I am curious if planners are interested in ending sprawl based planning. Or do they really think it is a good thing? Are they being led by the Civil engineers into accepting and promoting sprawl based planning? Is it the developers? the politicians? Or is sprawl planning kept on its pedestal by inertia? Is it the responsibility of planners to lead the fight against the insanity?

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I work for a private planning firm in California that has partnered in the past with large, well-known firms who are prominent in the New Urbanism movement. (One of our former principals was a founding member of the Congress of New Urbanism and an FAICP.) One of these firms has produced dozens of New Urbanist plans for communities all over the state, at least one dozen of which we've been privy to how things have played out because we "were there."

In almost all the cases we've been a part of, the plans have essentially disintegrated despite initial community support, political momentum, and at least some financial interest from the development community. And this has happened not just since the market meltdown... but in each case it occurred after a certain amount of time had passed, usually shortly after or during environmental review. just a couple of days ago, I got a seemingly innocuous email from one of our clients, letting us know in a gentle fashion that the City Council is going "back to the drawing board" now that we're only a couple months away from EIR certification for an 800-acre New Urbanist development. The reason? Developers and financiers don't think it's viable, and the community just doesn't like it anymore.

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William Howard Kunstler is the peek oil, doom and gloom, anti sprawl guru. He is not at all fond of the way our country is currently planned meaning he hates most of what the planning profession is doing.

I love his weekly KunstlerCast (http://kunstlercast.com/) and very much agree with most of what he says though sometimes he is a bit out there and possibly a bit self absorbed.

So what do planners think of what he is saying?

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A few years ago, while looking through old subdivision files, I came across a proposed rural subdivision that incorporated conservation subdivision design principles. This plat was in the mid-seventies. The plat covered about 300 acres of varied land features including woods, wetlands, streams, and steep ravines. There was also a map that identified ideal locations for community gardens, which seemed to incorporate aspects of the permaculture idea. The map went so far as to identify what would best grow in these areas. I think that there were about 30 small home-sites that would have been located on their own lots with the rest of the land being owned communally.

The strange thing about this proposal was that it was days away from getting final approval and at the least minute it was pulled with no reason given. It also got some media coverage as a new way of living and while the media did not come out and call it an intentional community or ecovillage—it was really that in concept. The initial covenants were very clear to this effect.

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From Cyburbian DPP: Looking for the answer to this -- what's the maximum driveway slope permitted in your area? Our design guidelines call for a maximum driveway slope of 10% for standard residential driveways, but an applicant is seeking something along the lines of 20%... One concern about a steep driveway is the vehicle bottoming out and scraping the ground where the grade changes from angled to flat. Another would be the driveway being too steep to negotiate in the winter.

We also call for the slope from the PL to the street to slope downwards towards the street at no more than 2%, which is part of the problem in this case.

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From Cyburbian sneakers: On the heels of my earlier post, I was wondering what you folks think about the concept of strategic physical activity plans for metropolitan areas with collaboration between urban planners and public health people to arrive at development, land use, zoning etc. decisions always have the endgoal of physical activity in mind? Do you think they are feasible, redundant etc. in metropolitan ares?

I guess I should elaborate: a region near me is piloting an initiative whereby all development decision would be both statistically modeled and reviewed by public health officials, as to their potential impact on physical activity levels.

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