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I like do drive around and check out neighborhoods in the community. I like to see how they were developed and how the developments changed from decade to decade.
One thing that I notice is how much more green space was left when they developed neighborhoods in the 70s, 80s and 90s. Back then the city and county planners required significant tree save and general open space. The homes are not as large or fancy as today's but there are lots of trees and fields that seem to be protected against development in those late 20th Century developments.
Nowadays most single family and townhouse developments don't leave any trees and they jam as many buildings as they can in every square foot of land. They call it the new urbanism even though this is a suburb far from the main city. 40 years from now there will still be no trees because there is no room for them.
Urban planners: what do you think of the 21st Century development? And green space rules?
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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What we see with forest clearcuts for development here is the swapping of land to accommodate the zoning and difficult wetland preservation laws. They will destroy an old growth forest, leaving just a few trees on the outskirts, and fill in wetlands, but deed over to the city/county acreage in a less desirable, unbuildable area that they bought (cheap) for that purpose. I personally would like to see green space at about 50%, but that's contrary to common urbanism, and to our county growth management act which favors infill rather than outward expansion. Our lot, which I consider small, is 12,000 sf. Our county raised our taxes based on it being large enough for two homes, despite our house being right in the middle. We would have to demolish it and build two. We still have many acres of woods left in our city, but with developments of 100+ 4,000 sf homes selling for a million and up the city likes the tax revenue.
I personally would like to see green space at about 50%, but that's contrary to common urbanism, and to our county growth management act which favors infill rather than outward expansion.
Wouldn't that work with common urbanism than against? If you infill and have small lots, you can accommodate the same population growth on less land, allowing more green space to be preserved. My ideal would be preserve 35-50% but allow the rest to built up densely. Dense, walkable villages surrounded by green space...
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
44,206 posts, read 80,369,332 times
Reputation: 57081
Quote:
Originally Posted by nei
Wouldn't that work with common urbanism than against? If you infill and have small lots, you can accommodate the same population growth on less land, allowing more green space to be preserved. My ideal would be preserve 35-50% but allow the rest to built up densely. Dense, walkable villages surrounded by green space...
We still require minimum 5,000 sf lots, and people still want 4,000 sf homes. Developers want the maximum profit, so they build what people want, and the cities want the most tax dollars they can get, that is from large, expensive homes. The dense, walkable villages don't work. We have one nearby, Issaquah Highlands. People don't walk, they drive, so at commute times it's gridlocked. Many do take the bus to work in Seattle, but they drive the mile or less to the Park & Ride which fills up by 7am.
Irvine, California is a mid-sized city of 280,000 people. At its build-out, it will have 330,000 people in 65 square miles. Yet incredibly, 40% of the land will still be permanently preserved as wilderness and parks. And Irvine is an edge city--it has about 100 million square feet of office space. So it has truly an incredible density for a mid-sized U.S. city.
That is pretty impressive ^. No wonder Irvine rates so highly in terms of livability, etc. across the US. It sounds like things like this are more largely determined at the municipal level? On a community wide basis rather than individual developers, which generally, as mentioned, will seek to maximize their revenue when they have the opportunity to.
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