CHARRETTE PROCESS GUIDING PRINCIPLES
1. AIA's Ten Principles of Livable Communities
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1. Design on a Human Scale
Compact, pedestrian-friendly communities allow residents to walk to shops, services, cultural resources, and jobs and can reduce traffic congestion and benefit people's health.
2. Provide Choices
People want variety in housing, shopping, recreation, transportation, and employment. Variety creates lively neighborhoods and accommodates residents in different stages of their lives.
3. Encourage Mixed-Use Development
Integrating different land uses and varied building types creates vibrant, pedestrian-friendly and diverse communities.
4. Preserve Urban Centers
Restoring, revitalizing, and infilling urban centers takes advantage of existing streets, services and buildings and avoids the need for new infrastructure. This helps to curb sprawl and promote stability for city neighborhoods.
5. Vary Transportation Options
Giving people the option of walking, biking and using public transit, in addition to driving, reduces traffic congestion, protects the environment and encourages physical activity.
6. Build Vibrant Public Spaces
Citizens need welcoming, well-defined public places to stimulate face-to-face interaction, collectively celebrate and mourn, encourage civic participation, admire public art, and gather for public events.
7. Create a Neighborhood Identity
A "sense of place" gives neighborhoods a unique character, enhances the walking environment, and creates pride in the community.
8. Protect Environmental Resources
A well-designed balance of nature and development preserves natural systems, protects waterways from pollution, reduces air pollution, and protects property values.
9. Conserve Landscapes
Open space, farms, and wildlife habitat are essential for environmental, recreational, and cultural reasons.
10. Design Matters
Design excellence is the foundation of successful and healthy communities.
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2. AIA's Public Policy Framework and Position Statements
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1. Architecture profoundly affects people. The work of architects is essential to human well being, and architects must embrace their ethical obligation to uphold this public trust.
2. As members of their communities, architects are professionally obligated to use their knowledge, skill, and experience to engage in civic life.
3. Design, construction, and society are constantly changing. To serve society, architects must commit to continual professional growth through learning, iimovation, and exploration.
4. With an obligation to the future of the architecture profession, architects must encourage, recruit, and inspire those who would become architects.
5. Regulation of the construction industry shapes the built environment. As stakeholders, architects must participate in the development and application of appropriate regulations and standards.
6. Leadership in design and construction requires collaboration. Architects must encourage and celebrate the contributions of those who bring diverse experiences, views, and needs into the design process.
7. Architecture expresses the values of society and has the power to enhance the quality of life for this and future generations. Architects must advocate for responsible design that results in beautiful andhealthy places that respect and accommodate society’s diverse cultures and needs.
8. The creation and operation of the built environment require an investment of the earth’s resources. Architects must be environmentally responsible and advocate for the sustainable use of those resources.
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2. WMSA's "The Common Framework"
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The Common Framework is the result of two years of objective data gathering, analysis and strategic planning conducted by more than 250 volunteers across ten essential activities:
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1. Arts, Cultural Activities, & History
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The Tri-plex is home to three symphonies, one ballet company, one opera company, nearly a dozen theatres, eight art museums or centers, and dozens of fairs and festivals. West Michigan has a broad range of arts and cultural opportunities, but most are centered in individual communities. The Tri-plex as a whole is not perceived as a major cultural center, either by its residents or the outside world. Unlike metropolitan areas with a single, dominant population center, West Michigan's multiple population centers make it difficult for us to offer cultural opportunities with broad access at an affordable price that is competitive with other metro areas.
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2. Economic Development
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Over the past 30 years, the Tri-plex has had the fastest growing manufacturing segment compared to similar regions in the country, and the lowest number of new economy jobs outside manufacturing. West Michigan has had successful "industry clusters" in office furniture, automotive, metal working, food processing, and printing/graphic arts. But the new global marketplace is much more competitive. We have already lost certain corporate headquarters and seen the erosion of our dominance in certain "industry clusters". To stay viable, we must compete with the world--not with each other--as a region.
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3. Education and Research
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There are 43 public school districts, 25 charter schools and numerous parochial schools within the region. In addition, the region is the location for significant research facilities, namely the Van Andel Institute in Grand Rapids and the Annis Water Resources Institute at Grand Valley State University in Muskegon. Population growth, increased ethnic diversity, urban migration, decreased funding and governance patterns have created major challenges for our educational systems, particularly at the K-12 level. We must collaborate across jurisdictional boundaries to eliminate financial disparities and improve the performance of all students.
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4. Environment
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Lake Michigan is the most noticeable feature of our region, and the health of the Tri-plex is dependent on its water quality. In addition to Lake Michigan, we have three major rivers and five watersheds. But we lack a comprehensive inventory of the region?s environmental assets that would allow us to collectively protect them. The time to act is now. Rapid population growth and fragmented decision making can lead to serious environmental problems.
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5. Governance
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The Metro Tri-plex encompasses more than 100 governmental units, including 68 townships, 38 cities/towns/villages, and four counties. Strong traditions of home rule and local government now face problems that are bigger than any one unit of government. We need to develop a framework for governmental leaders to meet and discuss common problems and opportunities. We need to create a cohesive state legislative caucus that represents the Metro Tri-plex.
