Places
West Village at UC Davis: Down Home In Eco-Topia
Submitted by jstephens on 3 May 2010 - 5:45amDon't be fooled by the peaceful, pastoral look of West Village, a proposed housing development on the campus of UC Davis.
“Shucks,” the conceptual site plan seems to say, “I'm just a little old country town. See my bib overalls?”
I'm not falling for it. West Village may be bucolic and all, but this 220-acre project, intended to provide rental housing for students and for-sale housing to faculty, shows an uncompromising commitment to sustainability. Although pastoralism is not always the same thing as environmentalism, in this case it comes with some hard-minded environmentalism.
Ready-Made Downtown Planned For Otay Ranch
Submitted by Paul Shigley on 9 February 2010 - 1:47pmThis is a message to all California cities: Take your hats off to Chula Vista. This city of 210,000 people between San Diego and the Mexican border has adopted a plan for an all-new downtown in the Otay Ranch district that makes most other downtown plans seem tentative and incomplete. Perhaps another California community has the political will to approve something equally forward-looking; for the time being, the Otay Ranch Eastern Urban Center is among the plans that are raising the proverbial bar in city planning.
Fish Have Last Word At Wetlands
Submitted by Paul Shigley on 11 January 2010 - 1:53pmCan 12 million fish be wrong? Virtually no finned critters were to be found in the San Dieguito Lagoon as recently as 2007, when bulldozers began to push tons of earth to create berms along the banks of the coastal waterway. Seven months later, in January 2008, marine biologists were astonished to find millions of baby fish – far in excess of their expectations – squiggling in the newly irrigated lagoon in San Diego County.
NBC Universal's Growth Plans: A Monologue
Submitted by Paul Shigley on 9 November 2009 - 3:43pmNBC Universal has unveiled a master plan for buildout of its 391-acre property in the hills between Hollywood and the San Fernando Valley. Morris Newman offers his analysis by way of a dramatic monologue.
SF's Empty Lots: Something From Nothing
Submitted by Paul Shigley on 9 October 2009 - 11:20amPlanners, architects and developers think they make stuff that lasts forever, or at least for a very long time. For them, empty lots are merely temporary conditions. However, empty lots can be interesting and even useful, especially during economic down times. In San Francisco, a number of architects and landscape designers have created temporary uses for cleared construction sites or abandoned construction pits.
Quarry Village: Suburban Life Without Cars
Submitted by Paul Shigley on 9 September 2009 - 11:06amSomething seems to be missing from the site plan for Quarry Village, a 42-acre proposed housing development in Hayward. Here are orderly rows of streets, a scattering of small parks and a “village center” for neighborhood-scale retail. The 950 housing units are made up entirely of three-story townhouses, arranged in rows of four and six units. What's missing? Garages.
Downtown Sacramento's Leftover Becomes A Main Course
Submitted by Paul Shigley on 13 August 2009 - 9:26amThe broad, concrete shoulders of Interstate 5 divide the Docks development parcel from the rest of Sacramento. Until recently, this 43-acre triangle of land remained almost entirely out of sight and out of mind. Now, the city is weighing several plans for large-scale homebuilding plans and parks on the riverfront.
Clever Project Develops School, Housing Together
Submitted by Paul Shigley on 1 July 2009 - 10:41amA working-class neighborhood north of downtown L.A. is slated for a development project unlike any other previously built in the state: A combination of housing and a public school on a shared site. Set to start construction this winter, the Glassell Park project is being built jointly by Los Angeles Unified School District and Abode Communities, the nonprofit homebuilder formerly known as Los Angeles Design Center.
Huntington Beach Boulevard Plan: Paris Or Vegas?
Submitted by Paul Shigley on 28 May 2009 - 11:02amThe Beach and Edinger Corridors Specific Plan for Huntington Beach seeks to remake Beach and Edinger into first-rate streets. But the plan's elevation of retail sales above other needs could compromise the city's urban design goals.
SF Draws Line On Industrial Area Gentrification
Submitted by Paul Shigley on 1 May 2009 - 9:29amThe Eastern Neighborhoods Community Plans are complex, comprehensive documents that attempt to safeguard surviving industrial sites for business, while providing both incentives and requirements for new housing. The long-awaited planning documents essentially are declaring, “Gentrification stops here.”