State to Charlotte: Tough beans

Pick up any North Carolina state road map. Look at the close-up map of the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area. It’s liberally splashed with green: William B. Umstead State Park, Eno River State Park, Falls Lake State Recreation Area around Falls Lake, Jordan Lake State Recreation Area surrounding Jordan Lake.

Look at the close-up map of the Charlotte area. No state parks. The closest are Crowders Mountain State Park, west of Gastonia, and way at the tippy top of Lake Norman you’ll find modest Lake Norman State Park.

This lack of state largesse for parks around here has bugged me for years, just on general equitability grounds. I note the Triad – Greensboro, Winston-Salem and High Point – has a similar lack of state parks. What ticked me off afresh was a three-article package July 16 in the Neighbors of Lake Norman section of the Observer: “520 miles of shoreline. 125 yards of beach.” (Click here and here to see the rest of the package.)

Yep, that’s the only public swimming area on all of Lake Norman. Compare: B. Everett Jordan Lake in the Triangle serves the state’s second-largest metro area. It’s less than half the size of Lake Norman – 14,000 acres of water to Norman’s 32,500 – but has six public swimming areas. Who runs them? You guessed it: the state

Yeah, yeah, it’s an apples-to-oranges comparison: Jordan Lake was built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Norman by private Duke Power Co., now Duke Energy. Duke acquired all its lakefront land decades ago after being granted the power of eminent domain, because building electric power plants was in the public interest. But in terms of lakefront access, the general public hasn’t benefited much, from what I see, at least not compared with the general public that’s getting the use of those state recreation areas in the Triangle.

Sure, Duke was willing to SELL the land. Mecklenburg County taxpayers have paid millions over the years to preserve land along the Duke Power lakes at McDowell Nature Preserve, Latta Nature Preserve and around Mountain Island Lake. And yes, the state helped a bit with some of those purchases, primarily through Clean Water Trust Fund grants.

But as far as major money for major state parks? From what I see, the state’s response has been: “Tough beans, Charlotte.”

An insider's view of new CMS leader

Here’s a short behind-the-scenes report from a Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools insider:

Seems CMS’ new chief operating officer, Maurice “Mo” Green, was a big hit at a recent principals’ meeting. He gave a speech, says my source, that had the room in the palm of his hand. “A real Barak Obama moment” was the description.

My source was impressed not only with his intelligence, but with what was described as “humility,” in addition to that indefinable “leadership” quality.

The source is NOT a starry-eyed newcomer or a flak trying to spin to the press, but a seasoned educator who has worked with all kinds of bosses and is not, in my experience, prone to handing out over-the-top compliments just for the heck of it.

Green had been the school board’s lawyer until new Superintendent Peter Gorman tapped him to run the day-to-day operations of the school system.

Bus station blues -- redux

Sorry to be gone so long. Just spent more than a week in Memphis, Tenn., helping produce a planning "charrette" for the Knight Program in Community Building, based at the University of Miami. If you're curious about that, see this link.

You’ll recall that on June 23 I described my experience trying to take Bus 14 home from uptown. And you’ll recall that July 11 I reported that Charlotte Area Transit System CEO Ron Tober told me things would get fixed.

Herewith a report from my newsroom colleague Joe Sovacool, who rides the bus to work daily:

"The good news is that 14 is now correctly listed on the displays at the bus barn as bay A. The bad news is that the times for all routes on the displays have been wrong all week.Well, they’re likely right twice in a 24-hour period – they either read about 12:50p or 11:30p for all routes.

"This is not only not unheard-of, but common. Too bad, because when they’re functional they’re one of the better and more useful features over there.

"And I can predict what their response will be. To a bum like me, anyway. ..."

Artists Need Housing

If I had a dollar for every time someone in Charlotte in the past 25 years had talked about “artists and lofts” as a way to bring life to various parts of town, I wouldn’t be driving a 16-year-old car.

Artists are often the leading pioneers into neighborhoods that are ultimately reborn. Then, because the neighborhoods get popular, artists find themselves priced out of the market. It happens all over, not just in Charlotte. Our example currently is NoDa, or North Charlotte – the one-time mill neighborhood near 36th and North Davidson streets.

All those people thinking uptown will grow into an artsy district? Get real. It’s hard to make anything resembling a living wage as an artist, so artists are drawn to neighborhoods with affordable buildings -- usually old one that offer lots of space for not much cost. That doesn't describe anything uptown.

Why not build artists' housing uptown? The only way to build uptown housing you could rent out cheaply enough for artists would be if the land was donated. And what uptown land owner would do that?

Why build, you say? Just renovate older buildings, warehouses and such, as other cities have done. Well guess what. Charlotte government officials' lack of willingness to study any overall preservation strategies used in many other cities, such as height limits or limits on surface parking lots, caused most of the older buildings to be torn down. Those that remain and have been renovated (Charlotte Cotton Mills, for example -- bravo to the historic landmarks commission and developer Peter Pappas ) are now too expensive for artist housing.

So in Charlotte, artists are sprinkled throughout the city – in Stonehaven, Dilworth, Plaza-Midwood and County Club Acres, to list a few examples. That’s fine, except that when artists as an interest group are invisible because they're so dispersed, then the city feels as if it's missing some important vitality.

“That’s one of the challenges in Charlotte,” says Suzanne Fetscher, president of the McColl Center for Visual Art. “The lack of visibility of artists.”

If you’re interested in the issue of housing for artists, put this on your calendar:

7-8:30 p.m. Aug. 2, at the McColl Center for the Visual Art, 721 N. Tryon St. It’s a public forum to address the issue of affordable housing and/or live-work spaces for artists.

The event is a collaboration among the McColl Center, the Arts & Science Council, the N.C. Arts Council, Charlotte Center City Partners and the City of Charlotte. Facilitators will be representatives of ArtSpace Projects of Minneapolis. That’s a nonprofit group that has developed affordable live-work spaces for artists in some 20 U.S. cities.

What will they come up with? That depends on what they hear from people in Charlotte. If you're an artist or creative type -- or anyone with an interest in the issue -- make sure they hear from you.

