Results tagged “mixed-use developments” from Green Flow

(photo copyright Los Angeles Times)

Evidence that speculative auto-dependant sprawl was one of the major factors behind the Great Recession is emerging through real estate market studies of major US metro areas, from Washington DC to Southern California.

Note the New York Times on November 6 (p.A13):

New research about the recession has also bolstered one of transit's central premises -- that highway-driven sprawl is bad for a city's economic health. Recent studies at the University of Utah, for example, concluded that foreclosure rates in the Washington area were much lower in counties served by the Metro rail system, compared with the next ring of counties farther out, and that home prices in Phoenix had also fallen in direct proportion to the distance from downtown. 

A new report I wrote for the Post Carbon Institute (link to pdf) includes the case of Victorville, California, a virtually 100 percent auto-dependent city of 107,000 that grew from 64,000 in 2000. Real estate prices started to crash in this Mojave desert community in 2006 when gas hit $2 a gallon. Victorville is now one of the foreclosure capitals of the nation, as home prices fell from an average of well over $325,000 in 2007 to under $125,000 in 2009.


Source: City-data.com (11/09)

The market was so decimated that large new homes, some might call them McMansions, were demolished in Victorville (see photo at beginning of post) earlier this year to free the city from liability resulting from possible vandalism, crime and fire danger.

As gas prices hit $3 and $4 a gallon, people couldn't afford the thousands of dollars of extra gas expenses that were required to commute to the Los Angeles area, which is almost 100 miles away. As a result, home prices crashed, foreclosures proliferated, developers went bankrupt, and the city and the region are now suffering. At the same time, San Bernardino County was successfully sued by the California Attorney General's office for allowing development in its communities, such as Victorville, with disregard for global climate change and regional air pollution.

Similar imploding exurban real estate prices started the 2007-2009 national foreclosure crisis, with these toxic assets setting off the derivatives financial meltdown and, you know the rest...

Victorville is by no means an isolated example. The amount of suburban and exurban development that occurred in the 1990s and early 2000s when fuel prices hit their historic low prices (see graph below) has created a massive expanse of excess houses and infrastructure requiring untold resources to build and maintain.

 

Largely because of such sprawl, stimulated by inexpensive gas prices and a lack of local government controls, California's main source of greenhouse gases come from the transportation sector.

Clearly it's time for the focus on "green cities" to expand outward to greening the suburbs and the exurbs, because that's where the majority of our nation's population resides. Though 80 percent of the nation lives in urban (developed) areas, only 20 percent of those "urbanites" live in big cities. About 60 percent of US population lives in metro area 'burbs of under 100,000. 
 
During the last three years, outer-suburban or exurban areas lost far more value than real estate in urban or suburban areas served by public transit with walkable, bikeable and mixed-use zoning options as my report and others, such as Prof. Arthur C. Nelson's at the University of Utah, are demonstrating.

This is the first time in US history that sprawled low-density suburbs or exurbs have fallen faster in average value than city or inner-suburban areas; suddenly "Smart Growth" is more than a niche market or trend--it will be at the core of financially successful planning and development.

Greater density with non-auto mobility options is going to dominate development as long as we have climate change, volatile resource availability (particularly water) and high gas prices. In addition to economics, there are demographics. The nation's dramatically aging population consists of more single people, retired couples and empty-nesters who want apartments or condos from which they can walk, bike and ride buses or use subways and light rail. 

The redesign of suburbs and exurbs will require some painful Victorville-type actions that may waste resources, such as tearing down certain neighborhoods or homes. There are other options, however. Ellen Dunham-Jones and June Williamson demonstrate design examples in their excellent 2009 book, Retrofitting Suburbia.

Not all future metro areas need to follow the hub-and-spoke format with central cities and their suburbs. Metro areas might consider, for instance, designing growth and transit corridors around multiple regional centers of economic activity, which was the aim of the Los Angeles area's Compass Blueprint.

California's anti-sprawl Senate Bill 375 is the nation's first such statewide measure. It now is being guided by an official strategic growth process, which is being led by a council with modeling tools for preferred scenarios developed by Calthorpe Associates, transit-oriented development champion Peter Calthorpe's Berkeley, CA firm.   

On a more granular level, cul-de-sacs, which are impediments to non-automotive mobility, can be re-engineered to accommodate more direct walking and biking access.

Some innovative buyers are devising ways to use the glut of unoccupied or unsold large homes for business or residential purposes other than single-family living. Based on major shifts in market demand, home builders are downsizing and are constructing more energy-efficiently.

