First Development in SODO Moscow

My explorations of developing in SODO Moscow have run head long into the financial constraints playing out in our community.  The economy has me pondering "Lighter Quicker Cheaper" that was reproduced in the planners journal that I get as a member of P&Z.

Interestingly, many of the best, most authentic and enduring destinations in a city, the places that keep locals and tourists coming back again and again and that anchor quality, local jobs,  were born out of a series of incremental, locally-based improvements. One by one, these interventions built places that were more than the sum of their parts.

In that vein, here is the first development in SODO, a taco truck. First it was the truck alone. Then is sprouted the awning. Then the port-a-potty. It makes me think of the development of Patty's Kitchen a block north, from a tiny shack. The question is, what comes next? What quick, light, cheap experiment could be added to enrich a taco truck?

Another update is the (near) completion of the process to locate Moscow's Intermodal Transit Center (bus hub, park N Ride, UI Parking office) on the corner of Sweet and Railroad St, across the Sweet Ave parking lot from the SODO site. Construction of that facility will get something moving in the neighborhood.

Green Roofs

One of the challenges of SODO Moscow is managing storm water runoff from impervious surfaces. Green roofs offer a way to catch rain falling on a building and slow its departure to the storm water system.

For this SODO Friday challenge (learn about SODO Friday), send in images of Green Roofs:

• Flat or sloped
• Flowers or shrubs or trees
• A place for people be outdoors

Please send in images or post links to describe what would make a great green roof in SODO Moscow.

For a previous SODO Friday see Promenades.

University of Idaho Connections

A week ago I had a conversation with Gerard Billington, in the UI Real Estate office. Gerard feels UI would like to see developments in SODO that connect UI to Moscow and that strengthen the edge of campus.

I'm guessing UI might like to rent office space in SODO, its close to campus, close to parking, and likely, close to the Intermodal Transit Center in the planning stages

For this SODO Friday challenge (learn about SODO Friday), suggest University of Idaho uses in SODO Moscow:

• Programs that would benefit from easy public access (avoid parking congestion in central campus)
• Programs that connect town and campus
• Services the UI community might consume (eg a student health center not student housing)

As an example, the offices of the WSU Foundation are downtown Pullman with retail uses below.

Last week's SODO Friday focused on Promenades.

Promenades

A critical friend suggested I rethink access to the site, taking a very different approach than my previous site plan explorations by putting the street down the southern property line and along the creek. For this SODO Friday challenge (learn about SODO Friday), send in images of Promenades:

• Places on the edge between open space and built space
• Places that are inhabited by a variety of people
• Places where you'd want to walk, eat or linger
• Places with cars and parking but speeds are low
• Places with residences where you could live
• Places with little professional businesses tucked away

Paradise Creek is not as big as the river in this image, but it could host an attractive promenade.

Please send in images or post links to describe what would make a great promenade in SODO Moscow.

Last week's SODO Friday focused on Inviting Alleys and Pedestrian Paths.

Inviting Alleys and Pedestrian Paths

Our exploration of Inviting Alleys broadened into ideas about alleys and pedestrian paths. Alleys mix people and an few cars, but people have the upper hand. Paths are for pedestrians
We liked had some features in common. They were:

• Places inhabited by people; and inviting to inhabit (maybe even a tiny mystery)
• Places you'd want to walk, with interesting walking surfaces (and wheelchair surfaces too)
• Places with residences where you'd dream of living
• Places with successful little businesses tucked away
• Places that have plants

I like this alley because it looks like people visit here. A few cars come and go, but pedestrians would feel safe. It has variety: paving, heights, widths, plants, colors.

This alley leads back into a cluster of housing for a religious order. The gate and its tree sentinels make for a little mystery.

The topography here didn't allow a street, but this path provides access back to several houses, then along the edge of a hill to the next street.

St Andrews Scotland has several of these pedestrian paths that connect the E-W streets in the core of the medieval city. Some have housing and a few have shops and restaurants. This view doesn't seem so inviting, perhaps because of the blank wall at the entrance, and tall buildings.

