Sprawled Out: The Search for Community in the American Suburb

Guess what? Walkable neighborhoods INCREASE home values

This was an excellent presentation to come across as I prepare for tonight's Franklin Trails Committee meeting. This is one of the reasons I try to get the Economic Development Commission involved in creating USEFUL trails rather than simply recreational paths.

From Kaid Benfield's blog:

Home values in walkable neighborhoods are measurably higher than those that are not, even when other relevant factors are controlled in the analysis.

Below is an illuminating slide show on the subject that was presented by economist Joe Cortright at a transportation colloquium recently hosted by the Congress for the New Urbanism in Portland.  Some key points from the presentation:

• “Walkability” is not just about sidewalks.  Are there places you can walk to?
• Examining data from 98,000 home sales in 15 metropolitan areas, and controlling for other relevant factors, each increase of one point on Walk Score’s walkability scale raises home values by $700 to $3000.
• In Charlotte, the increase in value was $1,986 for each Walk Score point.
• Improving walkability raises home values by $10-30,000.
• Because mixed-use development produces big gains in walkability, the findings are evidence of a strong market for mixed-use neighborhoods.

I have to admit that the slide show was a little clunky on my computer (and there is no narration), but it is manageably short (24 slides) and well illustrated.  Enjoy:

Walking the Walk: How Walkability Increases Home Prices in U.S. Cities

View more documents from Congress for the New Urbanism.

NYT big idea: Ban cul-de-sacs

Sunday's New York Times Magazine ran its ninth annual "Year in Ideas" feature. One of the "idea" entries closely echos my blog entry of December 9th.

To the French linguists out there: Note that the Paper of Record uses the vernacular "cul-de-sacs" rather than the correct - but clumsy - "culs-de-sac":

The Cul-de-Sac Ban

Nothing divides suburban developers and "smart growth" advocates as much as the lowly cul-de-sac. The real estate community loves the meandering, dead-end streets; lots on them sell quickly and at a premium, thanks to their low traffic and perceived safety benefits. But critics complain that cul-de-sacs are a poor use of land; they funnel cars onto clogged arterial routes and restrict access to neighborhoods when emergency vehicles need to respond.

ILLUSTRATION BY LAUREN NASSEF

For decades the developers have been winning this battle. But this fall, Virginia, under the leadership of Gov. Tim Kaine, became the first state to severely limit cul-de-sacs from future developments. New rules require that all new subdivisions attain a certain level of "connectivity," with ample through streets connecting them to other neighborhoods and nearby commercial areas.

If subdivisions fail to comply, Virginia won't provide maintenance and snowplow services, a big disincentive in a state where the government provides 83 percent of road services. Virginia expects the new rules to relieve its strained infrastructure budget: through streets are more efficient and cheaper to maintain, and they take pressure off arterial roads that otherwise need to be widened. "It's about connecting land-use and transportation planning and restricting wasteful and unplanned development," Kaine said in March.

And how will the people respond who actually have to live and drive in the new, cul-de-sac-free neighborhoods? "There are pros and cons," says Kaid Benfield, the director of the Smart Growth Program at the Natural Resources Defense Council. "Residents like walkability and they like not having to be forced onto an arterial road where the traffic jam is. On the other hand, there is a sentiment out there that cul-de-sacs are safe" — though Benfield says research actually shows fewer traffic fatalities occur on connected roads. Other states are watching the Virginia rules closely, and Benfield says he expects to see similar regulations adopted around the country in the next few years — which means the dead end may soon be a thing of the past. CLAY RISEN

Read the rest at: The Ninth Annual Year in Ideas - Magazine - NYTimes.com

METROBURBIA, USA: Community-building and "Intersubjectivity"

Asphalt, concrete, parked cars, and -- benches notwithstanding - - no life.

