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Chapter 3 -- The Planning and Design Scenarios
For the last few decades, people all over the country have
been working on solutions to the problem of suburban sprawl.
This begins with better design, often combined with planning
that promotes protection of open space and revitalization of
traditional town centers. The planning and design journals are
full of ideas for "neotraditional town planning," "new
urbanism," "sustainable design," "smart growth,"
etc. This manual is designed to make these ideas more tangible
by showing how they could be applied right here in South County,
solving local problems with architectural and site planning approaches
that are based on local traditions. To do this, the South County
Design Manual is built around eight design scenarios prepared
for representative sites around South County. Each of these hypothetical
case studies take an actual site and shows how it would most
likely be developed in today's market, following current zoning
and other regulations. A more creative development alternative
for each site was drawn up to demonstrate how the same or greater
amount of development could be accommodated on each site while
preserving important resources. It is important to remember that
these future development alternatives represent realistic, but
completely imaginary possibilities: no public or private entities
are proposing to build them.Peac
Pawcatuck River, Westerly
The eight scenario sites were selected with the help of the
project steering committee, which nominated for study many areas
identified in local comprehensive plans as potential development
sites. A wide range of landscape types and planning situations
was developed so that a site in one town might serve to demonstrate
similar issues and potential solutions that can be applied in
many others. Transportation connections play a large role, as
they do in most real-life development decisions, so a number
of sites explore the influence of the Interstate 95 corridor
and well as the recently-upgraded Amtrak line. The sites include
"town gateways," such as the area of West Greenwich
adjacent to Exit 5 and the agricultural district on the Border
of Exeter and North Kingstown where Route 2 meets102. Some of
the sites represent landscapes in transition, such as the so-called
United Nuclear site in Charlestown, or the vacant lots and gravel
pits along Rt. 138 in Richmond. Other areas, like the village
of Shannock, are gradually evolving from self-sufficient mill
villages to residential enclaves. Likewise, the entrance to Westerly
on Route One represents an area struggling to keep up with changes
in commercial markets.
Peace Dale Mill
The Design Manual is set up so that each of the eight scenarios
serves as a free-standing example of development alternatives
for a particular situation. Readers are encouraged to pick and
choose from those scenarios that match local situations. Each
full-page illustration of existing, conventional, and creative
development is accompanied by a page with photographs of the
site in question, or actual examples of the type of development
illustrated in the drawings. Details of the creative development
illustration are enlarged and surrounded by written design recommendations.
A final page describes for each scenario the implementation techniques
that might be employed to achieve the desired ends. These include
planning ideas, like detailed masterplans for Main Streets or
neighborhoods, as well as zoning or other regulatory techniques.
Examples from projects around the country complete the picture.a
leill
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Rural Roadside, West Greenwich
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The Rural District scenario depicts
a rich cultural landscape marked by a mixture of rural roads,
small farms and historic villages. Within an area of only a few
square miles lies an extraordinary diversity of landscapes, from
small mill villages stitched together by the state highway that
follows the valley, to the meadows and woodlots that link an
agricultural corridor along the adjacent ridgeline. Current zoning
treats this diverse landscape as a blank slate, parceling both
village and countryside into the same 2-acre house lots. The
recommended alternative takes the same amount of development
and rearranges it to protect sensitive natural and cultural resources,
while revitalizing existing centers. In agricultural landscapes,
this might mean clustering development away from streams and
off farm fields, creating a new neighborhood of smaller lots
in one area of a parcel. For mill villages, it means allowing
the flexibility to infill on smaller lots within the village
and providing for some careful expansion while maintaining a
definite edge between village and countryside. |
Scenarios for an Historic Town Center explore ways to
accommodate growth and change in a place where little physical
or visual change is desired. As in many villages, the ponds and
river that powered the mills, and a dense development pattern
restrict further growth. As a result, there's little room for
additional development without taking away existing structures.
These include wonderful artifacts like the old mills and their
dams and sluiceways, historic shops and storefronts along Main
Street, and a cross section of architecture from the last two
hundred years. This wide variety of civic, commercial, residential
and industrial uses is brought together by a walkable, human-scaled
streetscape. The trend, however, is toward larger scale of development
favoring automobile-dependent commercial uses. Existing lots
too small for such uses are frequently consolidated, the existing
structures demolished and replaced by gas stations and convenience
stores. Chain architecture and cookie-cutter corporate site plans
replace historic structures. New buildings are set back from
the street with parking in front, making the street less comfortable
for pedestrians and ruining the streetscape. The creative alternative
presents a compromise, where uses can continue to change and
evolve, but only if they respect existing structures and the
character of the street.
| For a Large Forested tract with Rail Access,
the planning alternatives explore the possibilities of fairly
large transit-oriented development in a undeveloped part of town.
The conventional development scheme depicts what many people
see as a boon to a small town: a large golf course with condominiums,
a landscaped office park surrounded by trees and grass, with
a cute town center around a railroad station. Despite a nod to
village design, however, such a scheme remains totally dependent
on the automobile, with residential, commercial, and office uses
separated into different zones and strung out across the site.