This St Andrews walking street seems more inviting than the one above, perhaps because of the stairs and doorways and lower heights of the buildings.

This Baltimore street started a conversation about adding more green, which brought in the two images below to illustrate how it could be done in a tight space.

Adding a few pots of plants makes the space more inviting.

Window well and planter box outside this rowhouse don't take much space and the railing would keep the plants from some mischief.

Here is a pocket garden off an alley in the same Federal Hill Baltimore neighborhood.

A gated walkway to access a private back yard gives daylight to the buildings and a tiny mystery to the street.

The gated walkway can even be a tunnel

Click to enlarge and peek into the green pocket behind this house.

Even on a foggy night, the right lights and walking surface can make an inviting mystery.

Living spaces might be on the alley, but care is needed with utilities, garbage cans, etc so the space remains inviting to occupants and viewers from the street.

A low house surrounded by plants seems like a wonderful find down this alley.

This was a SODO Friday challenge Jan 7, 2011 (learn about SODO Friday). You are welcome to comment or send in more images of Alleys and Paths.

SODO Friday

The idea of SODO Friday is to create an invitation and challenge to help visualize some aspect of South Of DOwntown Moscow. On Fridays a challenge will be posted here (label: SODO Friday) and in the SODO Moscow Facebook group. The idea is to challenge readers to respond and dialog with images that capture their response to the challenge.

What you do

Find images that meet the challenge, share the image or link in the SODO Moscow Facebook group, or share the link in the comments on this blog, or email to nilspete@gmail.com and I'll do it.  Tell us in a few words what's great about your image/ why your image meets the challenge.

How to find images

• Your personal photo collection/ take a picture
• Google them (tell us the search terms you used)
• Google Street View (and screen capture) Visit a place that you remember using Street View (how to) in Google Maps, use your computer's screen capture to grab the image.

Copyright

You focus on finding images, I'll worry about lawyers. If you can choose a photo that is yours or in the public domain, that much easier for me.

When does a SODO Friday end?

Its not a race, and there is no strict cutoff, but most people will quit paying attention after a week. I'll appreciate your contribution

What happens after the challenge?

I will summarize the images and ideas into a blog post for the week's challenge.

Where did the idea come from?

SODO Friday is loosly patterned after Illustration Friday, which is a national activity among illustrators and graphic artists.

Links to past SODO Friday Challenges:

Design Elements

• Inviting Alleys and Pedestrian Paths
• Promenades
• Green Roofs
• Courtyards between houses
• Rooftop Living
• Living over the store

Usage Ideas

• University of Idaho Connections
• Gardening and Edible Landscape
• Businesses suggestions
• Business Incubator
• Energy Generation

Second Site Study

I appreciate the feedback from several of you on my first site study. @Al thought that the cars were dominating the middle and that a green space should be the center and parking put to the side. @Phil suggested I try podium parking (ground level parking tucked under the buildings) @Bill suggested I look at more of the context around the site and not have such a weak corner (eg parking lot) near the cul-de-sac. I also learned a bit more about firetruck requirements. The trucks like to pull through without backing up, but can use a 'hammerhead' to turn around. Pulling through means going off the site, so I have not explored that yet.

The first plan was trying to explore the idea of a surface parking lot that could later be a parking structure. These plans abandon the idea of ever having a parking structure.

Community green space between rows of dwellings.

Here are two new versions. One I'm calling the Long Alley because it puts an alley with garages behind all the townhouses. The other I'm calling Interior Court because it has a courtyard for two rows of townhouses.  Interior court was inspired by this image of the Berea EcoVillage.

Long Alley

 Long Alley still has the problem that the center of the site is devoted to the car. It does address the 'weak corner' at the cul-de-sac and it makes lots of use of pedestal parking to avoid most of the parking lot. I'm not to wild about this, it looks like a row of little boxes and a warren of little roads.


Interior Court

Interior Court has several garden areas, but it might not work for fire access -- one alley requires backing out 150 feet. It also requires some cooperation with the northern neighbor to make a shared alley on the property line, but the neighbor may want to cooperate to better access the eastern portion of their property (across the view shed). This plan is probably short of parking, esp for the building at the cul-de-sac.

