STOP Development of Sandwich South Lands

In the early 2000’s when the City of Windsor acquired the Sandwich South Lands, it was determined that once the city reached a population that justified expansion that a secondary plan would be prepared and our community would grow outward.  15 years later and Windsor has not grown substantially, there remain a number of undeveloped areas within the city’s established land area, and over 500 acres of brownfield properties, all ready for re-development.  One may argue that the development of the Sandwich South Lands is not yet justified due to our lack of population growth, and they would be correct, however we should re-consider developing this land for different reason all together.  

The tendency for cities to grow outward in the low development fashion we know as the suburban development pattern has been increasingly challenged.  We are now realizing that low density growth is not environmentally, fiscally or socially sustainable, nor does it build the type of neighbourhoods, main-streets and public places we have grown to cherish in Western Society.   Architects and planners will argue that such development patterns build places of poor quality; simply compare our old “main-street” commercial corridors found in Old Walkerville, Via Italia or the Ottawa Street Neighbourhood with any new big box and strip mall development and you will understand what they are talking about.  Speak to healthcare professionals and your children’s teachers to hear about how low density automobile dependent communities create unhealthy sedentary lifestyles.  Study the financial situation in Windsor and many other cities and municipal officials and accountants will demonstrate that low density development is driving many communities into massive debt.  Finally, speak to environmental experts to hear how low density sprawl is perhaps the largest threat to our environment today.

Perhaps is the early 2000’s when the development of suburbia was at its peak in North America, Windsor’s expansion onto the Sandwich South Lands sounded like a good idea, however 15 years has passed and the whole idea has far less luster.  Windsor has more than enough room to grow within its established footprint.  Our population density is below provincial targets and our core neighbourhoods desperately need re-investment.  The idea of developing outward simply does not make sense anymore.  Focusing Windsor's growth in the Sandwich South Lands instead of the our existing and established footprint takes future tax dollars from our existing schools, libraries, community centres and infrastructure like roads, sidewalks, bike lanes and sewers and lands that revenue in a bean field.  If we want to live in a vibrant, healthy, and sustainable city, we must scrap the plan to develop the Sandwich South Lands and plan our new growth within our established communities. 

Today's urban planning theories are changing but education, health and transportation policies have not caught up.

There has been a drastic change in planning theory across North America over the past 20 years.  Most planners today agree that the suburban model comes with a plethora of inherent problems; from environmental concerns to economic and social issues, it’s clear we need to make changes.  Despite efforts by many planners we seem to fail to be able slow the demise of existing inner-city neighbourhoods or build new communities that perform like their predecessors.

The reaction by these professionals to the problems of suburbanization has for the most part been progressive and well thought out.  Planners across Canada and the United States have been challenging the suburban codes set in place by the city builders of the 1950’s.  Individuals such as Jane Jacobs, James Howard Kunstler, Jeff Speck, Donald Shoup and countless others have been recognizing the need for change and though numerous books and other publications.  Additionally organizations like The Congress for New Urbanism, Strong Towns, The Walkable Cities Institute and various others have been promoting good design practice on the basis of economic sustainability, environmental responsibility and social good.

So what’s the problem?  With planners working diligently to provide responsible design solutions, as well as many municipalities recognizing the problems associated with suburban development patterns, and in some cases even making changes to zoning codes that will permit good urban design, why do our existing neighbourhoods continue to degrade?  Furthermore, with all the progressive changes to the planning practice in recent decades why do new communities fail to perform like their traditional counterparts?  The problem is that even though progressive planners have recognized the need for change, they remain essentially powerless to affect change in three major branches of government that are perhaps the most influential to our communities function and wellbeing.   These branches of government being: the ministries of transportation, health and education.   It’s becoming clear that no matter how well planned our city streets and public spaces and how well designed the buildings that line them, without massive changes to the aforementioned branches of government, all efforts to affect positive change will likely be for little or no gain as decisions made by these institutions can easily undermine any effort to maintain the basic function of an existing inner-city neighbourhood or the creation a new community with the intention of utilizing the traditional pattern of development.

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First of all, and perhaps the most important; our schools.   These institutions often become the heart of a community and are major drivers to attract and keep people in a neighbourhood.  Year after year, it seems that another school closing is announced.  Local school boards, driven by policy from the province or state are forced close and consolidate neighbourhood schools.  Any existing neighbourhood can be devastated by such a move; additionally it becomes impossible to build new “traditional” communities without neighbourhood schools.  When local school boards are forced to work with a funding model that does not allow neighbourhood schools to stay open, and when consolidation to these “mega-schools” is the only way to balance the budget, our existing neighbourhoods suffer and our new neighbourhoods never have a chance.

    Fig. 1 - The location of the Tecumseh Vista School in Windsor / Tecumseh.

            When it comes to healthcare, our local doctor’s offices and hospitals are both vital to the wellbeing of a community.  Hospitals located in the city core are magnets for commercial and residential development, bringing thousands of people into the city core everyday.  Physicians locating their offices within the neighbourhoods they serve, eliminates the need for residents to travel great distances outside of their community to receive care.  Both these facilities have historically been developed at the traditional neighbourhood scale.  For example, the city in which I reside, Windsor, Ontario, once had four hospitals, but after closures and consolidation, now only two facilities remain.  With talks of closing these last two in lieu of a regional centre to serve both the city and surrounding suburbs the city core will be left without a hospital.  Today, the provincial ministries of health in Canada have been supporting this model of local hospital closure and consolidation of services into what’s commonly termed a “mega-hospital”.  These are regional centres that serve large metropolitan areas and are frequently located on the outside fridge of a city.  The are seen as the most accessible and economic way in which to deliver healthcare services, but do not take into consideration the impact that this model will have on our existing towns and cities or our the pattern in which we develop new communities.  In addition to consolidation of hospital services many physicians are being encouraged to move their practices to large co-operative health centers.  This model brings together a large number of physicians into one facility but pulls doctors out from the communities they serve.  This forces patients to commute long distances to access these services, which can be difficult for seniors and those who use public transit.  Both of these changes to our health system are very harmful to our existing inner-city neighbourhoods as they encourage the exodus of the city and turn new developments into little more than bedroom communities. 

