Congress of New Urbanism conference overview

1:54:06Okay, um I have Okay, I guess we're on the commissioner items. Um But I had someone I had is David Engel sitting here from the I had a uh David was gonna do a presentation real quick. Do you guys mind if I pull him up now?

1:54:22Yeah, we only have ten minutes.

1:54:24Yeah, David, let's let's get that done now.

1:54:26Okay.

1:54:39Morning Commissioner is David Engel, Pasco County's uh Planning and Economic Development Director. Today I'd like to give you just a brief overview. I had the privilege of attending the uh Congress of New Urbanism uh Providence, Rhode Island event that took place in June.

1:55:03Well I I just wanted to note how important this conference is to me. It was a real privilege to get extricated over the day to day activities we have here in Pasco County and to be in a environment where I'm totally absorbed through for urban design, good planning and um You know, when I got involved in New Urbanism, which was about 2018, I was kind of resistant at first. I thought it was a bunch of, you know, kind of groupie type of folks. But at the CNU, there's a

1:55:33confluence of so many different people there. You have uh architects, you have planners, you have elected officials. In fact, the elected official participation is coveted at the CNU. They have their Special group, they focus on implementation issues for good community planning, and it's a very engaging process. And one of the biggest things about the CNU is we're not sequestered in seminar rooms for eight or nine hours a day. You have that, but you can physically go out across the country when

1:56:04they have these keynote annual conferences and visit actual developments, talk to the developers. And understand how better design can be integrated into the community development process. So the first slide, real quick, it's a lot of jargon here, but what is new urbanism? It's restorative, it's it's focused, and it's purely really Americana. What works in America? What were the things that bound communities together and made places special? And that's what New Urban was. Urbanism

1:56:34is all about. Of course, it's embraced overseas now, but it's primarily an American solution to land development. And it focuses on redevelopment, but it also focuses on greenfield development. So it covers all the things that we do here in Pasco. And as we go through the slideshow, you'll you'll see that we've already embraced many things that are in the new urbanism vocabulary. and uh and and handbook. So the next item here is is really uh Mass P

1:57:04Commons. It's out in Massachusetts. Uh last year we visited Norton Commons out in Kentucky and this is a new urbanism development and we talk about transic development And if you know about transex, it was developed by highway engineers, starting in rural areas, having cross-sections for rural roads. uh suburban and then urban. But the transept is very critical to design. And you see in this this land plan here, which is uh an M P U D, we approving And the board reviews MPUDs all the time. You

1:57:35it's not just boxes of of uses. We have a town center, we have transitional uses, and we have edge development and that and you can draw transects three hundred and sixty degrees from the town center, and that's really how how the transect is relevant here in the county.

1:57:52And this started out as a strip mall. By the way. Mass P. Commons was a strip map.

1:57:58And the next slide and f forgive it, this is these are slides taken off my iPhone. You can see how a brand new development embraces traditional s uh design. It has common areas for people gathering points, but the the design is unique to Americana. And of course the a lot of this stuff is brick facade because it's up in New England. But uh we have also designs That are similar in our county that we could duplicate. The next slide is just another Mashapi

1:58:29Commons street. You can see there's this is during the week.

1:58:43And you know, when you go into housing, when we deal with housing. Housing. Most of our housing developments are focused on the big kitchen, the family room, and those type of amenities. But right now, the housing market is driven by new urbanism principles because walkability and design and the 15-minute access to activities and services is what's defining the Gen Y, that's their millennial generation, and they're driving the housing market. market today. And it and also walkability and new d good

1:59:13design enhances value not only for the homeowners but also for the revenue of a community. Um and here here's just um you know the town center and different shots and variations in Mashapi and you can see it's all about uh gathering human contact and creating relationships within a community. Now New Urbanism has a lot of features that we could employ here in the county. Uh one of the things that New Urbanism has done and and Commissioner Starkey and I visited two projects,

1:59:44two cottage projects, where they have Higher density, you know, that's like a res six, res nine type of development, but it's integrated into a common courtyard. And you notice this is attainable market housing. This is not high end housing, but each home has a distinct uh private space but it aligns with the community. Everyone has a porch, everybody is enjoying their relationships, but we also endure some privacy here. This is an interesting project because I got a opportunity to test out

2:00:14pervious surf uh pavement. It's been around for years. But I went out into the parking lot and I took a bottle of water, poured it on regular pavement, then pervious, in one minute the water disappeared. Great in New England they don't have, you know, the the frost action and the freezing. It just basically percolates in the ground.

