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Susan Horn

Beach Fanatic
I think a lot of us are working hard in the public and private sectors to help Walton County. Copied below is the content of an e-mail I just sent out yesterday afternoon to some folks I know, describing just one of the efforts I'm involved with (I'm not sure I can attach the news story though -- it's in today's Breeze-Herald and will be on their website next week I suppose).

I believe our Comp Plan is of enormous importance in determining the economic future of the county, and I believe applying a transect-based approach to planning will result in the greatest good for the greatest number of people. I intend to post information resources soon, for anyone wanting to learn more. For now, check www.mississippirenewal.com where you can see a 2-minute youtube about the Smart Code as it's being applied to rebuild the Mississippi Gulf Coast. And if you REALLY want to get into a lot of detail, read Retrofitting Suburbia by Ellen Dunham Jones (pretty technical but well researched; much of the information applies directly to our situation here). Here's the e-mail:

Good news: I'm attaching a story scanned from this week's DeFuniak Herald-Breeze, about the Planning Commission's unanimous recommendation that the BCC direct Planning Department staff to explore countywide transect-based planning.

Better news: so far, every voice I've heard -- from Planning Department staff, Planning Commissioners, citizens, environmentalists, architects, planners, developers, land use attorneys, and concerned citizens -- is that this is the direction we need to be going in. Applying this approach in Walton County will remediate many problems while creating the kinds of communities our citizens have repeatedly said they want, in various broad visioning processes over many years. The transect approach will protect agricultural and environmentally sensitive areas and improve the quality of life for people living and working in the built environment.

Even better news: the all-volunteer team who wrote the report that started all this (attached) are now creating an educational presentation that explains the basics of transect-based planning, or Smart Codes. Their presentation will be shown publicly in several locations throughout the county; it may also be available for viewing online, for those who cannot attend the public presentations.

Once dates and locations for the presentations are set, details will be publicized widely. I will certainly put this and related information on my Facebook page, and invite you all to check there often. If I can figure out how, I might even start a Facebook transect "cause" and invite you all to join!

I encourage you to investigate this for yourselves, and attend the public presentations. There, you will have the opportunity to ask questions and get answers directly from the authors of the plan. The experience, creativity, talent and skill of this group is enormous, inspiring and synergistic they deserve our thanks for their contribution to the future of Walton County.

Thanks very much for your time and interest.

Susan Horn
www.artisan-builds.com
 

Here4Good

Beach Fanatic
Jul 10, 2006
1,269
527
Point Washington
Thanks for the post, Susan. I had never heard of transect-based planning, so I went to transect.org and read up on it, it sounds like a good approach. I like the concept of matching the land to proper use to protect both the land and to provide the best living on that land. I am not a huge fan of New Urbanism because it generally wants all of us to live in the same type of space, but this approach differentiates between high and low densities and recognizes that those different densities are appropriate.

It does not square, however, with our County Commission's stated opinion that private property owner rights transcend community needs and environmental concerns. They ignored the FLUM using this logic, and until they get on board with the concept of enforcing a plan, any plan will be ridden with variances to the point of having no meaning.

If you try to apply new rules to land purchased under old rules, our Commission believes that you are depriving the owner of the use of that land as he originally understood it. In addition, if they have already allowed a non-conforming use in the area, every property owner wants (and gets) that same non-conforming use.
 

Susan Horn

Beach Fanatic
Nature favors diversity

Here 4 Good,

I appreciate your comments. I don't have the expertise to address the property rights and nonconforming use question with any authority, but expert planners/architects who've been writing transect/smart codes for communities all over the country tell me that there are all sorts of ways to get past that problem. Please attend one of the presentations and I'm sure someone far more knowledgeable than me can provide better information.

As for your statement that New Urbanists want everyone to live in the same sort of place -- nothing could be further from the truth. While the NU's enormously popular and widely published compact/walkable/mixed use developments may seem in some way homogenous, they actually offer exponentially more internal, easily available variety than the monocultures of suburbs, strip malls, office parks, and megamalls (what Jim Kunstler calls the "geography of nowhere").

Monoculture does not exist in nature, which clearly favors diversity (see Janine Benyus' book Biomimicry for more fascinating info on that topic). New Urbanism is a form of biomimicry in that it looks to natural models for how to design and make manmade things (like buildings, towns, roads). The transect approach to planning was born of a moment when Andres Duany's brother Douglas (a landscape architect) showed him a natural transect (ocean to sandy beach to vegetation to forest), and that must have clicked in Andres' amazing mind that here's the way to plan for entire regions rather than simply towns and town centers.