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6. Health and Human Services
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There are eight hospitals and numerous health centers and human service agencies in West Michigan. The cost and quality of health-care services in the Tri-plex is competitive with those found in other metropolitan areas of the Midwest. However, the cost of and access to health care is a crisis around the country, and we are not exempt from the challenge in our region. We need to enhance regional collaboration of health and human service providers to create higher quality and more equitable delivery of services.
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7. Infrastructure
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Not all areas of our region have access to broadband communication technologies. Many communities are unprepared to deal with the expense of replacing water and sewer systems. Water supply has become a political issue for some municipalities. All of these issues will become more critical as our region continues to grow at a rate more than double the population growth rate of the state.
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8. Land Use and Urbanization
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The 100 governmental jurisdictions in the region each have separate land-use ordinances and policies. A single-use development pattern that leads to industrial parks, malls and developments has replaced the traditional mixed-use model of urban development. Increased demand for land to be used for commercial and residential development has created higher land values in rural areas, contributing to a reduction in the amount of farmland and open space. Land-use patterns, if they continue along the same path, will result in the loss of valuable agricultural land and precious environmental assets, leading to the further deterioration of our urban centers.
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9. Transportation and Logistics
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The three separate urban centers in the Tri-plex are home to airports, ports, rail and road networks. Our transportation infrastructure has developed in a fragmented fashion, partially due to our lack of regionally coordinated land-use planning. The traditional triangular traffic pattern among Grand Rapids, Holland and Muskegon is being replaced with a more congested urban grid. We need to develop a comprehensive master plan to support and guide the integrated development of various modes of transportation.
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10. Tourism, Conventions, Entertainment, & Sports
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The Tri-plex is home to 550 miles of bike trails, more than 50 miles of Lake Michigan beach, four ports for recreational boating, 75 golf courses, five minor league sports teams and numerous lodging facilities. We soon will have a new, large convention facility in downtown Grand Rapids. We need to collaborate on a regional branding strategy to more effectively market West Michigan as a destination. But we still have a tendancy to compete with each other as opposed to competing together against other regions for tourism and convention business. We need to work together to brand the region and its unique diversity of opportunities for visitors.
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The Common Framework is not a plan for the future; it provides a snapshot of West Michigan that can be used as a tool for creating a shared understanding of our Metro Tri-plex, its complexities and interconnections, its strengths and weaknesses and its opportunities and threats. This information can help decision makers of all organizations make more informed choices for the future.
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3. CNT's Ten Assets of Urban Systems
Author: Scott Bernstein (www.cnt.org/hidden-assets)
For more information please contact the author at scott@cnt.org (11.10.06)
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1. Urban Purchasing Power
The purchasing power of older and of lower income areas is undervalued.
2. Concentrated Workforce
Official reports of the locations of greatest job growth contribute to the impression that most job openings are located far from where the people are who need work
3. Mass Transit Systems
Transit can potentially offer excellent access to jobs, schools, and retail services.
4. Accessibility
There is significant accessibility offered by the city center and by its older, traditional suburbs and satellite cities. However, because the costs of transportation are not scored, there is significant undervaluation of the benefits of this convenience.
5. Abandoned and Under-used Land
Many cities have vast tracts of abandoned and under-utilized land including abandoned parking lots and shopping centers. In 1995, for example, more than 3,800 abandoned first-generation shopping centers dotted the nation’s inner cities. While local land reform movements have spurred some reinvestment, only in a few cities has reinvestment been undertaken on a large scale.
6. Underutilized infrastructure
Because of their loss of population over the past decades, most cities have underutilized infrastructure that could become the basis for a new collaborative, market-based approach to housing development.
7. In-Place Infrastructure with Underutilized Capacity
These in-place investments include water, sewer, gas, electric, telecommunications, roads and mass transit systems. The Wharton Real Estate Center estimates the value of this infrastructure in the nine largest cities alone at $1.6 Trillion. Disinvestment and underutilization result in the premature write-off of these valuable assets, while maintenance of over-built systems leads to excess customer charges and taxes.
8. Already Assembled Rights-of-Way
In addition to the tangible assets represented by physical infrastructure, centralized systems all bring with them the more intangible asset of being sited on already assembled rights-of-way.
9. Efficient Resource Use
Lower-density and newer communities require more natural resources and produce more of the growth in pollutants than do older and denser ones. The compact nature of urban living makes recycling of consumer wastes easier than in sparsely populated areas.
10. Surprising biodiversity and natural capital
At least in agricultural regions, urban areas may preserve the best remnants of biodiversity. In many cases, the monoculture of agriculture has removed most complex habitats. In these cases, some of the best uncultivated land is close to urban centers.
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4. CNT's Hidden Assets
Author: Scott Bernstein (www.cnt.org/hidden-assets)
For more information please contact the author at scott@cnt.org (11.10.06)
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