CATS: Better Signs Coming

When last I blogged, I recounted my travails trying to find Bus 14 at the uptown Transportation Center, so I could ride it home one recent hot afternoon. Read it below.

Or here’s a short version: The sign said Bus 14 was at Bay Q, which was under construction. A temporary sign at Bay Q directed me vaguely to “Trade Street.” A customer service attendant sent me to “Bay A.” I knew where Bay A was because Bus 14 used to leave from there. The spot that used to be Bay A had no sign identifying itself. But once I found Bus 14 the ride was just dandy: clean and efficient.

Why not post maps of the whole system to help would-be bus-riders, I also asked. And I whined about a bad pedestrian connection from Fourth Street, where a sidewalk is missing due to construction. I hoped CATS had beat up on the city about that.

I offered to seek a response from Ron Tober, Charlotte Area Transit System CEO. And then I went on vacation for two weeks.

Tober, whom I had alerted but who was busy that day, later read the blog and readers’ comments. He even tried to add his response, but had computer difficulties. (Some of you have had the same problem, you tell me. My apologies.) Here’s what he told me today:

He has talked to his staff about the sign errors. “The person who’s responsible admitted they had messed up and not changed the electronic signage.” He said he believes the sign has been corrected. He said he was sorry to hear of my difficulties and apologized on behalf of CATS.

And he said CATS is investing in a new signage system, due to the light rail line, planned to open in fall 2007, which will have a major stop at the Transportation Center.

The new signs will show “real time” information, he said. The buses now have automatic locators, so you’ll be able to look at the signs and see when your bus is expected and at what bay.

Also, the customer service area will move to what’s now the supervisors’ booth in the middle of the center, and its hours will expand. In addition, a lot more bus schedule racks will be available.

He said they’ve been hesitant to post permanent system maps because they’ve made so many bus route changes over the past four-five years. “The question is what kind of map we can put up that will have some durability,” he said.

As to the Fourth Street sidewalk, he said, CATS had talked to the city Department of Transportation about the problem but CDOT didn’t think it was enough of a problem to provide a temporary sidewalk on that side of the street.

“I’m trying,” Tober told me, “not to criticize my fellow city department. Too much.”

User-friendly? Not CATS

The car was in the shop, so I tried to take the bus home the other day. I’ve done it before. Bus 14 quite handily runs very near our house. So why do the folks who run the bus system make it so hard to ride the bus? Maybe some more customer-friendliness would help them increase ridership.

I’ll see if I can get Ron Tober, Charlotte Area Transit System CEO, to respond to my little rant, which follows. If you have similar gripes, add them to the comments, and I’ll see if Tober will address them.

I walked from the Observer building at Tryon and Stonewall to the Transportation Center, between East Fourth and East Trade. It was late afternoon and it was hot enough to sweat just standing in the shade.

First, I notice that if you’re on Fourth Street, you can’t even get to the bus depot without jaywalking in rush hour traffic, because construction at the old convention center site has been allowed to close the sidewalk.

Memo to city officials: Put up a pedestrian passage on the bus station side of Fourth. It can’t be that hard, but if it is, paint in a pedestrian crosswalk across Fourth.

I arrived at the Transportation Center 20 minutes early. For years, Bus 14 left from Bay A on East Trade Street, but the last time I took it, it had moved to another bay. I couldn’t remember which, but happily, there are TV monitors to tell you where, in the vast and bus-filled depot, each bus arrives. It said Bus 14 was at Bay Q. I went to Bay Q. No Bus 14.

Because of construction, a small sign told me, Bus 14 stopped “along Trade Street.” Well, where along Trade Street? It’s a long street, with lots of traffic. I went to Trade Street but saw no signs mentioning Bus 14.

Luckily I was still about 15 minutes early. I sought out the information booth. A nice lady there said Bus 14 had moved to Bay A. I went to where I remembered Bay A had been, along Trade Street. By now I was sweating profusely in the heat. Luckily, I still had 5 minutes.

A clump of people loitered along Trade Street, but I saw no sign or any other indication that this was still Bay A, no benches, no list of what buses stopped there. But people waiting there confirmed it was Bus 14’s stop.

So, CATS folks, if some eager bus rider wants to take Bus 14, how in thunder is EBR supposed to find it? The TV display is wrong. The lone directional sign (at Bay Q) is so vague as to be useless. Bay A itself is going incognito. EBR is somehow expected to intuit that’s where it used to be.

Another hint: If I had missed Bus 14 by not happening to be 20 minutes early, I’d have been looking for alternative buses. Why not put up about 10 of those maps of the whole bus system in prominent places, so people like me could figure out options? It's S.O.P. in many big cities to have transit system maps all over the stations.

Not everything was negative, of course. Getting the schedule online was easy. The bus driver was friendly, the ride was (sort of) on time, and the trip itself comfortable and efficient.

I mentioned my adventures to a colleague who takes the bus to work daily and has for years. He just chuckled and said, in effect, it’s always like that.

It shouldn’t be.

Charlotte's "green" ranking

An online network for “healthy and sustainable living” this year looked at public and government data to rank the 50 largest U.S. cities on whether they’re “sustainable.” Charlotte’s in the fair-to-middling territory.

Here’s how SustainLane defines sustainability: “Hallmarks of sustainable cities include a commitment to public health, an emphasis on creating a strong local economy, and citizens and city officials working together to make positive, thoughtful choices for the long-term benefit of the city and its residents.”

The rankings looked at data for categories such as air quality, traffic congestion, tap water quality, how many local buildings were environmentally sensitive, or “green” buildings, use of transit, etc. Highlights: Portland, Ore., ranked No. 1. Columbus, Ohio, ranked last, at 50. Here's a link to a MarketWatch.com story on the rankings.

Charlotte was at 34. None of the six cities in the Southeast came off well. At 34, Charlotte was second in the region. Miami ranked 29, Jacksonville 36, Atlanta 38, Nashville 42 and Memphis 43.