But back to that monoculture problem: The whole point of what the New Urbanists have been doing for the last 3 decades is to restore diversity to the built environment, in terms of use, size, density, housing type, street size and configuration, mixes of public, private, commercial, and civic uses. Diversity is what makes these places interesting, and desirable to live in or visit, especially for the up and coming "digerati" and "creative class" demographic groups.

The addition of the transect to the NU's tool kit has expanded their ability to help plan appropriately for all types of spaces and how they relate to each other. The New Urbanists are always trying to find ways to plan the built environment to encourage diversity of residents, businesses, visitors, of their projects. It turns out that their approach is also extremely green, less expensive, and less infrastructre-intense than the above named monocultures or combination thereof.

Seaside (perhaps other NU developments as well, I just know Seaside best) is in a way victim of its own success -- it became so popular that the real estate values mushroomed far beyond anyone's wildest imaginings, meaning only the well to do can own or rent there. I believe the New Urbanists have continued to refine their approach to town and regional planning over the years to ecnourage economic/income, ethnic and age diversity; it was a member of Andres Duany's firm, after all, who designed the first (or was it first-prize winning?) Katrina Cottage. At this point, Andres' laser-like focus is turning sharply towards small, affordable housing (of course the need for good public transit also looms larger and larger). He's even looking at local food self sufficiency, though I don't know if he or any of the other New Urbanists have yet done a project incorporating both affordable housing and food self sufficiency; it would seem a simple matter to remix the Mississippi Gulf Coast plan to include the food part.

I hope I haven't rattled on too long. I have such a passion for the broad usefulness and beneficence of this method to plan human interaction with nature, the built environment, and each other, that I do tend to get carried away!

I'm wondering if at this point, this conversation (if others join and we continue) might be better to have its own thread, or perhaps tie into the Seaside Prize thread over in the Events section? Forgive me if my forum lingo isn't quite right. I'm right brained and details like that are often lost on me.

If someone wants to move this and knows how to do it, please go for it. I'm a bit of a Luddite ;-)

Hope to hear more thoughts on this very important issue. Now back to my paying job ;-)


Thanks for the post, Susan. I had never heard of transect-based planning, so I went to transect.org and read up on it, it sounds like a good approach. I like the concept of matching the land to proper use to protect both the land and to provide the best living on that land. I am not a huge fan of New Urbanism because it generally wants all of us to live in the same type of space, but this approach differentiates between high and low densities and recognizes that those different densities are appropriate.

It does not square, however, with our County Commission's stated opinion that private property owner rights transcend community needs and environmental concerns. They ignored the FLUM using this logic, and until they get on board with the concept of enforcing a plan, any plan will be ridden with variances to the point of having no meaning.

If you try to apply new rules to land purchased under old rules, our Commission believes that you are depriving the owner of the use of that land as he originally understood it. In addition, if they have already allowed a non-conforming use in the area, every property owner wants (and gets) that same non-conforming use.
 

SHELLY

SoWal Insider
Jun 13, 2005
5,770
802
Can you please boil all this down to a single, simple paragraph...I'm really having trouble reading around and through all the "urbanisms" and "monocultures" to figure out what your aim actually is. Thanx.
 
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SHELLY

SoWal Insider
Jun 13, 2005
5,770
802
So it's essentially subdivisions with shopping and schools centered around a factory....like Hershey, PA used to be---or pretty much what a large military base is like.
 

Susan Horn

Beach Fanatic
But in answer to the request to give a short definition of the transect. I will need someone else to step in and help out with that. Brevity's not my strong suit.

You could spend some time googling around about it and get lots of visuals, short youtubes, etc. It's taken me 25 years of studious immersion to catch on -- but I'm a slow learner, LOL!
 

SHELLY

SoWal Insider
Jun 13, 2005
5,770
802
But in answer to the request to give a short definition of the transect. I will need someone else to step in and help out with that. Brevity's not my strong suit.

You could spend some time googling around about it and get lots of visuals, short youtubes, etc. It's taken me 25 years of studious immersion to catch on -- but I'm a slow learner, LOL!

Aside from my suggestions above, I envision Senior Living Villages (ala Century City; Del Webbs Sun City)--only with kids and schools and jobs.

.
 
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