The days of plowing productive agricultural areas under for suburban home tracts and strip malls may be coming to an end. A Denver suburban home developer is incorporating working agricultural land into unsold tract home land plots in numerous communities, in what is being billed as "Agriburbia."

Clearly, energy efficiency, greenhouse gas emission reduction and resource conservation are becoming guiding factors for much more than regulatory and environmental compliance, they are beginning to dictate the very economies upon which our metro regions operate.

We must now rethink how to develop our communities so that sprawl does not re-emerge, and relegate it to history, as an oddity from the era when gas was cheap, the climate was forgiving and resources were seemingly endless. 

Warren Karlenzig is president of Common Current, a consultancy based in San Anselmo, California with international projects on urban sustainability strategy and metrics. He is a Fellow at the Post-Carbon Institute and author of How Green is Your City?: The SustainLane US City Rankings. 

 

 

One of the most significant green trends makes for lighter impact on the planet while giving people what they find most valuable: more time to spend with their families and in their communities. New "mixed-use" communities such as the award-winning Dos Lagos development in Corona, California, 50 miles southeast of Los Angeles, locate homes close to amenities including shopping, entertainment, recreation and work, reducing travel time and fuel use. Through its preservation of open space and careful restoration of natural resources, Dos Lagos goes one step further, giving residents and visitors access to nature they can easily get out and enjoy.

To date, most mixed-use neighborhoods have been located in dense urban areas with easy access to transportation: think Manhattan, Chicago and San Francisco. But now, thanks to many forces including global warming and booming demand for urban-style living, more sustainable planning is beginning to come to suburban Sun Belt communities.

Dos Lagos, based in the Inland Empire of Southern California east of Los Angeles, the fastest-growing region in California, presents a vital example of a "live, work, play" approach for real estate developers, businesses and residents. State officials charged with reducing greenhouse gas emissions through more sustainable land use and planning by California's 2006 Global Warming Solutions Act, known as AB 32, are carefully following the progress of Dos Lagos.

There is an emerging need to have not only buildings be greener, but for entire developments or neighborhoods planned so that they reduce energy and resource use. The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), the entity behind the incredibly popular Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) green building certification program, is now working with Dos Lagos and 237 other pilot projects in 39 states and six countries as part of the highly anticipated LEED Neighborhood Development program, or LEED-ND. Other LEED-ND managing organizations include the Congress for New Urbanism and the Natural Resources Defense Council.

"Dos Lagos and its combined residential, retail and commercial development is a prime example of cutting energy and resource consumption through smart planning and land use," said Rick Fedrizzi, Chairman of the U.S. Green Building Council. "We're proud to have Dos Lagos as a pilot participant in the LEED Neighborhood Development program." 

Rapid growth in affordable real estate markets near urban employment centers has been typically defined by completely separate strip malls, sprawling single-family housing subdivisions and office campuses. These car-centered configurations put a strain on local traffic, nerves and the environment. Corona, a city of 153,000 in 2006 has grown over 70 percent since 1990. Located in a rapidly developing corridor along US Interstate 15, it is approximately 11 miles from the city of Riverside. The Riverside-San Bernardino metro was ranked in 2002 by the non-profit organization Smart Growth America as the most sprawled region out of the 100 largest metro areas in the United States, in its peer-reviewed study "Measuring Sprawl and its Impact."

The Smart Growth America study compared and ranked overall metro area sprawl levels by measuring four criteria within each metro: street connectedness, the presence of an urban center, amount of mixed-use development and density. Dos Lagos and a handful of other suburban developments nationally including Prairie Crossing in the Chicago suburb of Grayslake and Aventiene in the Washington, D.C. suburb of Gaithersburg, Maryland, are attempting to counter unchecked sprawl. These master-planned developments reduce at least two of the four sprawl factors measured in the study by creating mixed land uses--including residential, retail, office and entertainment--with more density than is typically found in suburbia.

Dos Lagos' mixed-use redevelopment strategy appears has been very successful. In late 2007 the master developer of Dos Lagos, Ali Sahabi, President of SE Corporation (a Common Current client), was awarded California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's only Environmental and Economic Leadership Award in the Sustainable Communities category.
 
Dos Lagos also is the only real estate development endorsed by the Riverside Land Conservancy, a non-profit organization whose mission is to protect nature and natural resources.  