In its assessment of the city, the report said: “In both air and water quality, Charlotte receives low scores. The tap water (#27) has 15 contaminants, 4 of which exceed the recommended limit, and the air quality (#37) is poor. Both of these concerns are at the forefront of smart growth impacts. The Environmental Leadership Policy for Mecklenburg County [Did you know this group existed? Kudos for its having been created, but a higher profile might be nice] highlights air quality as the most urgent environmental concern. They also recognize that air quality is part of a larger growth management issue.”

The report praises a relatively high degree of awareness in local government. In planning and land use, the city ranked No. 18, and Atlanta – ha! – was dead last at 50.

(For methodology geeks: For all the cities, city-only data was used except in four categories. Three – regional public transit, road congestion and metro area sprawl – used metro area data. One – air quality – used countywide data.)

So do you think Charlotte's been accurately characterized in the ranking? Comments welcome below.

One quibble: If you read deep into the report, you’ll see that among the “experts” the report talked with were Mecklenburg County’s Land Use and Environmental Services director Cary Saul, and Mayor Pat McCrory, who’s never been shy about trumpeting all the great and wonderful and wise things our city government is doing. A skeptical part of me wonders if Hizzoner’s enthusiasm might have helped win some points in categories such as "Knowledge base," in which Charlotte tied for No. 1 with 10 other cities. The Charlotte report says, for example: “Although it doesn’t look like Charlotte has a very strong sustainable economy, several exciting trends are emerging."

Defending Mike Easley

Two high-ranking state government officials beg to differ with my June 2 item, “Governor envy,” (several items below this one) in which I said I wished N.C. Gov. Mike Easley sounded more like the way Rhode Island Gov. Donald Carcieri had sounded in speaking to the Congress for the New Urbanism in Providence, R.I., on June 2.

Carcieri talked about the importance of preserving his state’s historic communities from unwise development – he used CVS as an example of unattractive building – and criticized the way interstate highways has been allowed to destroy neighborhoods. “I just believe people are attracted to attractive places,” he said.

N.C. Transportation Secretary Lyndo Tippett and William Ross, secretary of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, sent this response in praise of Easley’s actions in environmental and community preservation:

It is indeed troubling that Mary Newsom (“Governor Envy”) would write about an issue in which she has not done her homework. She said that while she does not know much about Rhode Island Gov. Donald Carcieri, she wishes the comments he made recently concerning environmental and community preservation were also espoused by Gov. Mike Easley.

A speech is one thing, but when it comes to action, Gov. Easley’s record speaks clearly of his work to preserve North Carolina’s natural resources and communities while recognizing the struggle to cope with explosive growth.

We would not want you to just take our word for it. Here is what others say about the Easley administration’s effective work. The Innovation in American Government Awards honored the state in 2003 for its Ecosystem Enhancement Program, one of the nation’s top 50 new governmental initiatives. Through this program, the state has committed its resources to restore, enhance and protect its wetlands and waterways. It combines an existing wetlands-restoration initiative by the state Department of Environment and Natural Resources with
ongoing environmental efforts by the N.C. Department of Transportation. Since 2003, the two agencies have demonstrated national leadership in working together to provide for the state’s transportation needs while protecting and enhancing the environment.

Last year the Federal Highway Administration recognized the state with three of 11 awards it made for environmental excellence:

– Excellence in Environmental Research for the N.C. Department of Transportation’s Environmental Research Program’s work to improve knowledge of transportation’s effects on the natural environment and communities.

– Excellence in Scenic Byways for the state Department of Transportation’s efforts to create and expand the state Scenic Byways program.

– Excellence in Non-Motorized Transportation for the Reedy Creek Greenway and I-440 pedestrian bridge in Wake County.

Through One North Carolina Naturally, Gov. Easley’s statewide land and water initiative, more than 420,000 acres of land have been preserved, including the addition of nearly 40,000 acres to the park system. Just this year, Gov. Easley has been fighting to stop the federal government from selling National Forest lands in the state, protesting federal plans for oil and gas leasing off our coast, moving to protect 174,000 acres of National Forest lands from potential Bush administration rules changes to allow development and adding 77,000 acres of land to be protected from development.

Gov. Easley’s latest budget proposals call for more spending to make sure that there is greater compliance with habitat protection along our coast, expands efforts to control sediment and erosion and seeks greater efforts to protect the public in locating solid waste treatment and disposal facilities. In addition, he proposes spending $15 million to purchase land to expand the Chimney Rock tract in Hickory Nut Gorge State Park.

These and other ongoing efforts are just the way North Carolina goes about its business and would do any state and any governor proud. Whether facing billion-dollar budget shortfalls or facing exploding population growth, Gov. Easley keeps the protection of our state’s natural resources at the top of his priorities.

Ranting, Or A Real Threat?

James Howard Kunstler (“The Geography of Nowhere,” “Home From Nowhere,” and the newly published, “The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century”) and New Urbanists have a mutual admiration society, so he’s almost always a speaker at the annual Congress of the New Urbanism. Usually he’s the most entertaining one.

Here are a few excerpts from his talk, “The Post-Carbon Society: An Overview,” at the most recent CNU in Providence. It’s based on my notes, so it isn’t a complete transcript, and in most places I’ve paraphrased because I’m not confident of the precise accuracy of the quotes. If it’s in quote marks, it’s exactly as he said it:

People defend conventional suburbia by saying it’s OK because people like it. They choose it. “But it’s going to be taken off the menu.”

He loves to talk about American delusions. One, he said, is the belief that it’s possible to get something for nothing. The other he dubbed the phenomenon of “When you wish upon a star your dreams come true.”

“The leading religion in America is the worship of unearned riches,” he said.

In other words, he thinks Americans are clueless about what we will need to do if – he’d say when – the energy crisis really hits us.

He described going to Google headquarters in Silicon Valley, in a large big-box office building. It was decked out like a preschool, he said, with 27-year-old millionaires “dressed like skateboard rats,” exemplifying a pattern of “childishness at the very highest levels of technological enterprise.” He gave them his talk predicting the end of the petroleum age. He said their response was: “Dude. We’ve got technology.”

