Planning Commissioners Journal

Florida Planner Wendy Grey Joins the PCJ as a Contributing Writer

From PCJ Editor Wayne Senville:

I want to introduce you to another experienced planner who is joining the Planning Commissioners Journal as a contributor writing. Wendy Grey is a long-time Florida planner. Since 2002 she's run her own planning consulting practice, Wendy Grey Land Use Planning LLC. Wendy previously served for ten years as Planning Director for the City of Tallahassee and Leon County, and before that worked as a planner for the Florida Department of Community Affairs. She's also written a regular column for the Florida League of Cities on planning and growth management issues.

Wayne: Can you tell us a little about the issues you faced as Planning Director for Tallahassee? Was the area experiencing rapid growth?

Wendy: Tallahassee didn't experience the boom other parts of the State did. As a state capital and college town, we experienced slower, but very steady growth. Two challenging issues we dealt with were the increasing economic segregation of the community and meeting our transportation needs in a way that was reflective of our community values.

Our analysis of economic segregation led to the adoption of the "Southern Strategy" whereby both the City and County committed to projects and policies intended to improve the quality of life on the south side of town, which had a high percentage of low income residents. The City also passed an inclusionary housing ordinance.

As for transportation, we began to look at funding non- roadway projects (sidewalks and bikeways), and establishing limits to road widening in our urban core.

Wayne: Looking more broadly, what do you see as the most challenging issues facing planners and planning commissions across the country?

Wendy: Sustainability is one. The environmental and economic consequences of the choices we have made are becoming more apparent. While changes need to be made at the larger scale (for example, energy production, automobile efficiency), we need to also make changes at the community level. This can include everything from urban form -- such as urban growth boundaries -- to site design strategies aimed at minimizing energy use (for example, building orientation for passive cooling).

Compatibility is another challenging issue. Many people support the concept of higher density and a walkable mix of uses -- just don't put a project like that next to their neighborhood! We need to do a better job working with residents to address their perceptions about higher density development. Compatibility in this context ties back to sustainability. We cannot build energy and resource efficient communities if we cannot achieve greater densities.

Wayne: Your first column for the Planning Commissioners Journal [included in the Spring issue due out the end of this month] focuses on how demographic changes can affect the demand for housing. You suggest finding areas in the community that can be rezoned to a higher density, and point out that higher densities can help reduce construction and energy costs for future development? But, as you just noted, increasing densities can be quite controversial. What approach can planners take to change peoples' perceptions?

Wendy: I don't know how the changes in the housing market will affect people's perceptions about density going forward. I think the solutions need to be site specific. You have to work within the existing context. In some neighborhoods, for example, granny flats or accessory units may be a good tool. In another neighborhood, there may be some land that can be designed for garden homes. You cannot impose a one size fits all answer.

Wayne: In your article you also mention that the recession has caused a growing number of Baby Boomers to stay put and not move to popular retirement areas. Do you think this trend [of staying put] will change as the recession ends?

Wendy: I think many factors will affect Baby Boomers' housing choices. The market changes, even if they last five years or more, are relatively short term. Demographics will play a large role in the long term, especially longevity. People used to retire to Florida and spend the rest of their lives here -- ten or fifteen years. Now that people are living longer, we see some people moving away once they reach their 80s, often to be closer to a family member who can care for them. My aunt's mother was living in Florida well into her 90s. Eventually, it became clear she could no longer live on her own. She now lives in n new assisted living facility near the retirement community of Sun City in South Carolina where my aunt -- a very active retiree -- lives!

Wayne: As a planning director you spent many years working with planning commissioners. From your experience, is there one piece of advice you'd most like to give to a new member of a planning commission?

Wendy: Feel free to question how things are done. One asset of a new commissioner is a fresh perspective. Once a planning commissioner asked why we always had our hearings on Monday. He pointed out if we had the hearings on Tuesday that would give everyone a chance on Monday to follow up on last minute questions and changes. A simple change that made things easier!

Wayne: Another question I want to ask is how to improve communications between planning commissioners and local elected officials?

