I was aware that the Minneapolis Park Board has been trying to redevelop the famed "Fuji Ya" site along the western bank (the Left Bank of Minneapolis) of the Mississippi River, at the foot of the popular and historic Stone Arch Bridge. The Park Board has released its plan for public input, and a presentation of the plan can be viewed here. It includes a new portion of park space along the river, some uncovered mill ruins, a fountain area and skating in the winter, and a restaurant as its focal point (actually, the view from the restaurant will be the focal point). What is most inspiring to me, as the plan was reported in this article in The (Downtown) Journal is the idea of a "shared road." The West River Parkway will slice right through the site, the speed limit slowed to 15 MPH and bollards will replace curbs. What a great idea! The site is small and narrow, and I recall speaking with a colleague last fall about the potential for plans there. We discussed a possible pedestrian bridge or something to mitigate the road. I distinctly recall wrinkling my nose and thinking "why waste money on a stupid bridge? Just make the cars slow down!" I'm thrilled to hear others think along this wavelength. It's just a parkway, and in many ways routing the road through the site increases the potential visitors to the new section of downtown park. I sincerely hope the shared road concept survives this approvals process. We have a long and checkered history in the Twin Cities of separating our roads from pedestrian routes with bridges, tunnels, viaducts and skyways, and this presents a much saner, cost-effective opportunity to integrate and beautify our public realm. It is time to just slow down a little and enjoy our city.

Last week I had the pleasure of touring Veterans Manor in Milwaukee, a joint venture of Cardinal Capital Management and the Center for Veterans Issues. At the corner of 35th Street and Wisconsin Avenue, Veterans Manor provides 52 affordable housing units for veterans. It opened in 2011, and all units are 650 square foot one-bedrooms, affordable at 60% of AMI, although most residents use some sort of rental assistance to cover costs. Occupying a small but key infill site that was vacant for decades, the four-story building has ground floor lobby, business center, fitness center, meeting rooms, offices, and pleasant 2,000 square foot community room that hosts various meetings and outreach for Veterans Manor and other community groups. There is also a commercial kitchen which employs disabled workers who cook 22,000 meals per week under contract with local schools, and an adjacent cafe that is being built out and will occupy the corner space of the building. Floors two through four contain the 52 housing units. You'd think this would be a slam dunk approvals, right? Erich Schwenker, President/Partner of Cardinal, indicated everyone rallies around the veterans idea. Still, "the moment you say 'supportive housing,' the 'veterans' wears off." So yes, even for a veterans housing project there was NIMBY opposition. Schwenker, who has developed affordable and supportive housing across Wisconsin and as far away as Arizona, indicates his projects are "always wanted but not wanted. Just put it a few blocks away," he says. Veterans Manor was not without its concerns among neighbors, but an open and proactive relationship with surrounding property owners won the day ultimately. The 52 units were filled within 90 days. Residents are almost all men, aged 38 to 78, with an average of two to four years in the military. The developers were expecting more retired veterans who were working and indipendent, but most require some kind of services. Most interesting was Schwenker's comment that it would be very satisfactory if current residents plateaud there (at Veterans Manor). He explained the expectation in the social service provider world that people eventually "move up" to have a family and live in a nice single-family suburban home. In Schwenker's opinion, if Veterans Manor is where residents plateau, that is a victory, because it is a nice place to live and it beats conditions and lifestyles these veterans are coming from. In fact, Joe Thomae of Cardinal Capital explains that some tenants were crying tears of joy when they signed their lease. Veterans Manor provides dignified housing with a variety of support services for veterans who have served in our country's armed forces. "Don't scrimp on architecture," says Schwenker. Units are painted and decorated with warm earth tones and overall the building is attractive and inviting. A cluster of flagpoles and a memorial occupies the public space facing busy Wisconsin Avenue. This model could be replicated in communities across the country.