But they’re confusing “technology” with “energy,” he said. The long emergency – the economic breakdown from a loss of cheap, carbon-based energy sources – is going to create winners and losers and the lower middle class will be the losers, he said. Revolution, even fascism, might be the possible results of the chaos from the economic failure.

He predicted a “meltdown of hallucinated wealth.”

The intelligent response to the threat, he said, is the down-scaling of America: food production, commerce and trade, schooling and "the way we inhabit the terrain of America.”

His prediction: Big cities will contract and redensify at their centers. Waterfronts will once again become economic engines.

I don’t always agree with what Kunstler writes and says, but if you get a chance to hear him, take it. He’s an excellent, compelling lecturer. And his “Geography of Nowhere” and “Home from Nowhere” are accessible, finely written and excellently researched books about American planning, cities and suburbia.

Still Fighting For Neighborhoods

Before I return to the topic of Providence – author James Howard Kunstler gave a delightful rant I hope to share – I’m turning this space over to former neighborhood activist and ex-planning commissioner Pat Dayton.

You’ve probably not heard of Pat Dayton, unless you were in Charlotte in the 1990s and paying attention to the still-notorious-in-some-circles fight over the “power center” near UNC Charlotte. In that episode, UNCC partnered with influential developer John Crosland, who wanted to build a big-box strip shopping center, which undermined the city’s plan for the University City area. Dayton, who lived in the University Place area, lobbied strongly against the Crosland Center and acquired some powerful enemies. Later that year she was appointed to the planning commission to an unexpired term. When her term ended the next year, she was not – as is routine – reappointed.

She had seen a couple of references in the May 13 Observer to Mahlon Adams. Here’s what she wrote. She called it: “A Seat At The Table.”

Mahlon Adams was mentioned twice in the May 13 Observer. “On March 8, the Mecklenburg County Commissioners voted to name the Pavilion at Freedom Park after Mahlon Adams.” And, “ ... Mrs. Adams got mad about a rezoning in 1980 and never stopped.”Mary Newsom made the second reference in a column about the billboard ordinance. She noted that Mahlon Adams (age 81) is a member of a citizens’ committee to protect the city billboard ordinance from being weakened by changes requested by the billboard industry. [Mary here: The committee is to study proposed changes. Some members prefer to protect the ordinance.] She is still working for the good of “her city.”

Who is Mahlon Adams?During the ’80s I was busy earning a living and raising a family, but I enjoyed keeping up with local politics and development through the newspaper. Every week, it seemed, there was a letter to the editor from Mahlon Adams. It was always about a zoning issue that she felt would be detrimental to neighborhoods and individual citizens. Her letters were always factual – not rampages against the system.

The public began to take notice. Politicians and developers called her a “kook” and a nuisance. Mahlon Adams was the first “neighborhood activist,” and she stood alone.

In those days you could build a house next to a field. One day a bulldozer would appear. You watched a shopping center arise out of the ground. Developers were not obligated to consult you in their planning. Mahlon was determined to change that. She applied for a seat on the Planning Commission each year for 11 years. She was rejected each year. She started writing letters to the editor – lots of letters. She quietly attended meetings of the Planning Commission. She wasn’t allowed to speak, but she was there.

“Mahlon Adams is appointed to the Planning Commission,” the Observer announced. It took 11 years, but Mahlon was ready to move the back room of politics to the front room.

I got mad about a rezoning in 1992. Because of Mahlon, I was heard. I was appointed to the Planning Commission the next year and had the privilege of working with Mahlon on neighborhood issues.

The citizens of Charlotte owe a huge debt to Mahlon Adams. Take a walk around the lake in Freedom Park, glance at the [Mahlon Adams] Pavilion, and be aware that it is gratefully dedicated to a real freedom fighter.

When I asked Pat’s permission to post her tribute to Mahlon, her reply contained this:

Mahlon is responsible for builders having to share their plans with neighborhoods. That was a significant breakthrough in exposure. It seems like a tiny thing in the scope of things, but has had impact. I was struck by the two references which showed her still fighting. I’m 77 years old, and I’m through fighting. More power to her. Thanks, Pat.

Nurture artists, and other lessons

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Before I launch into What Charlotte Can Learn From Providence, here’s a quick reality check to some of the people making comments on my last post, “Governor envy.”
First, Rhode Island Gov. Donald Carcieri, is a Republican, a millionaire and a retired CEO. He’s not a flaming liberal.

Second, I wasn’t proposing N.C. state government take over zoning. Good grief. They have enough gridlock as it is. I meant that the state should put “land use planning” on its radar screen as it makes state-level decisions, such as locating and designing state roads, or in its water/sewer regulations. I didn’t say it in the post, but the state should go ahead and give more power to local governments. But the state’s relentless insistence that it leaves land use planning to local governments is delusional.

Back to Providence. Downtown is reviving nicely. I was there for the Congress for the New Urbanism, an organization of 3,000 or more architects, planners, developers and others, which held its national meeting here

Thursday morning some of us got a quick tour of downtown. Our guide: Local developer Douglas Storrs of Cornish Associates (www.cornishlp.com). They’re famous in some circles for the Mashpee Commons development in Mashpee, Mass., where they bought a typical suburban-style shopping center and turned it into a New Urbanist neighborhood with a town center.
They’ve also bought and renovated a number of buildings in downtown Providence, putting stores at street level and offices or condos above.

Some of what Storrs and others are doing, while interesting, isn’t terribly relevant to Charlotte, where so many old buildings were demolished and replaced with sterile new ones having either terrible retail space, or nonexistent retail space.

But some is, especially since Charlotte Center City Partners says it wants to encourage more uptown retail:

When Cornish Associates buys and restores a building, Storrs said, it keeps ownership and offers inexpensive retail leases – $1.40 a square foot, for example. They know some retail is better than none, and low-cost leases pay off in the long run. He’s right. Even national retailers are starting to come in now, including Design Within Reach.

He also said large-footprint blocks and projects make retail leasing difficult, because the size keeps out all the but the biggest players.

