It is a delightful and active urban setting.

Despite nearing its 20th birthday, Orenco Station remains an attractive project with solid home values and few vacancies.  Because it was designed and built well, it is aging well.

But a nearby development shows what happens when good design and construction are absent.

When I last visited Orenco Station in 2009, a key parcel between the light rail station and the heart of the development remained vacant.  Since then, the site has been filled, but not by the same developer as the original development.  Key design details, such as careful masonry details at the eye-level of pedestrians, are noticeably absent.  And the overall construction quality seems lower.

As an apparent result, the new building remains partially vacant and seems like a place apart from the original development.

Urbanism may be a coming force in the world of land use, but quality still matters.

In my next post, I’ll look at a couple of areas of Seattle.

As always, your questions or comments will be appreciated.  Please comment below or email me.  And thanks for reading. - Dave Alden (davealden53@comcast.net)

Red Barn: Concluding Thoughts

In my last two posts, I wrote about the proposed Red Barn project in Petaluma.  In the first post, I wrote that the StrongTowns theory about financial sustainability of land uses shows the current proposal to be flawed.  I also wrote that the compromises proposed by many in the community would move the project further from sustainability.

In the second post, I offered an alternative development plan that would be more financially sustainable.  In place of up to 93 large single-family homes, I suggested perhaps 200 compact homes in a pocket neighborhood configuration, with provision for retail and a bus stop.

As anticipated, my alternative proposal received attention.  Most readers began with astonishment.  Some progressed into disbelief and disappointment that I could offer a concept that they found unacceptable.  Others gradually acknowledged the possible merit of my suggestion and its worthiness for future consideration.  Both responses are good, because they give the opportunity for ongoing discussion.  As one reader noted “If you don’t attract the occasional arrow, you aren’t challenging people to think.”

As a start to that further discussion, I’ll offer responses to several comments that were elicited.

Urbanist Advocacy: Some readers were surprised by my advocacy for urban fringe development over urban core development.  That was a misunderstanding of my intention.  I offered the 200-home concept solely as an alternative to the proposals currently under review, as a way of illustrating the fatal flaw in the current plans.  My preference remains that near-term residential growth focus on urban core as much as possible.

Nor did I argue that the 200-home concept would be superior to the no-development alternative.  That decision must await a detailed plan and further study.  My only argument was that the 200-home plan was superior to any other plan now under consideration.

However, it’s worth remembering that serious institutional impediments remain to urban-core development.  As much as I believe that most development should occur in the core, it’s likely that development will also continue on the fringes.

Park Alternative: Some argued that the best use of the Red Barn site is as an addition to the adjoining Helen Putnam Park.  It’s a beguiling thought, especially when the hills are covered in their springtime coats of green.

But there are hurdles to that idea.  There are limited funds for open space acquisition.  I can’t guess whether funds would be available for the land purchase.

More importantly, the site is within the Petaluma city limits.  Given the current municipal financial distress, it seems unlikely that the city would be willing to accept the operation and maintenance expenses for another park.

Smaller Project: One reader posed the question of whether a smaller pocket neighborhood, of perhaps 100 compact homes, might be a good solution.

It’s certainly possible.  And I would suggest that any future Environment Impact Study (EIS) of the 200-home plan include a 100-home plan as an alternative.  However, I’d note that the efficiencies of scale may favor the larger project.  Also, the retail and transit options may become unsupportable with fewer homes.

Transect Repair: One reader asked what transects could tell us about he Red Barn site.

For those who may not be familiar with the term, transects are to urban planning codes what zones are to conventional zoning ordinances.  Transects describe the size and location of land uses and buildings that should occur at increasing distances from the urban core.  T1 is the Natural Zone.  The numbers increase from there up to T6, which the Urban Core Zone.

Within Petaluma, transects are only applied to the land within the Central Petaluma Specific Plan.  The remainder of the City uses zones.  However, it’s reasonable to use transects as a tool to talk about development alternatives.

The reader suggested that the less intense transects would be appropriate for the Red Barn site and for most sites at the urban fringe. 

I concur.  If I were planning Petaluma from scratch, I’d put T2, Rural Zone, on the Red Barn site.  Indeed, I’d argue that all of the land on the backside of the hills south and west of downtown should be T1 or T2.