Los Angeles Eco-Village

LAEV  - reinventing how we live in cities

Los Angeles Eco-Village and Cooperative Resources & Services Project is an example of an approach to community that would raise the organizational bar to getting SODO Moscow going, but provides answers to some of @Joseph's questions in the last post.


The Los Angeles Eco-Village
Intentional Community (LAEV-IC),  in the built-out Wilshire Center/Koreatown area is "working toward becoming a demonstration of healthy urban community. Our whole-systems approach to community development tries to integrate the social, economic and physical aspects of neighborhood life to be sustainable over the long term. Eco-villagers intend to achieve and demonstrate high-fulfillment, low-impact living patterns, to reduce the burden of government, and to increase neighborhood self-reliance in a variety of areas such as livelihood, food production, energy and water use, affordable housing, transit, recreation, waste reduction and education.

"We also plan to convert the housing in the neighborhood from rental to permanently affordable cooperative ownership. Our two block multi-ethnic working class neighborhood is home to about 500 persons. Located three miles west of downtown L.A., the area is close to public transit, the Metro Redline, schools, churches, stores, commercial services and light industry. A rich neighborhood history and architecturally significant buildings provide a sense of place to build on."

To live there, you need to become a member, which involves committing participate in the community.

Cooperative Resources & Services Project (CRSP) is an education, training and resource center for small ecological cooperative communities, located in L.A.Eco-Village, CRSP and its emerging Institute for Urban Ecovillages collaborates with the LAEV-IC and other organizations to present workshops and special events to expand public awareness for living more cooperatively and more ecologically.

More info and history here.

Intentional Community

In response to this vision for creekside rowhouses, @Joseph wrote the thoughtful questions below. The Smart Growth Manual (see Bibliography) 5.3 Housing Diversity suggests "for many reasons, a health neighborhood includes a wide range of dwelling types... community social networks depend on a diversity of ages and incomes... affordable housing provides a healthier environment when it is distributed... life cycle housing allows residents to move up economically without moving out." @Gerri also pointed in this direction, with a reference to "intentional community."

The Federal Hill and Otterbien districts of inner Baltimore where neighborhoods where "merchants and bankers lived along the main street, artisans and clerks on the side streets, and servants and laborers along the alleys." (from the historic interpretive sign in the neighborhood)

Joseph wrote in FB:

"I like the vision, and can imagine wanting to live there. Three broad and interrelated questions come to mind.

1) Who would really end up living there?

I can imagine a number of types of folks who might be attracted. Off the top of my head:
...- grad students
- sensible and steady undergrads
- young parents with small children
- empty-nesters who are sizing down
- DINKs (double income no kids)

I would like to see it become a neighborhood with a broad range of income levels and lifestyles. Our town, like most, tends to reflect our socially segregated society, with distinct sorting of people by neighborhood. Students live in neighborhood A (rather run down), blue collar in neighborhood B, landed gentry in C.... We don't see a lot of mixing of rentals and owner-occupied; upper- middle- and lower-income; short-term and long-term; town and gown. Could this be a model for a more integrated community?

If that is the goal, there is one trait all residents must all have in common: a willingness and intention to live with a different notion of privacy and relations to one's neighbors than is prevalent in US and in the rural west in particular. How do we make this the defining characteristic of the neighborhood, rather than having it devolve into just another island of one soc-econ segment or another?

2) Ownership?

Owner-only excludes some people but attracts people willing to make a long-term investment (not only monetary but in the idea of living there). Rentals could make it turn into just another off-campus private dorm, but would open it to people of more limited means who nevertheless want to live in a different (and in my mind) better way in relation to their community.

3) Governance?

As I stated above, it will take a different way of relating to neighbors to make this vision work. How is that achieved and maintained? Carrots? Sticks? Covenants? Owner association? Organic growth without explicit ongoing governance?

Would thoughtful architecture, land design, and ownership structure be sufficient to induce this sort of community?"