When retail space isn’t leased, they let artists use it as display space.

I’m not saying Charlotte should try to become Providence, or vice versa, or that Providence is a better place. They’re different. But if we’re smart, we’ll learn from others. Here are some lessons for Charlotte:

No more megablock projects. Figure out how to carve out small properties.

Move what needs to move. Providence moved railroad tracks to uncover its riverfront. Charlotte should move its uptown loop, or better yet, put a top on it and make a park. If Providence can think big, so can we.

Nurture artists. Give them space, and let them attract other creative people. Artists will have a bunch of bizarre ideas and some of those bizarre ideas will catch fire. Maybe even literally, as in Providence, where an artist’s idea for bonfires in the downtown river in 1994 evolved into WaterFire, a major attraction for both locals and tourists.

Insist on good retail space in new buildings. One reason stores are returning to downtown Providence is that shop space still exists. Charlotte let developers tear down store space, and although it requires retail space in new buildings uptown, its flabby rules allow badly located, inward-focused stores. Latest offender: ImaginOn. It has a great little gift shop buried inside? Who knew?

The Mint Museum of Craft + Design finally gave its gift shop an exterior door, much to the benefit of uptown shoppers. Memo to library honchos: Get a clue.

Governor envy

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – My affection for, and pride, in North Carolina get hurt when the governor of another state gives speeches that make me wish Gov. Mike Easley would be as visionary.

Today, the governor who stung my Tar Heel pride was Donald Carcieri of Rhode Island.

I’m here attending the national conference of the Congress for the New Urbanism. CNU is an organization of 3,000-some members: developers, architects, planners, designers and assorted others, including traffic engineers and even a few storm water engineers.

Their conferences are usually full of people telling about interesting developments or ideas or plans. Several Charlotte-area people and other Carolinians are here, including Charlotte architect Terry Shook, Concord developer David Mayfield, plus Chapel Hill architect/engineer/planner Tony Sease.

Carcieri, the Rhode Island governor, gave a short talk this morning as the conference opened. He seemed like a regular, Rhode Island kind of guy – the sort who’d slap you on the back, buy you a beer and kiss any infant in the room. In other words, he doesn’t come off as a policy wonk or a professorial type, or as a blow-dried 5-by-7 glossy, either.

Then he started talking about the importance of history and how interstate highways had destroyed the fabric of beautiful communities. He clearly understands the importance of place and how it relates to an economy: "You don’t see people go to ugly places," he said.

He talked about the way that the look of buildings affects land use: "When I go down Broad Street here and see a CVS – one story, surrounded with parking – I think ‘What a waste.’ "

"It all sort of links together in my mind," he said.

It made me wonder: Has Gov. Mike Easley ever learned enough about cities and how they’re built and how it all "links together?"

I haven’t seen much evidence of him caring at way about the physical world we inhabit in North Carolina. Our state has places of great beauty and history and it has been, and is being corroded by ugly, poorly thought-out development and scarred by ill-considered highway plans and designs. But it’s losing much of its rural beauty by just drifting into sprawl – due to a vacuum of state leadership.

Many in state government will try to excuse their flabby inattention, saying "Land use is a local issue." That’s a load of baloney.

For one thing, the only powers local government in North Carolina has are what the state grants them. Zoning, land use planning, subdivision ordinances – all require state enabling laws.

For another thing, the state designs and builds roads and highways. That’s one of the most powerful land use tools around.

I don’t know enough about Rhode Island politics to know whether Carcieri is a good governor or a shoddy one. All I know is that I wish the words that were coming out of his mouth this morning would also come out of Mike Easley’s mouth one of these days.

Your Chance To Sound Off

OK, residents of Plaza-Midwood, Dilworth, Cotswold, Myers Park. Here’s your chance to sound off.

A couple of Plaza-Midwood residents gave me a short tour the other day, of Ashland Avenue, where a hugely out-of-scale house is going up next to the rest of the street’s modest bungalows. They were outraged at what they considered the lack of taste. Can’t anyone do anything, they asked?

And a resident of Carmel Acres Drive copied the newspaper with her e-mail to the mayor, in which she complains about “a 7,000-square-foot house (or rather hotel)” that is “totally out of proportion for the neighborhood.”

“It seems,” she wrote, “that builders can do whatever they want, and they are compromising the integrity of our beautiful older neighborhoods.”

What can you do? Here’s what’s happening in another booming Southern city:

Earlier in May, the DeKalb County (Ga.) commissioners voted to allow two neighborhoods to prevent houses taller than 28 feet to be built within their subdivisions. The article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution called them “Hummer houses.”

The two neighborhoods, Meadowcliff and Diamond Head, will be covered by a special zoning overlay district.

As you’d expect, it’s a controversial issue, and one developer who has built some of the big houses plans to sue over the zoning for Meadowcliff, the AJC reports. The mayor of Atlanta earlier this year issued a temporary moratorium on construction in five neighborhoods hit by teardowns, to provide a cooling-off period. But the city council didn’t extend the moratorium. City planners are reviewing residential zoning codes to see what could be done.

What's the city's best course of action? Some people say, “Nothing, it’s the market at work.” Others say, “That ugly monstrosity has affected my property – it ruins my view, and it’s so out of place it ruins the look of the whole street. They shouldn’t be allowed to ruin other people's property that way.”

What do you think?

The next growth hot spot

Union County was the Charlotte region’s hot spot for growth from 1970 to 2000, with a 126 percent growth rate.

Mecklenburg was No. 2, at 96 percent, then Lincoln, 95 percent, and York at 93 percent. Cabarrus was at 76 percent growth, Iredell at 70.

But among the under-70-percent growth counties, will one of them leap to that hot-spot list in the coming decade? If so, which one?

Bill McCoy, retired director of the Urban Institute at UNC Charlotte and a savvy growth watcher from way back, has his prediction. What’s yours? Add your comments below.