2:00:30Can I say that this was an auto repair shop?

2:00:35We can.

2:00:35I mean look at the taxable value that you swe that you get when before you had a strip mall and now you have a downtown townhomes, apartments. We didn't we didn't show those pictures, but this was uh auto repair shop.

2:00:50Well, so the the cottage style is uh is evident in a lot of different housing product. This one is a high end product where you had five, six hundred thousand dollar homes, very similar format. Uh Commissioner Starkey and I ate at their or we did we had a meeting right in there in our kiosk there where they have uh outdoor food preparation area and it's a lovely development and it integrates well in any area of uh of development.

2:01:15And can I say the lots are

2:01:19They're very close to each other. But look how lovely it is.

2:01:21Yeah, I was gonna get to that in a second. And this is the the cottage style in the rural context. So when you can imagine, you know, as we develop our more rural communities and we use hopefully we will promote some um some some subdivisions that embrace clustering and also preserving open space, uh you know, the rural type of subdivision. This is a rural Um Cottage style development. So it it's integratable everywhere. We don't have to have barracks anymore here in the county.

2:01:51We have a lot of opportunities to create wonderful developments. And one thing I've really noted is the developers of New Urbanism are quite different than what we experience typically here in the county. These are long-haul developers. They realize that taking your time and doing things right in your value and they may Make more money on the long in the long game. And you know, we also we have that right now with the Porters over at Wiregrass, uh Beat Cali over at uh Avalon Park. These folks are in for the long haul and we're producing

2:02:22value here and good design in the county. Now, I have uh driven up and down our corridors. I know the board is, and I know our our homeowners and residents are are pretty overwhelmed by uh multifamily development. But multifamily development doesn't have to be rectangular boxes. And then this this this product was pretty novel. There was an architectural group up in Rhode Island that proffers this. Rather than having uh you know stack flats all over the place, this is a mixed use residential

2:02:52building where we have um townhouses in the middle and we have eight eight eight eight apartment units uh on the ends or nine and it it breaks up the um the roof lines and it makes it more attractive and I've seen this type of application now out in the you know in the development area and it's and people like to live here so this is a a little bit different and a little bit of a variation but something we could be proud of and use here. Okay, well I'm going the wrong way, sorry. And

2:03:22this this slide reminds me of Commissioner Mariano. because he's got the eye for detail. Like I said, this this conference is for everybody. There's something for everybody. So here's a unique uh product here. What they did is they took the roof runoff into the ground and piped it into tree wells here along the streetscape rather than just having, you know, a circle with a root with a root ball in it. It actually creates um good irrigation decreases

2:03:53runoff and you have better better solutions and better sustainability with your street landscaping. And again, um what does new urbanism mean for Pasco County? It means more revenue, less less, less services by by actually having net densities at certain core areas, and it allows us to afford our open space but not have sprawl. And lastly, this is the most important slide I could ever show to you. This is New Urbanism

2:04:23Pasco style. This is the first urban building in Avalon Park. And in the um, I think it was 2019, the Board of County Commissioners approved an incentive deal for Avalon Park to vacate traditional suburban housing and employ urban design. And this this whole thing was an inspirational process for me. It got me interested in new urbanism. Terry Pitos and myself in different occasions. We went out to see Avalon's development and we fine-tuned it to make it implementable

2:04:54in the county using the county type of footprint and also design format. By the way, the best Indian butter chicken I've ever had. No national chains in here. They're all individually owned residents that have businesses here in the county. The restaurants are great, great ice cream, a lot of people walking around. And we're gonna have five urban blocks of this development once this project's completed. Very

2:05:18exciting.

2:05:18So that's really my brief overview. I I urge the the board, if you if you have time, it's worthwhile, at least take a shot at the CNU next year in Bentonsville.

2:05:28Bentonville.

2:05:29Bentonville.

2:05:29Bentonville, great county. And what they've done in Bentonville is amazing. Amazing. Any questions?

2:05:35I was no, so th thank you very much, David. Appreciate it. Thank you.

2:05:38Yeah. Thank you.