However, there’s a problem with that vision.  Windsor and other subdivisions have already been built beyond hills.  Based on the density of those subdivisions, they are effectively T4 General Urban Zone developments.  But they don’t include the multi-family residential or neighborhood retail prescribed for T4.  This means that they won’t function well in a world that increasingly needs urbanism.

Adding the missing elements of the T4 transect on the Red Barn site is one possible approach to the deficiencies of Windsor.  Adding a small bit of retail and a possible bus stop at one end of Windsor wouldn’t repair all that is wrong with Windsor, but it would be a step in the right direction.

This leaves us with a conundrum.  Do we apply a transect to Red Barn site consistent with what would have been appropriate if we could start with virgin land?  Or do we use the Red Barn site to remediate, at least a little bit, the deficiencies in the surrounding development?  It’s a tough question that can be argued either way.  But I lean toward the latter.  Especially if we can defer Red Barn for a few years so that time can better inform us about the best remediation measures.

Walkability:  Looking at walkability leads us to similar conclusions as transects.

Walk Score is a measure of the walkability, on a scale of 1 to 100, of a home, a neighborhood, or a community.  The score considers the pedestrian accessibility of schools, stores, and community facilities.

The average Walk Score for Petaluma is 55, which is described as Somewhat Walkable.  For comparison, the average Walk Score for San Francisco is 85, which is described as Very Walkable.

The average Walk Score for the Windsor neighborhood is 23, which is described as Car Dependent.  The scoring seems accurate.

Even if we set aside the climate and traffic issues around a Walk Score of 23, there are financial issues around low walkability.  In “Walkable City”, Jeff Speck reports that a single Walk Score point, on a national average, has a $3,000 impact on home value.  Applying this factor to Windsor implies that a Windsor home would be worth nearly an additional $100,000 if it had an average Petaluma walkability.  Over the approximate 400 current Windsor homes, that represents about $40 million in home value and $400,000 in annual property tax revenues.

That number seems somewhat high to me, which isn’t surprising as the $3,000 per Walk Score point is a national average and subject to local variation.  But I can believe that the value of Windsor homes is affected by the lack of walkability.

Adding a walkable community at Red Barn that would also provide walkable destinations for the west end of Windsor wouldn’t erase the walkability issues in Windsor.  But it would be progress.

Environmental Impacts: Some questioned how I could suggest 200 homes when 93 homes were already dubious for environmental impact.  To which I must note that 200 compact homes, even with a small retail element, would likely occupy less land that the up-to-93 homes now proposed.  And the planning flexibility provided by the clustered garages allows for even less environmental impact.

Any conclusive summary of environmental impacts would await an EIS, but it seems likely that the compact home proposal would be the preferred environmental approach.

The point is that not all homes are created equal and that one needs to look deeper than a home count to get a sense of environmental impacts.

Perhaps the only environmental impact that would be greater under the 200-home proposal is traffic.  And even then, with the provision for transit, the potential for reducing the traffic impact over time would be incorporated into the project.

Precedents: Lastly, a question was asked about precedents for my thinking.  Although my Red Barn alternative is an extreme case, Oregon land use law includes elements that support my thinking on the 200-home concept.

The most pertinent Oregon land-use concepts are restrictive urban growth boundaries (UGBs) and minimum densities.  In combination, the two concepts require that development proposals must occur on limited available lands and must include a minimum number of homes.

In essence, what the Oregon land-use model dictates is that land be preserved in a non-urban form for as long as possible.  But when it is finally developed, the development must be sufficiently dense to allow other parcels to be preserved for as long as possible.

If the Red Barn site was within an Oregon UGB, it’s possible that a developer would need to provide 200 or more homes.  And one possible result would be a compact home configuration.

Many don’t concur with the Oregon land-use planning approach, but I find it a logical and reasonable way to treat land as a shared resource, to encourage a dense development pattern, and to minimize environment impacts.

There is undoubtedly more that can and should be said about Red Barn.  But for the moment, it’s time to move on.  I need to find another topic on which I can attract a volley of arrows.

As always, your questions or comments will be appreciated.  Please comment below or email me.  And thanks for reading. - Dave Alden (davealden53@comcast.net)