Here are the under-70-percent growth counties (remember it’s for 1970-2000):
Catawba, 56 percent
Rowan 45 percent
Lancaster 42 percent
Stanly 36 percent
Cleveland 33 percent
Gaston 28 percent
Chester 14 percent
Anson 8 percent

McCoy’s pick: Lancaster County, because of the huge Sun City development. And, he says, “They are putting it to the developers more than you would expect a place like Lancaster County to do.” He means the county is requiring developers to pay for some of the things the development will make necessary, such as new fire stations, etc.

He also thinks eastern Gaston County will soar. “Newcomers don’t have those old notions about Gaston County,” he says. If you’re from Pennsylvania or another distant state, he says, “Belmont looks about as good as any other place.”

Another interesting fact from McCoy: In the Charlotte region, 41 acres a day – more than 30 [not three, as I mistakenly wrote Tuesday] football fields a day – are being converted from undeveloped to developed. That's every day.

Growth: Who should pay?

My Saturday column about impact fees – playing off economists’ views against developers’ views – drew some provocative responses. Below are a couple, one from a developer, one from a county manager.

From Don Long of Lake Wylie, S.C.: Mary, there must be something strange in the air. I’ve agreed with two of your Viewpoint columns in a row ...

I’ve been involved with development as a planning board chairman, developer and interested citizen for 35 years. I’ve seen the development community successfully lobby their way out of impact fees several times in several locations over that period.

But the fact is that impact fees are a very effective and appropriate way to help fund the public services that new development adds to the public expense roster. And with respect to their generating higher housing prices, I don’t think the evidence bears that out. Somebody, somehow, is going to have to pay for what the public wants and needs in the way of public services and facilities including schools, infrastructure maintenance, etc. We can get some of that on the way in from impact fees, or sock it all to the community in general.

An example: Fort Mill, S.C. enacted impact fees on new development a few years ago before the S.C. legislature, in its well-lobbied infinite wisdom, made it virtually impossible for municipalities to adopt impact fees in S.C. It’s obvious, since Fort Mill is the fastest-growing area in York County – which, in turn, is one of the three fastest-growing counties in S.C. – that impact fees really slowed things down and put housing prices out of sight. Yeh, right.

Impact fees have provided much-needed funds for schools and other public services while not really having any substantive impact on development or developers.

From Gaston County Manager Jan Winters: Great article on impact fees. I would like to share a couple of thoughts.

I have worked in communities with impact fees in California, Colorado and south Florida. One observation is that generally the communities with impact fees had the highest growth rates, and the communities without impact fees had the lowest. Although somewhat counterintuitive, it makes sense when you consider that without growth, you don’t need a lot of new infrastructure. More important, it shows that the cost of impact fees rarely curtail development.

Michael Stegman at UNC Chapel Hill did a study a number of years ago that found the cost of impact fees initially was paid by land owners. Seems that developers/builders can’t control labor cost or material costs, but they can negotiate harder on land prices or move further out – as they know the market sets the price and they need to control their costs. Interestingly, where large subdivisions straddle a county line, one with impact fees and one without, the cost of homes is usually the same on both sides of the line. It is the market that sets the price.

What is fair? Clearly depends upon your point of view. If you think from the perspective of a widow on a fixed income who has lived in her modest home for 40-plus years – why should her taxes race higher so newcomers to the community can buy $300,000-plus houses without paying for the demands they are placing on the system? What about existing residents who move to a new home? If builders are right, and ultimately the impact fee is reflected in the new house price, since there is some ratio between the prices of new homes and existing homes, the community resident who moves to a new home trades in his unearned increment of equity due to impact fees.

Will impact fees ever be enough to cover new residents’ costs to the community? I don’t think that’s the point. The unfairness of existing homeowners in $100,000 homes having to subsidize new growth in more expensive homes is troubling. This perceived unfairness may give rise to anti-growth movements or a go-slow approach to infrastructure.

In the final analysis, infrastructure will have a decisive impact of growth. Without adequate schools, road capacity, water and sewer capacity, our quality of life suffers and our community becomes less desirable. So it is in all our interests to pragmatically solve this problem, rather than staking out positions.

I have seen builders and developers reluctantly accept impact fees when they were guaranteed that a) they would be charged only their prorated fair share, b) the funds collected could only be used for infrastructure within a geographic area to benefit the development, and c) the funds must be spent in timely fashion or refunded.

The benefits are enormous: 1) the development system becomes more transparent and fair – no more “Why was another developer charged only $X million for road improvements, utility extensions, school sites, etc when I am being charged $Y million?” 2) Local governments have a fairly steady new income source that they can program for infrastructure improvements rather than fight annual budget battles. 3) Developers come to appreciate the predictability of the new system – and especially those who have large projects with long build-out time frames appreciate the relationship between quality of life and the continued marketability of their product. 4) As the existing residents find their taxes aren’t continually increasing to support new growth and that there is a system in place to ensure that quality of life is maintained, they become less opposed to growth.

Last caution: Impact fees can’t possibly solve all the infrastructure needs, but are an important piece in the puzzle. We still need to look at lottery funds, possibly a half-cent sales tax with a referendum for new capital projects, bonds for ongoing unmet needs that benefit that entire community, and possibly even a transfer tax. I do think that it is very, very important to earmark all funds and tie a direct benefit to those who make the payment.

Since it is in everyone’s self-interest, I think this entire discussion about impact fees should eventually lead to a collaborative process between developers/builders and local government/community activists on how to solve our common problems.

'Special' special interests

If you’re a council watcher, or just someone who likes seeing the way the developers’ lobby jerks around elected officials, be sure to be watching the Monday night City Council meeting.

The council is scheduled to vote on a Transportation Action Plan, a document that’s been in the works 2 1/2 years. There have been four public hearings.

But April 24, when the council was supposed to vote, up popped the Real Estate and Building Industry Coalition, known by its froggy-sounding acronym REBIC. They had some concerns, they said. (Some history – REBIC has “concerns” about any city or county proposal that would cause developers to do things differently, such as build sidewalks or stop building in floodplains or save trees or even just build planting strips large enough for new street trees to grow in.)