From the excellent METROBURBIA, USA, by Paul K. Knox:

The basis of both individual lifeworlds and the collective structure of feeling is intersubjectivity: shared meanings that are derived from the lived experience of everyday practice. An important part of the basis for intersubjectivity is the routinization of individual and social practice in time and space. A positive and distinctive sense of place stems in large part from routine encounters and shared experiences that make for intersubjectivity. This requires plenty of opportunities for informal, casual meetings and gossip; friendly bars and pubs and a variety of settings in which to purchase and/or consume food; street markets; a variety of comfortable places to sit, wait, and people-watch; a sense of ease with changing seasons; and, above all, a sense of belonging, affection, hospitality, vitality, and historical and cultural continuity: not the attributes that anyone associates with American suburbia.

Suburbs must reassess the "growth" concept - USATODAY.com

Time for a re-think:

Housing bust halts growing suburbs - USATODAY.com.

Bedroom communities now must rethink their future and become "a little less sprawly, a little more village-like with clustered development, denser housing," Lang says. "The irony is that if they want to keep growing, they must grow as cities, which is diametrically opposite of how they got so big in the first place."

Cheaper than dinner for two at Olive Garden: The implications of Franklin's new tax levy

Much as I regularly lament the lack of comprehensive local coverage of municipal issues in a new newspaper-depleted era, I have to give credit to FranklinNow for their clear explanation of the ramifications of the City of Franklin 2010 Budget's 2.9% tax levy increase.

The new levy is $5.94 per $1,000 of assessed property value, which is reportedly the lowest in Milwaukee County.

Far from hiding it inside the story, FranklinNow included a "By the Numbers" pull quote that did the math for those who may not understand the personal ramifications of a 2.9% tax levy increase (though they did not do so online).

So, a family living in a home in Franklin with an assessed value of $250,000 faces an annual property tax bill increase of... $27.

Twenty-seven dollars.

To keep the increase from rising over the price of dinner for two at Olive Garden, cuts had to be made. In addition to an across-the-board, 1.7% cut in the overall operating budget (from FranklinNow):

The budget reduces funding to the July 4 celebration and St. Martin's Fair by 50 percent, leaves open a highway worker and custodial position and cuts funding for an intern in the planning department.

Tax dollars to other areas, including the library and street improvement funds, were frozen.

Not great news from an Economic Development standpoint.

How, with community amenities and services dwindling, do you attract to Franklin the sorts of companies that will drive down personal property taxes?

Indeed, the cost of a dinner for two at Olive Garden is not so bad, you may argue, but what about business's aversion to taxes? Conservative dogma states that "high" taxes scare business away; Franklin is a "tax hell," and that's hinders its attractiveness to business and commercial development.

Really?

Robert Ady was a longtime executive at the Fantus Company, the legendary site location business that virtually invented the process. Now the head of his own company, Ady International, Robert Ady is said to have assisted in more site locations than any living person.

Based on hundreds of face-to-face dealings with companies deciding upon the best place to locate or relocate, here are some of Ady's observations:

“[I]n the facility location process, taxes are not relatively important when compared with other cost factors such as labor, transportation and utility and occupancy costs. . . . In summary, site selection data do not suggest any correlation between low taxes and positive economic growth, or between high taxes and slow growth. The location requirements are too many, the process too complicated, and other factors too important to justify a strong relationship.”

As further reported by author Greg LeRoy:

Ady’s finding is consistent with those of others: tax-rate differences and tax incentives are too small to make a difference. Subsidies cannot make a bad place a good place. Good places are competitive because they have the long-term business basics that a company needs to produce supply to meet demand. So if cities and states want to grow good jobs, instead of cooking up more tax breaks, they should focus on improving their business basics—the valuable inputs and linkages they have.

Like, for instance, walkability, which has been shown to increase property values in communities that embrace the concept. This is why the National Association of Realtors is a vocal proponent of Smart Growth and Sustainable Development practices - specifically walkable, less car-dependent communities.

Simply put, it's easier to sell houses in - and attract CEOs to - communities that invest in long-term amenities like non-vehicular connectivity. Even if it costs TWO dinners at Olive Garden per year.

