Providing the vision

A Florida agency sets an example for government planners that want to foster the New Urbanism. Some 500 regional planning organizations operate in the United States. Up until 10 years ago, the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council in Stuart, Florida, was just like the others. It worked to preserve wetlands, ensure roads had adequate capacity, write regulations, and provide other services for four counties and 50 municipalities, with 1.5 million residents (larger than 13 states). Then, confronted in the late 1980s with the relentless suburban sprawl of south-central Florida, “we looked around and said ‘this place is just awful, what are we missing?’” says director Michael Busha, who joined the staff in 1982. Busha and Dan Cary, former director who now is a planner with the South Florida Water Management District, realized that the concept of “place” was missing. After reading about Seaside, the first neotraditional development, Treasure Coast hired new urbanists in 1989 to conduct a design charrette for Stuart, Florida. The resulting master plan and codes were adopted by the town — which then invested in street and sewer improvements in the downtown. The project was tremendously successful, bringing back Stuart’s moribund downtown (retail occupancy rates soared from less than 20 percent to higher than 90 percent in just a few years). In the last 10 years, Treasure Coast has led 29 new urbanist design charrettes and assisted on 19 others, working on a scale as small as a block or two, to as large as the entire region. Nearly half of the charrettes were collaborative projects with new urbanist design firms. The others were organized by Treasure Coast — but all involved hiring outside architects and specialists. Hiring design staff In 1992, Treasure Coast hired its first staff urban designer, and now the design team has grown to four, three of whom have experience working with new urbanist firms. In 1995, the council adopted a strategic plan for the region entirely based on new urbanist principles. In 1998, Treasure Coast sponsored seven charrettes and participated in several others. Charrettes now are an essential and much-demanded part of Treasure Coast’s service — which makes the organization unique among planning councils nationwide. Treasure Coast’s skill in operating charrettes is important because the New Urbanism begins with a vision — consisting of a physical plan — showing how the community should look. Charrettes, intense community planning sessions lasting from several days to two weeks, are one of the primary methods that new urbanists use to create that vision (some firms or organizations use different techniques, but the required design skills are the same). The cost of this vision represents a significant barrier to many municipalities. “Outside help to perform this kind and quality of work runs between $100,000 to $150,000 per charrette,” Busha explains. “Council employs a small staff to do this work — in most cases at little or no charge to a municipality.” By developing expertise in-house, Treasure Coast has raised the quality of planning in its region and lowered the hurdles required to implement the New Urbanism. As a result, the Treasure Coast area has had more charrettes, and perhaps more new urbanist planning in general, than any comparable region in the U.S. The success stories in the region are beginning to pile up, including successful revitalizations of Stuart, Fort Pierce, West Palm Beach and other cities. “Using drawings from the Lake Worth Charrette, council secured infrastructure improvement grants for more than $3 million,” Busha says. “Charrette drawings kindled unexpected real estate activity in Boynton Beach and commercial square footage values increased by 150 percent in Stuart.” The private sector has jumped on the bandwagon, building new urbanist projects like Mizner Park in Boca Raton and Abacoa in Jupiter. Treasure Coast has reinvented itself, and has become a model for other regional planning agencies that want to promote the New Urbanism. Without raising its dues to member municipalities — 33 cents/person/year — Treasure Coast has developed many new urbanist skills and services. At the same time, the agency has generated work for private planning firms, through its charrettes and follow-up implementation projects. Can other agencies follow Treasure Coast’s example? “Anyone out there can do it who has the political support,” says Busha. “You need to put together a good team, and work with people who know what they are doing.” Busha emphasizes that, at least at the start, planning agencies who sponsor charrettes need to hire outside designers with experience in the New Urbanism. “It took us 10 years of hard work to get to the point where we feel pretty independent about doing these things.” It’s not easy for communities to make a switch from sprawl-based planning to the New Urbanism. But one regional planning council is pointing the way. Instead of just talking about the New Urbanism, Treasure Coast is busy drawing it. u