Immediately Mayor Pat McCrory and council member John Lassiter – each of whom, like many local elected officials, gets substantial campaign donations from REBIC’s political action committee as well as from individual developers – moved to postpone the vote. And so the council postponed the vote. Because one special interest group wanted them to.

All special interests are equal, you see, but some are more equal than others. Michael Barnes, a newly elected council member from District 4 who’s lived in Charlotte only since 1998, was amazed. “I knew what the organization was, but I didn’t realize their political weight,” he told me Friday. “I had not dealt with them – meaning they hadn’t given me any money.”

He made his dismay clear at the meeting. The Observer’s Richard Rubin quoted him saying, “Other than wanting (to make) yourself seem politically popular with special-interest groups, there’s no good reason to delay this.”

REBIC had had plenty of time to make any objections known well in advance. So did you, assuming you’re a resident of Charlotte or own a business here.

But when you object to something, or want to propose something, you’re lucky if you can get a council member to take your phone call. REBIC doesn’t have that problem. The city department of transportation even holds a regular luncheon for REBIC and other developers, where REBIC leaders get not only a free lunch paid for by you, the taxpayers, but they are assured of the ear of the top CDOT leaders. I wrote about it two years ago.

Barnes is going to be fun to watch, as he learns even more about how things work around here. I hope he’ll continue to pipe up when he thinks special interests are being treated as if they’re a bit too special.

Hope for East Charlotte?

Does East Charlotte have a future? That’s what reader and East Charlotte resident Diane Ruggiero asked me this week:

Hi Mary. I often read your column in the Observer and I was wondering what you think of what’s happening in East Charlotte.

I am a resident of Sheffield, a lovely little community surrounded by Independence, Albemarle, Sharon Amity, Central, and Eastway. The neighborhood is filled with lovely houses, mostly built in the 1950s (ours was built in 1954 and sits on a half acre of land).

We have lived in our current house for over eight years (and in an east side apartment before that) and we have seen the decline of the surrounding businesses. Fortunately, our neighborhood has held on.With the upcoming closing of a Harris Teeter [at Eastland mall], this leaves another empty big box on the east side. The old Upton’s building on Albemarle has been empty for close to 10 years. Hannafords is empty. Eastland Mall is on the decline and holding on as best it can. (Dillard’s is now only on one level and is an outlet store).

It is nice to see the multi-cultural aspect of Central Avenue, but with immigration such a hot topic, it makes me wonder about what will happen if people leave. I am concerned that the new transit station at the mall will only bring more crime to that area.

We now have a highway sign at the end of our street as people enter onto Independence. I have not seen a more useless sign in this city (and that is saying something).

Given what you have seen in this city and in others, what do you think the future holds for the East Side?

What do you think, readers? I know this blog has a good number of east-siders reading it regularly. Thoughts?

Here’s how I answered Diane:

Thanks very much for your note. I had heard from someone – though no one in a position of authority – that Eastland folks were negotiating with another grocery store to take over the Harris Teeter space. Which doesn’t get to your overall point, but does at least hold out the hope there won’t be another huge empty building there.

I just went through Sheffield for the first time the other day and was amazed at what an attractive neighborhood it is. It’s too bad it’s hidden by the commercial glop on Albemarle Road, etc. But with housing prices what they are in Charlotte, I expect Sheffield will be “discovered” any day now, so hang on.

Overall, though, I don’t know what the future holds for the east side. It’s a long-running story whose end, at least now, isn’t foretold.

To elaborate: The whole east side of Charlotte should be a long-term case study for some urban studies professor. East Charlotte got developed with a never-say-no-to-developers attitude on the part of city and county decision-makers. Now it isn’t urban enough to be “cool” to the growing market of people looking for city living, but isn’t new enough to attract people looking for suburban living.

The city has skimped on police coverage – everywhere, not just east Charlotte. But the more people feel unsafe, the less those east side neighborhoods maintain their property values.

The city hasn’t bitten the bullet and adopted affordable housing policies – such as inclusionary zoning – to effectively spread housing for the non-rich into all sectors of the city. So the east has a disproportionate share. (See above, re property values.)

The city (and the county, which for years had responsibility for this) skimps on nuts-and-bolts enforcement of housing codes and zoning rules. Even when enforcement happens, fines are laughable. Meanwhile, zoning inspection martinets spend their time shutting down a Newell farmer’s market that the community welcomed. Go figure.

The city and county, kneeling at developers’ feet, seriously overzoned for retail in east Charlotte. They passively OK's rezonings to let retailers build new stores farther out, and abandon old ones.

I could go on, but I won’t. Schools alone are a subject worthy of someone’s doctoral dissertation.

Will those attractive, relatively affordable neighborhoods such as Sheffield begin attracting urban pioneers the way Plaza-Midwood and NoDa have, and now Merry Oaks and Briar Creek-Woodland? I’m optimistic – especially if the Central Avenue streetcar really gets built. Hang in there, east-siders.

NoDa: A contrary view

Paul McBroom takes issue with an Observer editorial – the unsigned pieces that run on the Opinion Page – that I wrote last month.

The editorial said the historic North Davidson Street neighborhood known as NoDa (formerly North Charlotte) is at risk from intense, transit-oriented development. It said high-rise buildings, which are in general a welcome transit-oriented form of development, would create irresistible economic pressure through rising land values. Without some protections in place, it said, those rising values would doom the historic commercial area and its older, one- and two-story buildings that now house art galleries and restaurants. The rising values would also doom the surrounding small, historic mill village.

McBroom, who with wife Sharon Pate owns Neighborhood Properties and formerly ran Neighborhood Realty, took me on a quick NoDa tour last week to explain why he thinks high-rise development is the only thing that will save the area. I’m familiar with the neighborhood, having visited it off and on since it was a fading mill neighborhood knows as North Charlotte.

But I hadn’t driven through the residential streets in a few years. It’s booming with home renovations. Houses are being expanded, front and back. Some are losing their old mill-house look; others retain it, but with updates. There’s even an in-ground swimming pool going in next to an old mill house.

