Whitney Gould: "Instead of being a model for walkable, affordable, environmentally friendly neighborhoods, Pabst Farms right now looks to become a monument to uninspired design, timid planning and blinkered tax policy."

Another commentator disappointed with Pabst Farms. From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Pabst Farms harvests dismay

Posted: Oct. 14, 2007

Spaces Whitney Gould E-MAIL

Oconomowoc - "Next to us, everything else is just a subdivision," the promotional literature for Pabst Farms boasts.

Alas, Pabst Farms is just another subdivision, albeit a very big one. Bad enough that the 1,500-acre development under way north and south of I-94 off Highway 67 paves over what was once prime farmland. But that irreplaceable asset was probably doomed by the early 1960s, when the interstate sliced through the fertile farms started in 1906 by Milwaukee beer baron Frederick Pabst.

So, even if the loss of farmland was a given, what's taking its place is dismaying. Instead of being a model for walkable, affordable, environmentally friendly neighborhoods, Pabst Farms right now looks to become a monument to uninspired design, timid planning and blinkered tax policy. Call it the Vale of Lost Opportunities.

How can this be happening at a time when smart people have begun to realize that resources are finite and development practices must change?

According to "Growing Cooler: The Evidence on Urban Development and Climate Change," a recent report by the Urban Land Institute, more compact land use patterns could reduce automobile use nationwide by 20% to 40%, thus cutting the vehicle emissions that contribute to global warming.

This is not an argument for planting wall-to-wall high rises in the countryside but instead for locating shops, schools and offices within walking distance of homes - the approach known as New Urbanism. It is, in fact, old urbanism, a re-creation of the traditional neighborhoods that most Americans grew up in before World War II.

And, the report says, demand for such mixed-use development is growing as the population ages and the share of households with children shrinks. The authors project that by 2025, the demand for attached and small-lot housing will exceed the current supply by 71%, while the demand for large-lot housing will actually be less than what's currently available.

Pabst Farms' northern section, which will eventually have 1,200 residences (single-family homes, condos and townhomes), does make a little stab in the direction of New Urbanism. In its first phase, the houses are on smaller-than-average lots; they're close to the street; and most have sidewalks.

These homes are big and pricey - $400,000 to $800,000 - but only one or two are McMansion-scale. Future houses, however, will be on half-acre to one-acre "estate-size" lots, and it's a safe bet that these dwellings will be much bigger and more costly.

Moreover, the newly built shopping area is at least a half-mile away, too far for most people to walk, to judge from all the cars I saw in the huge parking lot. A business park under way south of I-94 is also auto-dependent.

Keep your fingers crossed on a proposed rezoning that would allow apartments, a necessary component for the people expected to keep all those shops, services and offices humming.

Pabst Farms' design work is largely in shades of bland. The shops are all look-alikes with tan brick and stone veneer. The houses are equally predictable, the kind you'd see in any subdivision: mostly tan or gray, with multiple gables and three-car garages.

The one bright spot, also too far away for most people to walk, is a long, low-slung YMCA designed by Zimmerman Architectural Studios, with big, welcoming windows, orangy brick skin, jazzy burgundy trim and louvered canopies. Why couldn't that same breezy, contemporary spirit have infected some of the housing choices?

Technically, Pabst Farms is not suburban sprawl, since it includes municipal services and most of the development is in Oconomowoc.

But the project already is sparking scattered growth nearby, the essence of sprawl. Even with modest transit connections, it all adds up to more cars on the interstate and on local roads - there is already a $25 million interchange in the works at I-94 and county Highway P - and that means higher costs for state and local taxpayers.

You can argue, I suppose, that it's all worth it, since the project will generate $400 million in new land value, plus $3 million in annual tax revenue for Oconomowoc, which created a $24 million tax-incremental financing district to kick-start Pabst Farms.

But the city might have invested the money more wisely in its own lovely downtown, which almost certainly will suffer as more and more people gravitate to this glossy newcomer sprouting in the cornfields. Failing that, the city could at least have insisted that Pabst Farms chart a radically greener, more progressive course.

Correction: In last week's column, I incorrectly attributed the New York Public Library to the architect Stanford White. It was designed by Carrere and Hastings.

E-mail to  wgould@journalsentinel.com or call (414) 224-2358.