Wendy: One problem is that since planning commissioners focus only on land use issues, they often delve into issues more deeply than elected officials can. However, the thinking that went into a planning commission decision is often not explained very well in agenda items to the elected officials. As a result, the work of the planning commission may not be given the weight it deserves. One way of dealing with this is for planning commissioners to hold semi-annual workshops with the elected officials to discuss major issues of concern.

Wayne: Last week I asked Dave Stauffer, who will also be joining the PCJ as a contributing writer, if there's a book he'd particularly recommend to planning commissioners. His choice was Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals. Do you have a book you'd suggest?

Wendy: I'd recommend Ray Oldenburg's, The Great Good Place. It is a very accessible book about the value of places where people can gather. The first place is where we live and the second place is where we work. The third place is where we gather as a community -- the coffee bar, the diner, or the tavern. Successful communities have great third places that meet the needs of all segments of the population. 

Editor's note: Ray Oldenburg covered some of the central themes of his book in an article he wrote for the Planning Commissioners Journal. You're welcome to download a complimentary pdf of the article, "Our Vanishing Third Places."

Meet PCJ Contributing Writer Dave Stauffer

From PCJ Editor Wayne Senville:

We've already introduced you to Beth Humstone and Gwendolyn Hallsmith, who are joining the Planning Commissioners Journal as contributing writers. This week I'm pleased to introduce Dave Stauffer, another planner who will be regularly writing for the PCJ. 

Dave's from Red Lodge, Montana, where he's worn several different hats: planning commissioner, city councilor, city planner, planning consultant, and writer. He's also currently chairman of the Yellowstone Business Partnership. Some of you may recall two articles Dave previously wrote for the PCJ: "Emerging Water Shortages Are No Mirage" (in PCJ #54, Spring 2004)  and "Smart Messages" (in PCJ #64, Fall 2006).

-- Dave's just published article in our Spring issue, "Stop, Look, Loiter," can be ordered & downloaded. 

Wayne: Dave, do you recall what first got you interested in planning and land use issues?

Dave: Vividly. I was in 9th grade civics class, where we got a weekly newsletter that focused each Friday on a possible profession. One day that focus was on city planning. The article said you should like lots of different subjects to like this job -- history, geography, geometry, sociology, psychology, etc. That was me.

Wayne: You live and work in Red Lodge, Montana. Can you tell us a little about Red Lodge and the kind of land use issues you're dealing with there?

Dave: We are a very typical small mountain town in the Rockies, which is to say we started in the late 19th century as a mining town, reached a population nadir in the 1930s, and gradually reemerged as a tourist town and early retirement destination of so-called amenity migrants. 

 

Almost all of our land use issues arise from the seeming clash of cultures between multi-generation residents who want the town to be what they remember it was in their youth and those johnny-come-latelies who are most concerned about the environment, educational opportunities, and the sorts of city services they had in the East or Midwest.

Wayne: You served for four years as a planning commissioner in Red Lodge and then went on to be appointed City Planner in the same community. What was it like to switch roles like that? Were there any insights you feel you gained by first serving as a commissioner?

Dave: I think it was a great progression that would benefit many professional planners. The biggest plus is being aware as city planner of the general lack of planning knowledge and expertise on the part of most commissioners. This was most instructive for me as city planner in trying to make my staff reports simple, trying to explain complex concepts, and providing lots of examples of how other communities acted on issues that came before my commission.

Wayne: From your experience, what can planning commissions and commissioners do to position themselves to take a productive leadership role in their community?

Dave: Hammer away unceasingly, in all media and every available public forum, at educating the public on who their planners are, what they do, and how they're attempting to improve the community through their planning decisions. 

Have a table at every community gathering. Speak before every club and organization that will have you. Write editorials and letters for the local media outlets. Progress is slow and usually so glacial that you'd swear no one's hearing you -- but someone always is. And if you don't already have a very thick skin, develop one fast or don't take the job!

Wayne: You also currently serve as chairman of the Yellowstone Business Partnership. What type of organization is that and what does it focus on?