A more traditional town-style plan, by contrast, places all uses
within walking distance of the village center. This is made possible
by higher densities, with mixed uses not only within neighborhoods,
but within structures, where the ground floor might have shops,
with offices and apartments in the upper stories. Attractive
streets, landscaped parks and squares, and a large greenbelt
surrounding the whole town provide a contrast to the compact
downtown. Outlying neighborhoods have larger lots and single-family
homes, many of which retain the open space vistas that make the
conventional golf-course development so marketable. |
Meadows, Hopkinton
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ood River J
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Route 102, West Greenwich
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The Town Gateway District represents
a scenario common to many South County towns, a number of which
have zoned outlying areas adjacent to the highway for large-scale
commercial or industrial uses. While often the only land available
for extensive new development, these areas also are the principal
gateways into the town. Poorly-planned development can extend
sprawling subdivisions and commercial strips and blight one's
first impression of the community. Creative development takes
this growth pressure and directs it to create a new village center
with a mix of commercial, office, residential, and civic uses
within a compact, walkable center. An important part of this
scheme is how the public spaces created by well-planned streetscapes,
central green spaces and carefully-located buildings serve to
unite a diverse collection of uses and architecture. Thus a large
commercial building can coexist with a smaller residential structure
without looking out of place, for both relate to a larger unifying
concept. This makes for a community that can growth and change
organically over time, accommodating many different uses, while
retaining the livability and attractiveness that will attract
and retain residents and businesses over the long term. |
unction
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Hope Valley
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Older commercial districts have a unique
set of problems. In the Mature Commercial District, ever
larger supermarkets, stripmalls, and office buildings are gradually
changing a residential neighborhood on the edge of a small city
into a commercial strip. The conventional impulse is to rationalize
these new uses within a well-ordered plan built around the highway
corridor, with existing residences carefully separated from commercial
uses and buffered with vegetation. A more creative solution allows
new uses to come in, but makes them subservient to the scale
and functioning of the existing residential neighborhood. Thus,
rather than allowing the district to be divided into incompatible
zones, the creative scheme uses the new investment to knit the
neighborhood together into a coherent whole. The whole neighborhood
is then more like the traditional neighborhoods of the city,
creating a sense of identity and an attractive gateway to the
community. |
adows, Hopkinto
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Route 1, Westerly
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Lacking other areas for business development,
towns often zone state highways for office and commercial use.
The Growing Commercial Corridor scenario shows how these
uses tend to spread out across the available lots, with little
coordination between developments, much less adherence to some
over-arching masterplan. Towns typically focus on improving the
appearance of the development through controls on architecture
and landscaping, without addressing the underlying sprawl pattern
of development. The creative alternative depicts how the investment
in new roads and buildings can be redirected to produce something
that looks and functions more like part of a real town, making
a better place to do business while improving the appearance
of the neighborhood. |
Route 102, Wesrmland of
| The Agricultural District scenario explores
the challenges of preserving agricultural areas in the face of
pressure to develop what is, for many towns, the cheapest and
most buildable land. Often cherished by residents for its scenic
vistas and nostalgic associations, farmland at the same time
is often the sole legacy of the farmers themselves. Efforts by
towns to reduce density to three or four acres per unit can result,
as in this case, in forcing landowners into development of large-lot
residential subdivisions that consume more land for less profit.
The recommended alternative allows a much broader list of uses
to come in, but restricts them to a fraction of the total site.
Through clustering, the development that could spread across
the entire area is channeled into a compact, pedestrian-friendly
center; by allowing a conversion of that development from residential
to commercial uses, moreover, higher profits are generated which
pay to preserve more farmland. The resulting village, surrounded
by permanently-protected open space, is a more attractive place
to live and work, while generating higher tax revenues and fewer
school children than the conventional plan. |
Farmland off Route 2, Exeter
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f Route 2, Exeter
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Shannock
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Like the historic town center, the Mill
Village scenario explores alternatives for growth and development
in a place with a rich legacy of narrow lanes, historic buildings,
and surrounding open spaces still free from development. In the
smaller mill villages of South County much of the industry is
long gone, and they are in transition to something else. This
scenario compares one kind of future, where the village becomes
primarily a bedroom community surrounded by residential subdivisions,
with an alternative that says the village can and should be revitalized
as an active mixture of homes, businesses, shops, and civic uses.
With careful planning and design, and a concentration of investment
at the core, the historic center becomes the seed crystal for
a modest expansion of the whole village. Development that would
otherwise spread up into the surrounding hills and down the highway
strip is gathered in and made part of a walkable neighborhood.
The likelihood that this will continue as a real community, where
people know each other and participate in local life, is much
higher in this kind of traditional setting than in the sort of
faceless suburban environment that is in fact the easiest thing
to build under current regulations.o |
Each of the planning and design scenarios, then, is something
of a dream. While they have been drawn up for actual sites, no
one is building the creative plan - and in fact the conventional
alternative is much more likely to happen. Questions of water
supply, access, parking, wastewater treatment, ownership, and
financing are real roadblocks - but not insurmountable ones.
Our goal is to offer an alternative vision for the future of
South County _ it will take new approaches to planning, design,
and development to make that vision a reality.hannock
Design Scenario Site Locations
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