Never in my career would I have dreamed up a senior housing project for artists, but indeed one exists in lovely Burbank, California. It is pretty cool, too. The Burbank Senior Artists Colony is a fairly typical, albeit attractive four story senior housing development on the outside. On the inside are community rooms, art studios, a lawn for yoga and meditation, and a stage for playacting or video productions. The artists colony is a partnership between Meta Housing, the developer, and Engaged Aging, a services provider that strongly believes that BINGO is not the answer for elderly activity. If you…

The latest round of ULI case studies includes Sara Conner Court, located in Hayward, California, which is across the bay from San Francisco. Sara Conner Court is a 57-unit affordable housing project developed by Eden Housing that incorporates several green features. To me, however, the thing that is most impressive about this project is the community outreach. Besides offering after school programs and computer courses to residents, Sara Conner Court sponsors the neighborhood watch for the area. With community outreach programs at Sara Conner Court, Eden Housing reminds us that affordable housing, when done well, can do more than simply…

To be completely honest, attending CNU in Austin was hard to pass up. I really like the city – the climate, the food, the music. But I am doubly happy I attended. CNU gave me a shot in the arm. I learned a lot, heard great speakers, met wonderful people, took good tours, ate well, got to know the city better than I hoped, and well, the Saturday night party was a damn good time. One highlight of the conference was listening to Robert Caro give a speech about his book, the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Power Broker, about the legacy…

Who are all these people with bright yellow bags walking around taking pictures of buildings and sidewalks!? The good people of Austin must think we are crazy. We were given yellow tote bags as part of registration, and everywhere I go I see someone with their bag and camera, standing in a median of a road or some awkward place, taking just the right photo that shows the perfect example of a transect zone, mixed-use, or simply an appropriately-sized sidewalk. Guilty, your honor. Such is the life of an urbanist. About 40 of us camera and bag toting new urbanists…

You may call yourself a new urbanist, but are you living the charter? Do you live within walking distance of neighborhood retail and services? Do you ever use transit? Is your neighborhood mixed-income? Perhaps you don’t even think of yourself as a new urbanist, but you are indeed one by virtue of your location and lifestyle. A quiz created by several young CNU members was rolled out at the conference in Austin, designed to challenge assumptions and allow members to assess their choices. Click here to find out if you indeed are living the charter. (I actually got a score…

An international crew of new urbanist bikers (sounds intimidating, doesn’t it?) assembled at 9AM this morning to cycle around Austin. People from around the U.S., Canada and Great Britain were led by knowledgable locals around downtown, the east side, Lady Bird Lake and Barton Springs. It was all quite wonderful and informative in 70 degree sunny skies. The first stop was at Saltillo Plaza on the city’s historic east side, but more on that later. We next biked along Lady Bird Lake, quite a busy place on a gorgeous Saturday. We crossed the Pfluger Pedestrian Bridge and stopped to discuss…

Friday night followed day two of the new urbanism conference here in Austin. After a good day of conference sessions and mobile workshops followed by a speech by Robert Caro, author of The Power Broker, members were still energized and fired up. I attended two events that showed some insights as to future directions the new urbanism may take. The Charter of the New Urbanism is an elegant piece of literature. It decries disinvetment in central cities, opposes sprawl, and encourages better cities from the region on down to the home itself. It is a compelling movement, and the charter…

LEED-ND was the topic of the morning session. A panel of core committee members including Jennifer Henry, Victor Dover, Doug Farr, Tom Richman and Susan Mudd discussed lessons learned so far with the certification process, and allowed CNU members to vent a bit about criteria and priorities. As one might expect, there was much hand-wringing about the transect and how each zone gets ranked in LEED-ND. The idea behind LEED-ND, of course, is location efficiency of projects, and the thing that gets new urbanists up in arms is their beautiful greenfield projects don’t get certified in LEED-ND because they aren’t…

Here in Austin for the 16th Congress for the New Urbanism conference, I am doing things a little differently. Usually when attending a conference, I choose a hotel preferably within walking distance of the convention center. With my recent good luck with the vacation rentals website (see my recent post on Santa Cruz and San Francisco), instead of a hotel I looked for a studio or one bedroom rental of some kind. Well, I lucked out! I found a little studio, just off 6th Street and about two miles west of downtown. It is actually the finished attic level of…