The new land use plan, termed Hickory By Choice, and the codes that will be based upon it is one of the most important discussions the City will have in this generation and it’s very important we get it right. It seems that over the past few years that we have often had ideas and concepts that don’t fit what’s on the ground with the result being that Council and Planning have tried to put a square peg into a round hole. BROAD CITIZEN INPUT IS IMPORTANT, MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD!
There are a couple of things I don’t think have been completely thought through and need to be examined further. First is the neighborhood core concept. The idea is that we have a “core” that will have employment such as offices (doctors, accountants, insurance, etc.). Surrounding the core would be high density housing, ie: condos, apartments, townhouses, which would be surrounded by lower density development like single family residences. This is a beautiful idea and if we were looking at a large field and thinking about what to do with it a core would be great. We already have facts on the ground and it seems that it will take a great deal of tear down and rebuilding which will be expensive so question one is: how viable is the idea?
Many questions come to mind? Do we want manufacturing in the core? If not where will manufacturing go? Is a big box store going to be in the mix? What happens when certain retailers want 100,000 square feet to be viable? Is this going to be in a core or a corridor? Are people going to go to the doctor in their core or the doctor with the best reputation in town? What about specialists? We can't put every specialty in the core, can we? Do you want to use the Dewey, Cheatham and Howe accountants in the core you happen to live in or maybe you still want to use your brother in law? Will a Baptist become a Jew because the synagogue is in his core? The point is that we may be making too many assumptions about the lifestyles and choices people make and when the government plans for us they often miss the mark.
One specific thing that seems to keep coming up is putting up a multistory building with retail and restaurants on the ground floor and residences on the upper floor. There are a couple of places in Hickory where this has absolutely bombed. Do you really want to hear the pizza delivery coming and going at 1:00 am? Do you want to park your car in the parking lot that the geriatric doctor is using to have the 80 year old, half blind crowd using? Some cities have apartment and condo buildings that have parking on the ground level with the residences on the upper floors. This seems to be much more appealing. People will still want to drive. Many want to drive less but will still want to drive to other areas of the City as well as out of town and out of State trips. The car is going to be around a long time and it doesn’t seem to be properly thought out in what people seem to be conceiving at this point.
My opinion is that public transportation has been ignored and should actually be a focal point. Mobility is increasing not decreasing. We need to create density in Hickory so that using public transportation becomes viable. We can still have “cores” but what we are discussing now seems more like “enclaves”. If we have a public transportation spine, connecting to the centers that people go to (shopping, work, doctors, services, etc.) we can have cores but we will be able to go where we choose to and have a walk more/ drive less lifestyle that many desire. My fear is that we are overplanning people’s lifestyles and when it's all said and done we will spend the next twenty years still trying to put that square peg into the round hole and arguing incessantly. Please, please, please, join the dialogue. We need to put our heads together and get this right.
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Friday, May 1, 2009
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4 comments:
It's hard for me to believe that there are folks in Hickory that would want to buy 200k+ condos downtown when you can purchase a nice home for $150k. You can rent an older townhouse downtown for as little as $450 per month that have a lot of character.
Hickory doesn't have as many young, wealthy types that a Charlote, Dallas (where I'm from), or even Mooresville has. People live in Hickory because it's a good place to raise a family, not because it's necassarily hip or has a good nightlife.
I would live downtown in a condo that had parking on the first floor and then condos upstairs. A great location would be where some of the old houses down from the First Baptist Church. But above the Hong Kong Cafe or the Tap Room? No. I think mixed means building close to each other but not necessarily in the same building. Maybe when I was 21 that would have been cool, but not now.
I have to agree with many Of the statements that I have seen and read on this issue:
I have been told by someone very much in the know that the map that we see that shows the "cupcake" (core) areas was not intended to be put to use. I believe the other night that Mr. Grimes pointed to the fact that there were 13 of these cupcakes on the map. That would be one for every 2 to 3 square miles.
With any common sense, one would realize that won't work. I was told that this has not been fixed because City of Hickory officials are purposefully keeping the development issue arbitrary. I assume that this person believes this is happening to give city officials more power.
I cannot 100% say that is true, but something does smell a little fishy and it is more than the carp and crappy smell of Lake Hickory.
I don't think that a long term development plan is a dream. I think it is necessary, but I believe that if you put garbage in that you will get garbage out.
I will say one thing. Those that do not participate in the process have no reason to bicker over the outcome. There is no room for revisionism down the road. On the other hand, if those that create this plan don't take into account the interests of the whole city, then this plan is doomed from the start.
A couple of personal thoughts: I think that whatever comes out of this must be implementable with a few tangible easy steps that people can wrap their arms around and say, "Yeah that makes sense." I think that first step needs to be getting the bus routes to make sense and be usable and then promote that idea. Then let's look at the four quadrants and decide where the focal points of those areas have historically been and where they are migrating to. From that we will have the sense of where the cores should be located.
The first issue that I want to knock out of the park is that I don't ever want to hear anything about traffic ever again. 127n is only congested a couple of hours a day (now) and the only reason it is, is because we have not balanced this city enough to make it feasible for developers to invest in the other quadrants of the city. If we balance the city, then we balance the traffic.
Next what has to be brought to grips is that Hickory proper is a 5.5 mile by 5.5 mile area (not big). Any business that is brought in is going to naturally abut neighborhoods. It seems to me that we keep talking about cores, but everything that I have heard over the last 5 years, when it comes to development, has dealt with single family residences. The people who have cried the loudest have been groups from Northwest Hickory in the most affluent single family housing areas.
How are you going to bring this core idea to the forefront, when those groups constantly align forces against such development? Thinking about the 2 Zagaroli projects and Lowes that comes to mind.
I'll think on this and add more later, but any development plan should center around addressing and repairing blighted areas of the city. That will broaden the appeal of the city making more area desirable for people to move to thus raising property tax, thus increasing revenue.
Blight is our biggest economic detraction and should be our primary focus.
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