Dave: We are a regional business alliance of companies that believe our firms do well by doing good. That means pursuing the greater long-term profitability that can be gained through attention to the triple bottom line: building social and natural capital as well as financial capital. 

Our current program most directly connected with land use is developing quantitative regional standards under our Greater Yellowstone Framework for Sustainable Development -- the first-ever regional standards designed to complement LEED, under auspices of the U.S. Green Building Council.

One of our other projects involves the formation of the "Linx" Regional Transportation Cooperative, which will bring together private and public transit providers throughout the Yellowstone-Teton region who will align their vehicles, systems, and routes to work as a technologically-enabled seamless transit system. It is essentially a multi-state, multi-government metropolitan transit system -- except that for the first time we're aware of anywhere in the U.S., we have no metro area and no core city, but rather two national parks occupying 4 million acres at our center. 

All of our programs are described and updated at www.yellowstonebusiness.org.

Wayne: What's the most interesting project you've been handling in your private land use consulting practice?

Dave: For about five years I've been working with the largest private landowner in my community to dispose of an incredible 1,000 riparian acres he owns in a way that best preserves its natural values (it's a byway for bears, wolves, mountain lions and a home for threatened sage grouse and bald eagles), while giving the owner a fair return for having been a good steward of the land for many years.

Wayne: For the upcoming Spring issue of the Planning Commissioners Journal, you've written a short piece titled, "Stop, Look, and Loiter." In it you speak about the "benefits to taking the time to slow down and observe for yourself whether people living and working in your community are enjoying or having problems with their surroundings." Do you think that's something most planning commissioners fail to do? 

Dave: Well, I've seen that it's something the commissioners in my region fail to do. And in reading the planning press, the popularity of articles connected with close, relaxed observation tells me it must be something commissioners around the country fail to do -- though clearly the authors of these articles aren't among them. Why? I think in 99% of cases we believe we're too busy to slow down and observe.

Wayne: I’ve found that many planning commissioners also enjoy reading in their free time. So let me close by asking if there's a book you've read in the past year or so that you'd particularly recommend to planning commissioners? 

Dave: Yes, Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals. Besides being the best Lincoln biography of recent decades, it brilliantly and in detail shows how Lincoln excelled at interpersonal relations, refused to dislike or dismiss anyone who crossed him, and forged lasting, effective alliances among people who had no natural reason to get along with each other. All are indispensable traits in today's planning.

Conversation With New PCJ Contributing Writer Beth Humstone

From PCJ Editor Wayne Senville:

I’m excited that several new contributing writers will be joining the Planning Commissioners Journal this Spring. They bring a diversity of backgrounds and interests -- but one thing they all have in common is a dedication to planning, and a strong interest in the positive role planning commissioners can play.

Over the coming weeks I’ll be introducing each of them to you, through some short interviews conducted by email correspondence. I want to start with a planner I’ve known and respected for a number of years, Beth Humstone.

Over the past 35 years, Beth has worked as a planning consultant on a wide range of projects in rural communities and small towns. She serves as an advisor to the National Trust for Historic Preservation and is a Board member of the Portland, Maine, Downtown District. Beth is the former Executive Director of the Vermont Forum on Sprawl (now Smart Growth Vermont) and is a past member of the Burlington, Vermont, Planning Commission, and former Chair of Vermont’s Housing & Conservation Trust Fund Board. She is a co-author of Above and Beyond: Visualizing Change in Small Towns and Rural Areas.

Some of you may recall that Beth wrote, "Getting the Density You Want" for our Spring 2009 issue.

Wayne: What first got you interested in planning?

Beth: I am the daughter of a city planner. When, as a child growing up on Long Island, I ventured forth from my leafy suburb with its tiny village center on the Long Island Railroad line, I observed -- often with my father’s help -- the changes brought about by highways, subdivisions, and shopping centers. At the same time, I noticed developed areas, like industrial lands in College Point, Queens, being abandoned. As growth moved further and further out from New York City consuming resources at high rates, other places were being vacated and underused. This didn’t make a lot of sense to me.