McBroom has been involved with NoDa properties for more than 15 years. “I came to NoDa early, but I wasn’t one of the first ones with the vision,” he says. He and Sharon own the Neighborhood Theatre building, a venue they launched in 1997 until leasing its management to others in 2003.

Here’s his view: He thinks high-rise buildings along the to-be-built light rail line – which will run along railroad tracks that cross 36th Street about a block from North Davidson – will help preserve the low-scale downtown area. In his view, high-intensity development at the tracks would provide an outlet for development pressure that otherwise would doom the historic commercial area.

Further, he thinks all the renovations, including the ones erasing the character of the old mill houses, are necessary in order to attract today’s homebuyers. Without those newcomers and their money, he says, the area still risks being perceived as a low-income, high-crime area. Right now it’s hot, but he says, “There are too many things that are fragile.”

He also says, “What’s happening on the other side of 485 is going to hurt NoDa more than anything that’s going to happen here.” He means NoDa’s competition for economic development dollars isn’t uptown, Elizabeth or Dilworth, but Ballantyne and farther out.

“What’s here now isn’t sustainable without drastic new growth,” he says. I hope he’s right, because I have real affection for the neighborhood. Do I think he’s right? Sadly, no. Since the 1970s I’ve watched rising land values in uptown Charlotte set off an economic domino game that swept away almost all the older, personality-filled buildings that many uptown boosters now longingly wish we had.

It would be nice if some reasonable blend of new and old can be crafted, with strategic forethought to protect the flavor of the area, but allowing enough new to provide the economic rebirth McBroom talks about. But I don’t see any of that planning happening, which is why I’m afraid for the neighborhood.

But this is one area where I’d be happy to be proven wrong.

Ersatz English: Disney-on-Rea

The new development, its builders will say, will look like an English countryside village. It will be called Mayfair – a countryside village bearing the name of very pricey but decidedly urban London neighborhood.

Except, it’s nowhere near the countryside. It will be on Rea Road, deep in the heart of south Charlotte’s suburbia.

In England, of course, country villages are in the countryside – and the countryside is protected from development by powerful planning laws that set growth boundaries around each village. Unlike North Carolina, in England developers can’t fling subdivisions into the countryside. That’s why Americans think the English countryside is so beautiful they’re willing to buy into ersatz England in south Charlotte. They just don’t want to let our government try anything to protect our countryside. We want picturesque England without any of the hard political work required to create and maintain it.

And it’s not a village. It’s a cluster of 59 townhomes on 11 acres. It’s about a mile down Rea Road from a shopping center, which is decidedly not the same thing as the traditional English cluster of small shops. An English village has houses, stores, churches, pubs, schools – all within a close walk of one another. An English village is not a clump of townhouses, no matter how cutely designed with faux half-timbering, marketed to the relatively narrow slice of society, who can afford $300,000 to $500,000 dwellings.

Oh, and just in case you wanted that neighborly feel – you know, the kind of warm welcome you usually find if you visit an English village pub or tea shop, a sense of being invited to be part of their community, if only for a few hours? The “English countryside village” will be gated. You are not welcome there. Prince Charles and Camilla are not welcome there.

In England, a countryside village does not have a locked gate around it.

The motto of the state of North Carolina is Esse quam videre – to be rather than to seem. And in Charlotte, people wonder why the rest of the state thinks Charlotte isn't really part of North Carolina.

Those Evil Buses

The east and west sides of Charlotte have been afraid that the transit system the city is building will end up with classy light rail or commuter rail for all the other corridors but yucky buses for the East and West.

I’m just back from a two-day conference in Boston (Cambridge, to be precise) and one afternoon we ended up riding around the greater Boston area on the T – meaning using the heavy rail (that is, subway) system primarily but also taking a short hop on the new Silver Line. Bus. Bus Rapid Transit. In the argot of Transportation Jargon, it’s BRT.

If you travel much in Boston you probably already know the Red line goes to Harvard Square in Cambridge. The Green line goes to Fenway Park and to whatever they call Boston Garden these days. The Blue line goes to the aquarium and goes sort of near Logan Airport. Now, the new Silver Line goes to the airport, too, and depending on where you’re going it’s got a good chance of being a better choice, meaning fewer transfers, than Blue.

The Silver Line is – how to put this and still sound like a journalist? – gorgeous. The station is new and clean, which isn’t how you’d describe many of Boston’s aging subway stations.

These buses aren’t like the ones that ply the streets of Boston, Charlotte, or just about any other city of any size. They’re new, but just as important, they’re powered by overhead electrical lines, which makes them clean and quiet. They can also switch to diesel fuel. They’re designed so people hauling luggage don’t have to lift the suitcases to get from platform to bus. In the section of the Silver Line we went on, the bus had its own dedicated path, just like the subway does. In fact, part of the newly opened Silver Line runs through a tunnel that had to be carved underneath downtown Boston. Swedish boring equipment, I was told.

Some parts of the Silver Line that have to go into Boston traffic aren’t as rapid. And the Silver Line, at this point, is in two sections with no connection – a connection that will cost hundreds of millions of dollars to make.

One attraction of bus rapid transit is that it’s cheaper than laying rails. Seems to me, though, when you tunnel under a city and install electrical wires you’re making BRT kinda pricey. Even so, it was cheaper than just adding another subway link. And in 20 years or so – once the Big Dig is paid for, presumably – the Silver Line can be converted to rail if that seems important and there’s money available.

Of course, part of the reason to build the transit system in Charlotte is to attract growth to the transit corridors. Whether bus rapid transit will lure growth as well as rail is an open question and not one that should be dismissed. Plenty of other factors count, too, such as the affordability calculation, which takes into account based projected ridership and projected construction and operating costs. With fewer riders, you need less-expensive construction costs or you don’t get those all important federal dollars. The transit decision-makers can’t ignore those formulas.

But the headline is this: The bus transit wasn’t smelly or loud, like surface buses. Because it had its own path it was rapid. The transfer from rail to bus was seamless – just like switching to another subway line. If anything, the ride on the new bus transit was more attractive than the older rail.

Would it fly in Charlotte? I’m guessing it would.