Sand Hill Farm
Complete Streets
H.B. 1182, legislation defining Complete Streets for Indiana streets and highways, passed the Indiana House but didn’t make it through the Senate earlier this year. This Bill followed a national trend to look at streets in a more holistic fashion, taking into account pedestrians, bicycles and public transportation, rather than just the minimalist approach of expediting the transit of cars from point A to point B. The Complete Streets ideal also looks at issues concerning stormwater control and optimizaton of pavement.
Culver recently received a grant for renovations to Main Street as it runs through the downtown business district. My understanding is that plans are underway to facilitate these improvements. I spoke to Town Manager, Michael Doss, and he did not believe that the Complete Streets standards would apply. (That was shortly after the grant was obtained and now his remarks appear sage-like as the legislation failed to move forward.) Some of the proposed standards may be of value though and hopefully will be considered by the designer. Improvements that make the downtown business district more pedestrian and cyclist friendly should be helpful. We also have a continuing stormwater issue in Culver that could be improved by changes to impervious surfaces in the downtown. Corrections to the existing stormwater system as well as other infrastructure should be considered as part of this project. It would be prudent to make sure that we’re not tearing up the new street in a couple of years to correct underlying problems.
Culver does not have a lot of new road construction planned, so opportunities to employ this type of design is limited. Now that the review of the the Culver Zoning Ordinance is coming to a close, it might be time to revisit the Subdivision Ordinance. That document has not been updated in decades. The Culver Comprehensive Plan is also past due for a review. Some of the new research and trends should be considered for implementation in our planning documents. Even without updates to these planning documents, there is the potential for doing this type of design through PUD’s under the current ordinance - something I would hope to accomplish with Sand Hill Farm.
Water Conservation
Water conservation is not a huge issue in our area, but we’re hearing about it more and more on a national level. California Governer Scharzeneggar declared a goal of a 20 percent reduction in water use state-wide by 2012. California currently purchases water from Arizona, but with the continual development expansion in Arizona, particularly in arid areas such as Pheonix, the need for fresh water is a growing issue in the Southwest. How does that affect us in Northern Indiana?
Sand Hill Farm – Pocket Towns
Pocket Towns designed by BSB Design of Tampa
Pocket Towns (copyrighted) are a concept I ran across in an article in the January 2009 issue of Professional Builder Magazine. (Read Article Here.) They are high density housing on smaller lots (less than 3000 sf). The homes are pushed to the front and have as little as 5′ side setbacks. Living space varies from 950 sf to 2400 sf with a mix of one and two story homes. Read more about them on BSB’s website here.
Becky and I were in Tampa a couple of weeks ago. Becky had a conference and I tagged along. I didn’t see the new pocket town neighborhood discussed in the article, but I saw some of the old Tampa neighborhoods that it was modeled after. Somewhat narrow brick streets with granite curbs.
Brick Street with Granite Curb
(I’m still trying to figure out how granite curbs were affordable in central Florida at the turn of the century when there wouldn’t be a quarry within hundreds, if not a thousand miles.) At the end of the block was a library and a service station. Across that intersection were small shops and a neighborhood grocery store.
Tampa Neighborhood
These homes were built on an alley system with no garages or off street parking on the front. Parking was allowed on one or both sides of the street, but the streets were pretty narrow when there were cars parked on both sides. Having an alley also allows for utilities to be moved to the back side of the property. Optimally they would all be buried, but that is usually cost prohibitive and rarely seen in older neighborhoods. Some of the homes had parking in the rear or even a garage accessed from the alley.
Part of the Green initiative is a move towards smaller homes and more efficient use of the landscape. The USGBC gives points toward LEED certification for efficient use of land. Notice the return of the front porch which I discussed here previously.
Town of Culver Brick Street Detail
The streets themselves were interesting too. In our area, the recommended construction for brick streets have the streets crowned towards a concrete curb and gutter. This allows storm water to run on the concrete gutter in lieu of across the brick where the brick surface would be eroded and the sand between the brick would be washed away. Florida is so flat and sandy that very little of the water runs off anyway, so the gutter line isn’t as important. The brick streets act as a solid driving surface yet a somewhat pervious surface to absorb storm runoff.
Key West
Key West, Florida Map
As mentioned in a previous post, Becky and I took some time off after Thanksgiving to travel south. We didn’t find the best weather, but we still had a good time. We spent the weekend after Thankgiving in Atlanta and then drove down to Key West, FL on Monday. We basically had three days at Key West (Tues, Wed, Thurs) before driving back to Atlanta on Friday.
Key West East Martello Museum
This is our second trip to Key West in two years. We went there last year at this time and enjoyed it as well. This year we had somewhat of a heads up on what we had seen and liked and knew a little more about where to go. Last year we visited the Key West Garden Club in the West Martello, Hemingway’s Home, Truman’s Little White House and Fort Zachery Taylor. This year we visited East Martello Fort Museum, the Butterfly Conservatory as well as returning to Fort Zachary Taylor and doing some additional neighborhood exploration. We enjoyed the live blues music at the Sunset Pier and enjoyed the <warning!> raunchy songs and humor by Pete & Wayne at Sloppy Joes.
Sandhill Farm – Suwanee Town Center
Last week Becky and I took a week and went to Georgia and Florida. We drove down to Atlanta on Thanksgiving Day and spent that weekend with one of my best friends, Kim Whitten, who was also my secretary at my previous employer. We spent the weekend with her family before going on to Florida and Key West. We came back and stayed with them for the weekend on the return leg of our trip as well. Even when I lived there, I referred to the area as Atlanta, but in reality, Kim lives in Suwanee, Georgia. (Yeah, like the song.)
In touring around our old stomping grounds, we went to see Suwanee Town Center. Rather than trying to revive the old downtown, Suwanee chose to create a new town center. It is a P.U.D. in its truest sense, combining public service space, park space, commercial space and a range of residential types. Read more about it here and here.
The Suwanee Town Center states their vision as “live…work…play…shop.” This is something I would like to emulate in my proposed Sand Hill Farm development. There are differences. The Sand Hill Farm property is approximately 2/3rds the size and I have no vision for Sand Hill Farm to take the place of Downtown Culver. Also, in keeping with the vision presented by the Culver Redevelopment Commission, I would like to keep an option open for a light industrial aspect to the development.
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