    Fig. 2 - The new location of the Royal Victoria Hospital in Barrie, Ontario indicated in red.

                 Downtown Barrie is indicated with the yellow marker and the old Royal Victoria Hospital 

                 site is indicated in blue.

            Finally, modern policy developed by the ministry of transportation has completely changed the way we build our places.  Many towns and cities in this country began simply as a small collection of buildings at an opportune location along a path or the intersection of two well-travelled roads.  This is the beginning of a village and if the population in the area grows, more buildings are constructed until the village takes shape, some of these will eventually grow into a towns, and even a cities as time goes on.  The ability to construct buildings in the traditional village scale, that is, a building form that addresses the street and utilizes on-street parking is vital to the creation of towns and cities. This practice creates what we know as “main street” and is place-making at its finest.   For the most part, this is how most villages, towns and city centres that we cherish today were formed.  However, currently the ministry of transportation denies us the ability to build in this form.  Most county and provincial roads do not permit this form of development; instead only allowing what is often referred to as a “pad site” requiring all parking to take place off-street to maintain high-speed traffic on the roadway.  Instead of encouraging development in a pattern that will result in the creation of real towns, real places, our current policy is to only permit development in the form of pad sites, strip plazas and big box developments strewn randomly across our landscape.  Developments in this form will never come together to create a village, they will never create a public place in the traditional sense.  This regulation, established for the sake of moving cars quickly, prevents us from ever creating new places of value.

    Fig. 3 - Small towns in Ontario located at intersections of two well travelled roads.  

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            There are many challenges that today’s planners face in the pursuit of building places of quality.   These professionals have the know-how and the tools to build real communities that are more than bedroom neighbourhoods and endless corridors of commercial plazas, but with the current policy of our education, healthcare and transportation government, planners will continue to spin their wheels.  In order to affect real change, to maintain our existing inner-city neighbourhoods and build new places of value we need to make drastic changes to these braches of government.  If municipalities and planners cannot encourage all branches of government to align their policy with current planning theory, our existing and future communities will suffer for it.

Physical Barriers in Urban Design

     Today I would like to discuss physical barriers in urban design. Many design decisions can create physical barriers, and one of the most common is our street design. In cities across Canada and the United States we have created a series of high speed roads cutting though our urban cores, solely for the purpose of moving automobiles quickly though these areas. These roads can take shape in many forms, the raised or sunken highway is one of the most destructive. Thankfully we have learned from our ways and many cities have already began the process of removing these highways and creating complete streets in their place. Some of the best known examples in Toronto and New York.

http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/cities/top-12-urban-highway-removal-projects/1953

     Here in Windsor we have Riverside Drive. Now “The Drive” is not a highway by any means, but it can but just as much of a barrier. Riverside drive experiences high speed traffic that cuts the downtown core off from our fantastic waterfront parks. Recently Mayor Eddie Francis suggested that a series of tunnels under Riverside Drive in an effort to eliminate this barrier. The unfortunate reality is that though this concept may provide a “safer” passage under the busy street, but does nothing to solve the issue of Riverside Driving being a barrier itself.

http://blogs.windsorstar.com/2012/11/23/henderson-linking-the-waterfront-to-core/

     In addition to the problem of The Drive acting as a psychological barrier, it's high speed traffic, lack of parking, bicycle lanes, protection of pedestrians from moving cars, has caused problems of vacancy and blight along what could be a strip of Windsor's more desirable properties. Riverside is far from being what planners term a “complete street”. The goal of creating complete streets is one that addresses the needs of all users: motorists, cyclists, pedestrians, public transit, etc. The side effect of building complete streets is it best serves the properties fronting the street.

https://maps.google.ca/maps?hl=en&ll=42.322059,-83.028802&spn=0.006687,0.016512&t=h&z=17&layer=c&cbll=42.322059,-83.028802&panoid=VtXoUfWm46zaZgTNTntaCA&cbp=12,77.88,,0,0

     Below I have prepared a proposal for Riverside drive that allows for 1 lane of moving traffic in each direction, 1 lane of parking on the South side of the street, bicycle lanes on both sides and a boulevard. This design will calm motorists, add valuable street parking and promote retail in the downtown area. For the areas east of downtown, the residents will get their street parking back, and no longer have a high speed road only meters from their doorsteps. 

     It was common in years past to only consider the best interest of motorists. Recently we have been redesigning our streets do much more than move automobiles, we have taken all the users of the street into consideration and most importantly, the properties that front the street. If we take a plan to redesign Riverside Drive as a complete street seriously, I strongly believe we will not only eliminate the barrier between the downtown core and the river, we will solve the problems of blight and vacancy Riverside Drive also faces. If doing so, motorists need to spend a few more minutes behind the wheel when moving though this part of town, then so be it, the vitally of our city is more important.