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Welcome to town

From an article in The Daily Press Opinion, by Carol Capo, Associate Editor

Welcome to town - Higher density would be right at home in parts of Williamsburg February 26, 2007

With make-believe towns popping up everywhere from Newport News to rural Suffolk, it’s helpful to remember that there are, among us, real towns. In addition to - or instead of, in some cases - building imitations, which are really subdivisions in town garb, we need to be doing everything we can to protect these real towns and help them not just survive, but thrive.

The city of Williamsburg is a case in point. It has been a town, a center of population, commerce, education and government, for more than 300 years. Today, thanks largely to the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, it has reclaimed much of its once-tarnished charm and once-neglected history. It is alive and flourishing, if imperfect. It’s going about its business of being a town, as well as a tourist destination.

That provides a context for the current discussion about increasing the density within parts of the city, as recommended in the adopted 2006 Comprehensive Plan. The City Council has already made decisions about some areas, including that along South Henry Street from the Wallace Museum to the law school, where it decided to go with a base density of eight dwelling units per acre, with up to 14 allowed with a special-use permit. A big decision awaits about another key area, stretching from Merchants Square north and west, including the area along Richmond Road to the delis and Scotland Street, and a second section, the “City Square” block around the community building. The Planning Commission will hold a hearing March 14 on the recommendation to allow up to 22 dwelling units per acre there, with a special-use permit. Before it makes a final decision, the City Council has decided to allow some extra time for the community to digest the issue.

Increasing density limits is a smart move, for a number of reasons.

One, towns are by their nature denser than suburbs, exurbs and the nouveau-towns that are sprawling across once-rural areas. Density is part of what towns are all about. It’s what creates the kind of life, the kind of place, that is distinctly “town.”

Two, the proposed change goes about density in the right way. It carves out different densities for different areas, reflecting their distinctive characters, functions and prospects. It leaves the density limits in most of the city unchanged. In the downtown and business districts, it encourages a healthy mix of uses and residences above street-level commerce. It takes its reference point from the town’s past, when 22 units per acre prevailed. It incorporates a hurdle - the special-use permit - to ensure case-by-case reviews and decisions on projects that will reach the higher levels instead of the base allowance, typically eight dwelling units per acre. It discourages large apartment complexes.

And it won’t have a huge impact. The city estimates the changes will yield between 100 and 150 new dwelling units, which will translate into no more than 300 new residents. But allowing a few more units in some sites will, officials hope, make it financially feasible for developers to tackle the projects that refresh a town, and do them well.

Still, the prospect of even limited, cautious change has provoked a well-orchestrated outcry, one based in part on claims that are alarmist but misleading: that higher density will ruin the city’s appearance and mean more paving and loss of green space. That doesn’t have to be true.

A “compromise” that some opponents are pushing - 14 units per acre - may be useful politically, but it could also compromise this reform’s promising goal. After all, what you’re after is town living, not just suburbs with a town ZIP code.

So how much density is right? The amount that preserves the character and appeal of a town. That could be 22 units to an acre or 14 or 52 - so long as adequate safeguards are in place. They include zoning and policies (such as Williamsburg’s height restrictions) to protect the town’s aesthetics. They consider the adequacy of parking and infrastructure. They take their guidance from a clear, well-articulated vision of what the city will be like in five years, in 10, and even further into the future.

Why do people fight density? The reasons may be as varied as the warriors, but here’s the point to remember: Density is not, in and of itself, bad. It adds energy to community life. It brings customers for local businesses, helping maintain a lively mix of restaurants and shops and services. It adds taxpayers to the local rolls. It adds the eyes and pedestrians that keep public spaces safe. It’s a more efficient way to deliver services. By clustering residents close to the services and jobs they need, it means that at least some of life’s business can be done without driving, and that cuts down on gas consumption and pollution. All those good things feed on themselves, drawing more people who want that kind of convenient, satisfying life.

All of which can also help prevent the all-too-common bane of small towns: declining neighborhoods, shuttered business, neglected public spaces, fleeing taxpayers. And it can avert sprawl - with its consequences for the environment and the way people live.

The danger isn’t density, but the wrong density in the wrong place - like a high-rise apartment building on Prince George Street. Or detached, single-family homes where three-story live-aboves are better suited. Or restrictions that interfere with the natural order of town life.

A lot of the showcase projects lauded by “smart growth” experts have, intentionally and successfully, densities even two or three times as high as that proposed for Williamsburg.

In short, it makes no sense to encourage from-scratch “town” living at New Town and deny it where it really belongs, in the center of a genuine, functioning - real - town.

Read the original article at the Daily Press website...
Daily Press Opinion

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