Transect Based Planning

[Susan Horn]

For anyone interested in learning more between now and the local presentation -- these websites are loaded with articles, photos, illustrations, links to information about places already using this approach, and free Smart Code downloads. I just persued the 55-page .pdf about Pass Christian, Mississippi's plan (I found it on the Smart Code Central site). Very informative, lots of good illustrations.

http://www.smartcodecomplete.com/index.html

http://smartcodecentral.com/index.html

http://www.transect.org/

 

[Sandy Sorlien]

Hello Susan,

Thanks for visiting transect.org and discussing these important ideas. Even though I don't live in your county I hope it's OK if I jump in and help with a few questions. There is a Facebook Cause with the following brief explanation of what transect-based planning entails. (The video you posted is very misleading. The initial shots could actually be a walkable T-3 Sub-Urban Zone, a perfectly good human habitat, if it is adjacent to more mixed-use areas (higher Transect Zones) so people can choose to walk to useful destinations and activities. Here's what's on the Facebook Cause page:

Stop Sprawl and Protect Neighborhoods with Transect-based Planning

We promote understanding of the built environment as part of the natural environment, through the planning methodology of the rural-to-urban transect.

***

Auto-dependent sprawl has been exacerbated by single-use zoning, which separates Residential areas from Office and Retail.

In transect-based planning, these single-use zones are replaced by diverse habitat zones called Transect Zones.

A transect is a path or cut through the environment, used for sampling and organizing habitat elements. We sample streets, buildings, and plantings.

This provides the DNA for new transect-based plans and codes that protect and create compact, walkable neighborhoods while preserving open lands.

Visit the Center for Applied Transect Studies at Center for Applied Transect Studies for open source planning tools and education for your community and region.

Hope this helps!
Cheers,
Sandy Sorlien
Director of Technical Research
Center for Applied Transect Studies
Miami, FL and Philadelphia, PA

 

[Matt J]

Sandy, feel free to post and give us more information.

 

[Susan Horn]

A couple more online resources

2 pages on transect and comprehensive environmental management
http://www.smartcodecomplete.com/documents/article_MiltRhodes.pdf

2 pages on transect as it relates to agriculture at varying scales. From what I?ve heard at recent Planning Commission meetings about the proposed FLUE (Future Land Use Element of Comp Plan) amendment, there is strong and very valid concern in the agricultural areas of Walton County about protecting farms and farmers from incursion, especially by residential development, and the inevitable complaints about spraying, dust, noise, farm odors, night harvesting, etc.
http://www.placemakers.com/library/AgriculturalTransect.pdf

 

[citeright]

This concept is exactly what the county needs to address the critics of the land development code and comp plan. The benefits of this style of zoning allows uses to go in place as long as the design of the project meets the transect criteria. This allows many different kinds of projects to be installed as long as parking and building styles are observed. We need more thinking peolpe involved in the county system. Keep up the good work and the discussion.

 

[SHELLY]

New Urbanism isn't just about designing cute little houses in resort towns. The ideas of building an interactive community, dimishing dependence on a car, and bringing things to a human scale work in a wide variety of situations and locations.

I've worked on New Urbanism projects to revitalize poor areas in major cities, to provide affordable housing, to incorporate ancient ruins into a living part of a city instead of a crumbling waste of space, to expand a small university, to design a worship facility for an inner city church, you name it.

To make this concept work, doesn't there have to be some kind of major salary-generating corporation to serve as the central hub of such a place? One cannot center a major "urbanist" community (that includes schools and such) around a Mayberryesque town center whose main revenue sources are a candle shop, a coffee bar, a deli and a bookstore.

Everyone is singing the praises of the new airport--so who would be the first to move their family into a community that is within biking/walking distance to their job as Passenger Wanding Superintendent?
.

 

[Chandra]

The biggest obstacle to the "Transect-Based New Urbanist" trend is going to be changing the mindset of the folks who can afford to buy into these contrived urban developments--most are into "no thru street, cul-du-sac, gated communities." In a place where folks are anal-retentive about their zipcode, I think you've got a hardsell on your hands.

.

Contrived is probably an accurate description, meaning that New Urbanist towns are deliberately created instead of spontaneously created.

As far as a hard sell goes, I believe we may be surprised to discover some and maybe many folks want something other than what leads to more sprawl.

Certainly, gated communities and cul-du-secs will not vanish from the built landscape and most definitely, there will still be a place for people who wish to live in that type of community. I see transect planning as common sense or the natural evolution of the built environment we experience. It's a contrived way of arranging people on the landscape that has the ability to bring us closer to living more sustainably.

 

[SHELLY]

It's a contrived way of arranging people on the landscape that has the ability to bring us closer to living more sustainably.

What do you envision to be the economic engine that is going to provide the salaries for people to live in these contrived communities?

I've just got to ask--is the ultimate goal a sales pitch to the county to provide some sort of funding for consultation on "New Urbanist" planning? Or is the goal just to put new zoning in place to accommodate this plan for the future with no cost to the taxpayer.

Funding marketers, visionaries, architects and consultants to generate story boards, draw plans, and build "gee-whiz" models of these "Transect-Based New Urbanist" towns before there is a sustainable industry to support the folks who are to populate the towns is, in my opinion, putting the cart before the horse and not the best use of taxpayer money at this juncture.

 

[AAbsolute]

I'm with Shellster on that. So long as the full agenda is out and there's no money trail I'm very pro smart development. I've been to many charette's, but none that weren't sponsored by a salesperson.

The big question to be answered is: How are property rights for existing and proposed non-conforming uses going to be dealt with? Will the variance dilute the thesis?

 

[GoodWitch58]

You know, it's kinda funny, long ago when I was growing up...DeFuniak Springs was such a place. There was a town center which had wonderful little shops, a bank, grocery story, hardware store, doctors office and hospital...there was a library and a school, restuarants and (before I was growing up) a grand hotel and a few smaller hotels...there was even a train and train station that worked.
There were houses and a few apts...and all of this was within walking distance!

Then, came interstate highways and shopping malls/strip malls...

interesting how things that used to be, are now being reinvented and called new.

I would love to see small towns like DeFuniak come back--and more towns like that built...I hope this movement has a positive effect on Walton County...and like Shelly I'd like to see the Economic Development section of the plan included.