In terms of economic and market measures, Dos Lagos, has also been a sensation. Located on 543 acres of what was abandoned industrial land purchased by SE Corporation for $5 million in 1996, the combined valuation of Dos Lagos including its retail and office center is today approaching $1 billion. Retail occupancy for Phase I of Dos Lagos' Promenade Shops is 96 percent and increasing. Out of  485 available units  76 percent sold. An additional  565 apartment and condominium units are in development or in the planning stages for a total of 1050 living units in the community.

Higher-density suburban communities such as Dos Lagos are designed to get people to run into their neighbors. Whether it's through shopping, jogging or biking along paths and sidewalks for recreation, walking to nearby offices, or through community events and celebrations, mixed-use living reduces the need to drive while replicating the spontaneous pedestrian interactions taken for granted as part of city living. Access to outdoor recreational opportunities at Dos Lagos includes a walkable 18-hole public championship golf course, mile-long trails along the restored Temescal Creek, generous open space access and wildlife viewing. 

"We think of the community as the focus of all we do," said Sahabi. "Our community allows people to spend more time with friends and families, have a rewarding career, stay fit and healthy, while being able to conveniently buy groceries, shop, go to restaurants or entertainment, and enjoy nature. Dos Lagos provides a balanced lifestyle that is harmonious with the community, and that includes the natural environment.".

The Promenade Shops include 60+ high-end retailers, everything from a Trader Joe's supermarket to Coach and Anthropologie stores, along with a 15-screen multiplex and several upscale restaurants. A LEED-registered six-story green office complex of 160,000 square feet is nearing completion.

Dos Lagos' redevelopment approach is more common to core urban areas. Rather than developing on so-called "greenfield" land that could be used for open space or agriculture--grapefruit and lemons are still commercially grown in this semi-desert environment--the community is located on the restored grounds of an abandoned silica mining operation. 

SE Corporation has been working closely during the past decade with habitat, wildlife and open space conservation agencies and groups, including the US Department of Fish and Wildlife Services, the California Department of Fish and Game and the Riverside Land Conservancy. After clearing derelict buildings as well as heavy machinery and autos dumped on the site, the first challenge was restoring a natural aquifer that recharges the namesake "two lakes." and reengineering approximately 10 million cubic yards of on-site soils primarily remnant mining tailing, bringing the site nearer to its pre-mined elevations.

Today the two four-acre lakes, joined by a 120-foot bamboo pedestrian bridge located within the 8.5 acre garden-lake district, serve as the heart of Dos Lagos, offering a spectacular backdrop for performances with a 400-seat outdoor amphitheater, as well as offering naturally cool refuge for waterfowl and visitors alike during hot weather. The golf course and lakes use non-potable water primarily from the restored aquifer, instead of being dependent upon imported water from faraway sources.

Native and drought-tolerant plants and wildflowers, as well as shade trees are found throughout Dos Lagos. Lushly planted "bioswales" capture and naturally filter stormwater run-off from nearby paved surfaces, reducing water pollution and irrigation needs. During the land's redevelopment a dozen young and six massive 170-year old coastal live oak trees were meticulously preserved and strategically replanted along major boulevards.  

According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, California hosts the most threatened species of any state in the nation; Dos Lagos contributes a key corridor connecting the coastal sage scrub, upland and coastal habitat zones for diverse wildlife. Despite heavy development in areas, Southern California still offers habitat is for 146 rare animal and plant species found nowhere else. Dos Lagos preserved and restored 165 acres of protected open space adjacent to the Cleveland National Forest, including Temescal Creek's rich riparian habitat.

Economically, Sahabi's one overriding goal for the commercial and retail elements of the mixed-use development was to address the historic deficit of jobs available in the region. Demographics for Riverside and San Bernardino counties from 2006 show that there was just over one job in the region for every four inhabitants. In the same year, nearby Los Angeles and Orange counties, by contrast, had about one job for every two inhabitants--indicating many Inland Empire residents have been commuting long hours by car for work in Los Angeles and Orange counties.

But that portrait is changing quickly. Because of this job-residential imbalance, Riverside and San Bernardino county job growth from 2000 to 2005 outpaced the rest of the state by a rate of more than seven times as much, according to the US Census Bureau (California's job growth rate was 3.9 percent and Riverside County's rate was 28.7 percent during the same period). Dos Lagos projects it will create 4,500 retail and corporate office jobs, which will contribute to improving the job-housing ratio while offering an alternative to the teeth-gnashing commutes between the Inland Empire and coastal counties.