Two thumbs up is what I give Bob Gibbs' new book entitled Principles of Urban Retail Planning and Development. This book provides a much-needed real-world look at how retail development works, and the ins and outs of how to accomplish successful retail development in urban areas. Let's face it, we urbanists don't read eachothers' books for pure enjoyment or the prose and poetry. These are reference books, and Bob Gibbs delivers on this and more (and his prose is just fine). Loaded with photos, drawings, and tables, Urban Retail Planning and Development provides all sorts of examples and metrics to accomplish good development. From the Shopping Center Built-Form Types chapter to the all important Parking chapter, Gibbs demonstrates his vast range of retail consulting experience. His array of case studies provides built examples and the grid required to achieve them. Give him credit - this book uses real world examples, not plans, whose successes are rooted in market realities. The only quibble I have is Gibbs doesn't directly address retail solutions to overbuilt commercial strips. But cross-reference a book like Retrofitting Suburbia (Dunham-Jones/Williamson), for example, you find what you're looking for. Perhaps most important of all is Gibbs' comment in the Introduction to the book, where he writes, "I have yet to find an urban commercial district without public clocks, tall trees, restaurants or benches." Duly noted. I'm sure I'll be referencing this book for years to come.

I was momentarily horrified last fall when I visited the Central Corridor, the new light rail line (recently renamed the Green Line by Metro Transit) under construction down the middle of University Avenue in St. Paul. The portion of street that has already been rebuilt included rails, rebuilt street, curb and sidewalk complete with attractive streetscape elements, but no trees! "Oh, please, no," I thought! A quick email to Donna Drummond, Director of Planning at the Department of Planning and Economic Development in St. Paul assuaged my fears. Yes, indeed trees are part of the streetscape plan as concstruction occurs, and they will be planted starting this spring. Whew! The first light rail line in Minneapolis (The Hiawatha Line, now called the Blue Line, I guess) opened in 2004 with nary a tree planted along the entire Hiawatha Corridor or 5th Street in downtown, a major oversight in my opinion. Now those of us who live near the line are forced to backfill tree plantings to create better environments in which to walk and promote good development, and to be honest I'll be thrilled when a single tree gets planted (we're working on it!). And so it appears, at least with regard to street trees, we have learned to include trees as a placemaking element that goes lockstep with a new transit line.

Recent development debacles and near-debacles in Minneapolis have made me wonder if form-based codes could help the development process here. I've been researching form-based codes around the country lately, and I believe they may well have a role in my hometown. At a minimum, they can provide developers, city staff and elected officials, and neighbors with more certainty when a new development is proposed. There are other benefits, but certainty alone would be very valuable. What is a form-based code? It is a land use regulatory tool that is based on the allowable/preferred form of buildings versus allowable uses on the site. The perceived value is to help guide good urbanism in a more effective and efficient manner than traditional zoning. They can be especially helpful in a corridor or district that seeks unified building heights, scale and/or frontages, and help overcome the hodgepodge that occurs from normal zoning schemes. Mind you, form-based codes are relatively young in practice and they are not a panacea, but they show some very promising results. Allow me to explain. Several recent developments in Minneapolis have provided some solid evidence that our planning/zoning/approvals system needs some adjustment. The first is Linden Corners, a proposed project in the lovely and charming Linden Hills neighborhood that was recently approved by the Planning Commission but then appealed by neighbors and the appeal upheld by the City Council. The zoning allows three stories, but the proposal is for a five-story, mixed-use building. Under normal city processes, a conditional use permit can be granted to allow the additional height, among other things like setbacks and parking issues. Even though conditional use permits are granted all the time, the height was too tall for the neighborhood, and was the one thing NIMBYs could hang on to successfully get the approval appealed. This may have killed the project. So who is right about the height? Based on the current system, everyone is. But would the outcome have been different with a form-based code? Perhaps. I think five stories is acceptable there, but that is my opinion, and five stories is 66% taller than three, a big difference. For agrument's sake, let's say a form-based code, tied to a visioning plan for the neighborhood and adopted by the city, provided specific guidance as to height. If three stories was the actual maximum height allowed, the developer may never have proposed his five-story building, knowing it wouldn't go anywhere, and saving us all time, angst and tax dollars. The flip side is only allowing three stories may