PA R T
PREAMBLE TO CASE STUDIES
Design professionals in Britain will recognize most, if not all the design and planning concepts contained in these American case studies, and this commonality highlights a paradox of working within the two dif- ferent cultures. The design concepts are nearly identi- cal, but the political systems within which American and British professionals work vary considerably.
We saw in Chapter 5 some of the important and substantial differences between American zoning techniques of ‘growth management’ and English pro- cedures of ‘development control.’ British readers will thus notice important differences in the implementa- tion strategies and tactics of these American plans. All these projects have been initiated by American local governments, which work within the system described in Chapter 5 that separates planning for the future from development control in the present. With frustrating frequency, the plans produced by American towns and cities are simply regarded as ‘vision documents’ or ‘road maps’ to guide future decisions, without any regulatory teeth. There are plenty of good ideas and good intentions, but no requirement that private development proposals and public decisions follow the approved plans. As with any road map, the plan is subservient to the driver, who is free to change destination or direction at any time. In Britain, by contrast, government policy requires that all decisions on development must fol- low the provisions of the appropriate publicly adopted plan with only very limited exceptions.
The following case studies differ from much conventional American practice, because they try to bridge the problematic divide between plan- ning and zoning. As we discussed in Chapter 6, detailed, design-based zoning codes for these pro- jects are almost always included in our planning and design process, irrespective of scale, and these zoning ordinances are prepared as part of the master- planning package to give the plan legal weight. This is important because in American law the design plans themselves lack legal authority, other than ful- filling a statutory requirement to have a community plan on file as the benchmark for other regulatory instruments.
Integrating design-based zoning regulations with the master plan that’s developed and approved in the full light of public debate and scrutiny means that these changes to local zoning laws can be adopted when the plan is approved, or very shortly thereafter. This goes a long way toward healing the American breach between planning and zoning; under this sys- tem, the community’s development plan that estab- lishes the future vision is directly linked with the zoning ordinance that regulates the build-out of the plan over time. However, there is still no legal requirement for American elected officials to follow the plan and zoning they’ve so carefully constructed. On an ad hoc basis, governments can rezone parcels of land against the provisions of their plans at any time in the future if a developer or other interest group can persuade them to do so. This lack of civic backbone brings the plans into public disrepute, but
in only a couple of our projects has this unfortunate circumstance occurred. We include one example in the case studies where firmer action was needed to reinforce the importance of maintaining the integrity of adopted community plans in the face of develop- ment pressure and bureaucratic inertia.
One of the most compelling attributes of the Charter of the New Urbanism is its common commit- ment to good urban design and planning at a wide variety of different scales, from the region to an indi- vidual urban block. Accordingly, we have organized our own work to reflect this hierarchy and commonal- ity. Like many designers, we believe passionately that what we plan should relate to the physical qualities of the particular place, be it an area of 60 square miles covering several political jurisdictions or a single town center site of 10 acres. We want our work to stand as a critical practice, countering the throwaway attitudes of American culture – making haste and making waste. Our work tries to re-imbue our sites, whether they be cities or suburbs, with a sense of history, to create memories for the future where none existed.
Each case study begins with a project description and identification of the key issues and goals. This is followed by a brief summary of the particular char- rette process and the explanation of the full master plan, replete with its recommendations and illustra- tive drawings. Our intent is to demonstrate the level of design detail that can be achieved in charrettes, and in consequence, the sophisticated level of planning attainable with this process. Nearly all the drawings illustrated were produced during the charrette; they have not been touched up or redrawn for publication. (Where graphics were produced or modified after the charrette, usually for the project report, we have noted
these accordingly.) Unless otherwise noted on the plans, north is orientated to the top of the page.
Each master plan is complemented by various strategies for implementation and development con- trol. In larger projects, these usually take the form of development and design guidelines and zoning recommendations; smaller scale projects typically include studies of economic viability, an evaluation of public funding strategies, project timetables, and of course design-based zoning codes keyed to the master plan. Finally, we present a short, critical evalu- ation of the case study, highlighting its successes and disappointments. All five case studies have been nec- essarily abridged from their full complexity concern- ing fine scale project locations and details in order to render them accessible to the general reader.
One final point of clarification: up to this point we have used the personal pronoun ‘we’ to indicate the two authors. Henceforth, in all the case studies with the exception of Chapter 11, ‘we’ means the design team of the Lawrence Group, architects, and town planners, who carried out this work for the relevant public authorities. Accordingly, the ‘voice’ and style of writing changes slightly as we move inside our urban design practice and retell some stories of com- munity planning by design. Describing these case studies involves recapitulating past events, describing things and places that exist, recounting values and beliefs held in the present, and projecting implemen- tation into the future. This shifting between tenses can be confusing to the reader, and so we have nego- tiated this obstacle using the simple criterion of what sounds clearest rather than absolute academic consis- tency. We trust our colleagues will forgive us this vernacular preference.
PROJECT AND CONTEXT DESCRIPTION
The acronym CORE stands for ‘Center of the Region Enterprise,’ a collaborative planning effort involving 12 different local governments and quasi- public authorities covering an area of 60 square miles approximately in the geographic center of the state of North Carolina. It is close to, or includes within its boundaries, several important focal points: the center of state government – the city of Raleigh (named after Sir Walter); a center of technological innovation – the Research Triangle Park (RTP); and an international transportation center – the Raleigh- Durham International Airport.
The larger region that surrounds the CORE is gen- erally known as ‘The Research Triangle,’ so named because it’s defined by a geographic area whose three cardinal points comprise the great research universities of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; North Carolina State University, and Duke University. Within this region, the study area is bisected from east to west by Interstate 40, the main transportation artery, and by the anticipated regional rail system being designed by the Triangle Transit Authority (TTA) that will travel through it from north to south.
The study area straddles the ridge line between two of North Carolina’s major, but environmentally fragile river basins – the Neuse and the Cape Fear – and is also home to one of the state’s most notable green spaces, Umstead State Park, a fine wildlife preserve and environmental resource. Within this context, the CORE boundaries define a place where the bor- ders of six municipalities meet: Cary, Durham City, Morrisville, Raleigh, Durham County and Wake
County (See Plate 14). Although at the center of