The book by Virginia Lee Burton, The Little House, also influenced me. I found it profoundly sad. The sprawl depicted seemed so inevitable. I just couldn't accept that.

I have always wanted to find a better way for communities to grow than what I saw growing up. I’m intrigued by how and why change happens and challenged by the desire of citizens for more sustainable futures in their communities and regions.

Wayne: What planning-related issues most concern you today?

Beth: Right now as an advisor from Vermont to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, I am concerned about the lack of public understanding of the critical role of preservation in community revitalization. At the national level, we are seeing preservation as a tool undermined even in the new administration. Yet, study after study illustrates that preservation is a job generator and has turned around many communities and neighborhoods that experienced serious decline.

Preservation projects have leveraged public and private dollars, made better use of existing public and private investments and brought new coalitions together. But somehow the message of the importance of preservation is not getting out, especially at the state and federal levels.

Other issues that I’m concerned about include both urban and rural abandonment and decline. We are wasting valuable resources -- infrastructure in our cities and natural resources in our rural areas. Another very important issue we’re facing across the country is the need to develop a better public transportation system. We all need to advocate for this, from local commissioners on up.

Wayne: From your experience, what can planning commissions do to position themselves to take a productive leadership role in their community? 

Beth: To take a productive leadership role, planning commissions must be credible. They must be trustworthy, dependable, reasonable, fair, informed, open, and accessible to the public -- and accountable to those who appoint or elect them. People need to know that they will get a fair hearing before a planning commission and that the commission is a source of necessary and accurate information. The planning commission is responsible for integrating and prioritizing the diverse needs and priorities of the community. This also means taking a long term view, while understanding short term needs.

Wayne: If there's one piece of advice you'd most like to give to a new member of a planning commission, what would it be? 

Beth: Read the town plan and the implementing regulations and get to know them well. They should be guiding your actions. Ask questions about them. Keep them up to date. And help others to know them as well.

Wayne: In your upcoming article for the Spring issue of the Planning Commissioners Journal (“Future Housing Demand: Problem or Opportunity”), you speak about the need of suburbs to consider raising densities and providing greater diversity in types of housing. How can planners deal with the resistance this often generates, especially when there’s talk of increased densities?

Beth: Many people have a knee jerk, negative reaction when they hear that densities may increase, often without an understanding of what it means in the context of their community or neighborhood. It is the role of the planning commissioner to communicate what more density means, what it looks like, and how it will be applied in each case and to be sensitive to the character and conditions in the places where more density will be encouraged.

Wayne: In your article, you also talk about shifting consumer preferences, especially for smaller, greener, less expensive housing? Do you see this happening nationwide, and do you think this is a long-term shift or more reflects the impact of the past year's deep recession? 

Beth: Because of the demographic changes taking place throughout the country -- in age and household composition -- and because the era of cheap oil is mostly over, I think over the long run consumer preferences will continue to shift to smaller, greener, more efficient housing. While there will be some who will still strive for a larger home, or more land, or a more remote location, for a majority I think preferences and patterns are changing.

Robert Moses & Jane Jacobs

The first video below is about two individuals who, arguably, have had more of an impact on the course of urban planning than any others -- Robert Moses and Jane Jacobs. In the second half of the 8 minute video, you'll hear how their paths crossed in the battle over the Lower Manhattan Expressway in 1962. This video was produced by John Elias and Peter Baum in 2008. 

The second video features an interview of Jane Jacobs in 2002. As Jacbos remarks, what we most need to do is "study the parts [of our cities] that work and that people use," adding that "the greatest asset a city or city neighborhood can have is something that is different from every other place." And, Jacobs notes, "don't think it can be done by wishful thinking or pretty words." Produced by the Active Living Network.

Democracy Means Government by Discussion

 After attending a seemingly endless public meeting, this quote that I had once come across seemed apropos:

"Democracy means government by discussion, but it is only effective if you can stop people talking." -- Clement Attllee, Britsh Prime Minister, June 14, 1957