LeRoy explains the importance of creating attractive communities:

There are often personal factors in location decisions. Executives especially like to create a short commute for themselves. They may also locate for amenities such as golf courses or good schools for their children. The smaller the company, the more likely it is that such factors will come into play, but they are sometimes evident at bigger companies, too. For example, a study of 38 companies that left New York City found that 31 moved closer to their chief executive’s home, reducing the average CEO commute to eight miles.6 When the founder of Kinko’s sold the company to a group of New York investors, the company moved its headquarters in 2000 from Ventura, California, to Dallas, where the new CEO lived.

Back to the tax boogie-man. Robert Ady's chart of site location cost factors for an office project puts "Labor" at 72% and "Taxes" at a mere 5%.

Again, Greg LeRoy:

Federal tax statistics suggest that even Ady’s low ranking of taxes is overweighted. They provide even stronger evidence on why taxes—and therefore tax breaks—can rarely influence corporate location decisions. Internal Revenue Service statistics show that all state and local taxes make up only 1.2 percent of the typical company’s cost of doing business, far less than labor, materials, marketing, overhead, transportation—the business basics. And then companies get to deduct those state and local taxes when they file their federal tax returns, so Uncle Sam actually foots up to 35 percent of the bill. The bottom line: after federal deductibility, state and local taxes make up only 0.8 percent of the average company’s costs.

And, in Franklin, we have an alderman wishing on a star that a property tax freeze will fill public safety positions, create a sustainable community, and somehow increase the quality of life for local families.

I'll bet him dinner at Olive Garden that he's wrong.

(Greg LeRoy's book is called THE GREAT AMERICAN JOBS SCAM, and is highly recommended for it's solid research and excellent sourcing.)

Reality hits home, and McMansions gain saner dimensions

Now that amenities aren't self-contained in each, individual, over-leveraged home, residents will look to their communities for parks, public spaces, pools and other almost-forgotten shared assets.

Property tax freeze? Good luck with that absurd notion. Evolve or die.

By MICHAEL M. PHILLIPS

SMYRNA, Ga. -- For the first time in four decades in the luxury-home business, executives at John Wieland builders are thinking the unthinkable: Maybe houses in the South don't really need a fireplace.

They're also wondering whether new homes require 4,700 square feet of living space. Or private theaters with 100-inch screens. Or super-size-me foyers.

As they draw up blueprints for the house of the post-recession future, builders are struggling to distinguish among what home buyers need, what they want and what they can live without -- Jacuzzi by Jacuzzi, butler's pantry by butler's pantry.

"You have to keep taking things out until you hit a critical point where people reject your product," said Jeff Kingsfield, senior vice president of sales at Smyrna-based John Wieland Homes & Neighborhoods.

It's an experiment brought on by necessity. Two years ago, closely held Wieland was building 1,800 houses a year in posh subdivisions in Georgia, Tennessee and the Carolinas, selling for an average of $650,000 apiece. Today, the company is closing on just 600 homes annually, according to Wieland. It has slashed staff to 330 employees from 1,100.

Read the rest at: Builders Downsize the Dream Home - WSJ.com

Building on good bones vs. making room for a drive-thru

The Former Herda's True Value Hardware Store in St. Martins

With last week's Economic Development Commission meeting canceled due to lack of a quorum (mass illness), I was able to attend and listen in on an organizational meeting of a group called Franklin Citizens for Community Development (formerly known as "Franklin First"), a project organized by blogger Greg Kowalski and James Mullarkey (a Franklin Community Development Authority Commissioner). I wanted to get a sense of their intent.

I listened as they discussed possible mission statements. At first, I heard a lot of "we need a water park," "we need a performing arts center," "why aren't we Mequon?" "high-end amenities!" etc.

I brought with me a picture of the empty hardware store down in St. Martins, which is a beautiful building, and reminded them that the city has some good "bones" to build on; their organization would do well, in other words, to exploit current assets before crying out for more new construction. This seemed to be enthusiastically received.