preclude any possible redevelopment from occurring, even with a form-based code, due to the economics of redevelopment and density. (The present use on the site is perhaps the best no-development scenario ever. Far from a blighted site, a restaurant, Famous Dave's, currently occpuies the site, providing a delicious dining option and a fine-smelling presense in the neighborhood. Albeit fronted by a surface parking lot, said parking lot is shrouded by a row of healthy evergreens and there is a little public plaza at the corner.) So the verdict? Perhaps a form-based code would have provided a better guide for development, but at least provided more clarity to the developer and neighbors alike. The second development in question is in the booming Lyn-Lake neighborhood is a proposed six-story mixed-use building called 2900 Lyndale. Here the issue gets pretty murky. The developer may very well be within the zoning for the site, but needs a conditional use permit for various pieces of the design, including height. The Midtown Greenway Coalition opposes the proposed development, citing excessive shadowing on the adjacent Midtown Greenway bike path. The Midtown Greenway plan asks that buildings on the south side of the corridor be stepped back to reduce shadowing. To me, simply "asking" for that is not enough, particularly when we're talking about millions of dollars of development and potential tax revenue for the city - or not. The plan should be more clear and tied to specific zoning in order to better guide development (if it were, we wouldn't be having this discussion, right?). The plan is way too open to interpretation, since you can reduce shadowing anywhere from 1% to 100%. Not good enough. Would a form-based code help? Yes, if specific guuidelines were put in place that dictated the setback and stepping up and back of the design of any proposed building. Again, this would have created more certainty for the developer and public alike. But just as with Linden Corners, the City Council has upheld an appeal of the project, and the project is in limbo as a result. And who is right? Everyone. Not good enough, and very costly to the developer and city in terms of time and resources spent on fighting and revising this. The third case in Minneapolis is last year's approvals process for the Oaks Station Place development, a really promising TOD currently under construction adjacent to the 46th Street Station. The development follows by 10 years the plan for the 46th Street Station area, and is an interesting contrast to the plan and development adjacent to the Pleasant Hill BART station in the Bay Area, which uses a form-based code. At the time of the Pleasant Hill planning charrette (also 10 years ago, around the time the 46th Street Station Plan was adopted by Minneapolis), the county commissioner in Contra Costa County said of the plan "what you see is what you will get." Amazingly, she was right. The developer and planners marvel that the form-based code was strong enough that the resulting mixed-use project, which opened in 2010, was almost exactly as it appeared in the plan (a plan that was created before the developer came forward with a project). The process provided certainty, and the public had their say in it. Not so at the Oaks Station Place at the 46th Street Station in Minneapolis, where developer Norm Bjorness had to spend consdierable time with an approvals process that could have derailed the project had the City Council made that determination (as they did with Linden Corners and 2900 Lyndale). The plan called for three stories at the station and two-stories along the fence behind the existing residential homes, so when the proposal came from the developer for more height (four and three stories, respectively), one could argue the neighbors had a legitimate beef with the process. The plan and the zoning didn't agree. A form-based code in place for almost a decade in the Columbia Pike in Arlington, Virginia has helped guide better development along that corridor. What is amazing to me is that while the old code has remained in place, not one developer has chosen to use it, because the clarity of the code and the sped up approvals process in the form-based code are preferred for obvious reasons. In the Pleasant Hill example, after all was said and done, Contra Costa County spent $700,000 on the planning charrette and the writing, implementation and policing of the form-based code. A sizable amount to be sure, but it was a big project. What was jarring to me was the conclusion that the sum of $700,000 was a major savings versus the alternative - having to deal with NIMBYs, lawsuits, ongoing planning and revisioning, and lost tax revenue from development being delayed or simply not occurring. For all of the good work of the Minneapolis Planning Department and talented developers in the Twin Cities, I can't help but think there is room for improvement in Minneapolis, as is evidenced by the fallout from the Linden Corner, 2900 Lyndale and Oaks Station Place process. Form-based codes aren't a silver bullet, and you'll never make everyone 100% happy, but when coupled with a good vision and plan, they have proven to provide clarity to the approvals process, which satisfies neighbors and developers, and perhaps saves cities money. All of these are results I can strongly endorse. Oh, and the built result is better quality urbanism. Something for everyone.