Steinbeck’s town shifts toward denser mix of uses

Salinas, California, where novelist and short-story writer John Steinbeck was born, is trying to encourage new urbanist forms of development in an eight-block section of downtown and in “future growth areas” that until now have remained largely agricultural. The Salinas Redevelopment Agency had Roma Design Group of San Francisco produce illustrated concepts showing how development consistent with new urban principles could be carried out on three different kinds of downtown sites. One Roma prototype shows how historic buildings would be reused. A second shows how to do infill mixed-use development. The third shows how to convert a city parking lot to residential use. “We’re working on the design and development regulations right now,” says Redevelopment Director Alan Stumpf. The city of 151,000, east of Monterey and 44 miles south of San Jose, hopes to attract lively mixed-use development, yet make sure the new buildings don’t overwhelm the downtown’s old structures. In about eight blocks of the downtown, Stumpf points out, “we doubled the [permissible] development intensity, from a 3.0 FAR [floor area ratio] to 6.0 FAR.” A single-story, 14-screen movie complex is currently under construction on Main Street, with two-thirds of its street frontage reserved for retail space, to help create a relatively pedestrian-oriented streetscape. The movie complex is “a signal of the mixture of uses we want to encourage in downtown — more entertainment and cultural things,” Stumpf says, noting that the National Steinbeck Center is less than 200 feet from the theater. On the opposite side of Main Street, a 14-story hotel and condominium complex, which will probably also include some offices and retail, will be built if it gets the city’s approval. Toward urbanism for new growth On the outskirts, too, the city is beginning to encourage New Urbanism. CreekBridge Homes, one of the area’s biggest homebuilders, has announced its intention to move from conventional subdivision development toward New Urbanism. So far, the company’s transition has been gradual. At a 1,300-home development named CreekBridge, the builder recently completed a shopping center called CreekBridge Village. Though touted by the local press as an example of New Urbanism, the L-shaped shopping center faces a large parking lot — an arrangement more conventional than new urbanist. But the shopping center does something rarely seen in retail developments on Salinas’s outskirts: it puts housing on top of the stores. CreekBridge Village features 17 two-story apartments, with strikingly modern silhouettes, above the shops. Deputy City Manager Robert Russell credits CreekBridge Homes with “trying to narrow the streets a bit [in residential areas], planting more trees between the streets and sidewalks” than is typical in new Salinas developments, and placing elementary schools within neighborhoods rather than at their fringes. The result is not full-fledged New Urbanism, Russell acknowledges, but “it gives you a more pedestrian-friendly atmosphere” than has been common in Salinas. Vince DiMaggio, a former Salinas senior planner who is now CreekBridge Homes’ vice president of planning and development, has in recent months been seeking city approval for a 475-acre development in northeast Salinas called CreekBridge 2. In that development the company wants to build neighborhoods with houses near restaurants, shopping, and other amenities as part of a 2,335-acre future growth area of the city. Because Salinas is surrounded by prime agricultural land and is experiencing a strong demand for housing, the city government became interested in “intensifying development of infill sites, especially in downtown,” and is encouraging mixed-use development in greenfield areas to the north, where Stumpf says the land is somewhat less valuable for agriculture than is the farmland south of the city. The Transportation Agency for Monterey County is planning a possible extension of Caltrain commuter rail service from Gilroy, south of San Jose, to Salinas. If the expansion occurs and the existing Salinas Amtrak station becomes an intermodal transportation center, there would be “huge positive implications for downtown development,” Stumpf says. In 2002 the city adopted a general plan that embraces ideas such as “encouraging mixed uses, bringing buildings forward, and putting parking in the back,” according to Tara Hullinger, a senior planner with the city. Calthorpe Associates of Berkeley worked with the city on design standards and housing types for future growth areas and advised the city on how to deal with “focused growth areas” — sections of the city core where mixed-use redevelopment will coexist with older buildings. Hullinger is now working on revising the city’s zoning ordinance to be consistent with the general plan. “We will have a mixed-use zoning district as well,” she notes. Other cities in Monterey County are also receiving proposals for developments that would go at least part of the way toward new urban ideas such as mixed uses, reduced setbacks, houses with front porches, and alleys. In July, CreekBridge Homes won permission to develop Arboleda, a 400-unit residential development south of Salinas, in King City. Arboleda will feature a mixture of sizes and types of dwellings and will have connected streets and alleys rather than cul-de-sacs. A middle school on 22 acres will occupy Arboleda’s center. Mike Novo, planning and building services manager for the county, notes that Pittsburgh-based Urban Design Associates teamed up with California-based Urban Community Partners to help shape plans for another development in King City, the East Garrison development at the former Fort Ord (see story below), and for a project in Carmel Valley. “For the valley towns they’re going into, it’s a step toward New Urbanism,” Novo says. u