I also introduced the term "sustainable" to their discussion. One look at the city's budget will tell you that the current way of doing things is not going to work for much longer. Perhaps Citizens for Community Development could use their energy and voices to promote the small steps that are needed in order to create a more economically vibrant city. For instance, promoting small businesses in town is an excellent way to enrich the local economy: For every dollar spent at a local business, 45% is reinvested locally. Spent a dollar at a corporate chain and a mere 15% is reinvested locally.

(We will hopefully be talking more, by the way, about the building above on this blog in the near future.)

Meanwhile, Kowalski's Franklin Today blog reports a rumor that the now-vacant Sentry store on 76th and Rawson may be purchased by neighboring Walgreens, and - amazingly - razed to make room for a drive-thru window.

That's right: Torn down for a drive-thru window.

The bar is once again lowered.

"Walking buses" and veggies: Town residents come together to make healthy lifestyle changes

Judy Dilling (left) and Jen Chalmers (in red) help walk Lakeview Elementary School students home as part of the Vitality Project's "walking buses" last week in Albert Lea, Minn. The project has added an average 3.1 years to the lives of residents through improved diet, exercise and living habits.

With organizers' help, the city crammed five years of sidewalk and bike trail construction into a year to make exercise easier for its 18,000 residents. Restaurants added healthier menu options and grocery stores showcased wholesome foods. People snacked on fruits and veggies more and ate less fast food.

Schools stopped celebrating birthdays with sugary treats and started setting up "walking buses" that allowed kids to walk to and from school together with adult supervision. Employers gave workers time to exercise.

Organizers say the first-of-its kind experiment added an average 3.1 years to the longevity of about 2,300 residents who calculated their life spans by answering 36 lifestyle questions dubbed the "vitality compass."

Read the rest at: Town residents come together to make healthy lifestyle changes - JSOnline

Sustainable Design: all in the details

From Master Plan to Specs: Sustainable Design in Detail | Congress for the New Urbanism:

As planners, and advocates for healthier place making and urbanism, we often talk about the importance of scale. We recognize that city planning must be comprehensive in that the various scales of planning including the region, city, block, street, and building all must be addressed. Sustainable planning can be mapped on a spectrum of needs from the “big picture” of design all the way down to the specifications of individual buildings. It’s the attention to details the matter.

In a short article from copenhagenize.com, a small effort to improve bicyclist’s commute is demonstrated through the convenient placement of trash bins along bicycle paths. This may seem like an insignificant detail within the large realm of sustainable planning, but such efforts, catering to environmentally friendly methods of travel should be commended.

Speaking for myself, and the large community of supporters of New Urbanism, it’s refreshing to see little ways that pedestrians are taking precedent in an ever growing vehicular dominated society. Small efforts to support pedestrian and environmentally friendly places are integral to the overall success of the urban fabric. After all, it’s important to be reminded of whom we are planning for; those who live in the communities we are designing, improving and rallying for.

Read more here and here.

Wondering why we don't bother building community amenities anymore?

I'm long overdue in noting the unfortunate end of the Franklin Cultural Center board's efforts to fund and build an arts center here. The organization was chaired by Don Dorson (read his letter after the jump). So much for local community amenities.

I also just started reading a newly published book called THE CUL-DE-SAC SYNDROME: TURNING AROUND THE UNSUSTAINABLE AMERICAN DREAM. And there's Franklin - a favorite for authors and journalists needing an object lesson in sprawl economics -  on page 53:

High-growth areas nearly always translate into higher property taxes. One study in Dane County, Wisconsin, where the tax burden is among the highest in the United States, showed that while the county's population grew 12 percent from 1990 to 1996, total property taxes soared 3.57 times faster than the population. Part of the reason is that developers rarely pay the long-term costs of building communities. Impact fees are often minimal.

Once subdivisions are built, builders are off the hook to fund schools parks, roads, and other infrastructure. In fact, the disparity between what a single-family home costs taxpayers and what developers pay is huge. In Franklin, Wisconsin, just south of Milwaukee, each new home cost taxpayers more than $10,000 for schools and services in 1992 (it was considerably more by 2008). The developer's contribution: $813 per home. Impact fees vary from locale to locale, but they never cover the full cost of development.