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Planning: general 🌇 Random Planning Thoughts (and Photos) Deserving No Thread Of Their Own

Tomorrow, I find out if I am reappointed for another four years as Planning Commissioner. I don't see any reason why I won't be, but you never know.

There wasn't exactly a long line of applicants out the door of the courthouse.

Jim
 
I attended a neighborhood meeting for an upcoming project and the developer had to start his presentation by saying his company name is misleading and they are in fact not building "affordable or subsidized homes" and there was an active sigh of relief from the neighbors who then had zero issues if they were market rate products... :listen:
 
jumbach said:
Tomorrow, I find out if I am reappointed for another four years as Planning Commissioner. I don't see any reason why I won't be, but you never know.

There wasn't exactly a long line of applicants out the door of the courthouse.

Jim
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Waiting GIF
 
jumbach said:
Tomorrow, I find out if I am reappointed for another four years as Planning Commissioner. I don't see any reason why I won't be, but you never know.

There wasn't exactly a long line of applicants out the door of the courthouse.

Jim
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I was on the PC until the Mayor said I wasn't. At my last meeting, a developer picked up an already approved and partially developed project. Part of the initial city approval was to construct a $500,000 park. The new owner did not want to pay out and came to ask the city to pick up the tab. I told him in our meeting I don't agree and that was part of the deal with buying the project. Why should the taxpayers pay out was my comment. I know the developer then went and complained to the mayor. Mayor told me they were "going a different direction." Sure. BS. I said whatever as I did not want to burn bridges should a potential opening happen. Looking back, should have told the mayor what he could do with himself.
 
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The “bedroom TV.” By household rule since 2005, used only for sports and movies.
 

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Dan said:
This is supposedly in (or near) Murfeesboro, Tennessee. I believe it. I'm doing a little bit of Googledriving around the area, and I'm seeing relatively new residential subdivisions with overhead utilities along the street frontage, and lots of streets with developer's daughter names.

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Wish I could find the page but an ad popped up in my FB feed a few days ago advertising homes for sale I believe in Texas. SF detached 2-story but only as wide as a single car garage. Would have been better in a townhome config and add a few feet from cost savings of construction one less wall. But those pesky zoning codes probably said otherwise. I don't know which is worse, that or what you show.
 
SlaveToTheGrind said:
Wish I could find the page but an ad popped up in my FB feed a few days ago advertising homes for sale I believe in Texas. SF detached 2-story but only as wide as a single car garage. Would have been better in a townhome config and add a few feet from cost savings of construction one less wall. But those pesky zoning codes probably said otherwise. I don't know which is worse, that or what you show.
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I don't know about other states/regions, but we are seeing many projects of this type (1000-ish sf homes at 14' wide) around San Antonio, TX. We have one in our city proper and several nearby. Some do not even have garages or driveways for more than one car, so much more street parking happens. I believe our instance is in a PUD and the value-add was the fact that these are marketed at roughly =/<50% of your "normal" home thereby providing homes within the city for teachers and local employees. About half the homes were purchased before completion by commercial leasing entities and are now comparable to "normal" SF home rents.
 
That moment when you realize that your driver license and both passports are all expiring within a few weeks of today's date . . . and then think maybe you should stagger them so that won't happen again. Then remember you said that ten years ago.

Jim
 
For the last couple of weeks, there's been a state trooper on the freeway in a certain spot.

Today, the smart alec moved 1/2 mile or so upstream, where I saw him today.

My speed was nowhere close to the range of where he'd be interested in stopping me, but I wonder if his trick worked.

Jim
 
Dan said:
This is supposedly in (or near) Murfeesboro, Tennessee. I believe it. I'm doing a little bit of Googledriving around the area, and I'm seeing relatively new residential subdivisions with overhead utilities along the street frontage, and lots of streets with developer's daughter names.

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That's about 20 miles from where I grew up. Rutherford County was very rural except for Murfreesboro until the mid 90s. It grew from 80,000 - 180,000 between 1980-2000 and is now around 350,000 I think. At one point it was consistently listed on fastest growing areas in the country. As Nashville and some of the other suburbs to the south and west grew and became much more unaffordable, this part of the region took off. Nissan also opened a new factory in Smyrna that employed about 5,000 people in 1984. That sparked a pretty large manufacturing boom in the area.

Middle TN also had a couple of older performance zoning ordinances that allowed odd mixes of uses in some area. The land development codes were either fairly week or non-existent until recently, especially in some of the smaller towns.
 
I watched The Six Triple Eight last night about the (segregated) 6888th Battalion of the Women's Army Corps. Their job was to sort through millions of pieces of delayed mail near the end of WW2. Good story that needed to be told. As a WW2 buff, I did see errors in the movie but realize this is Hollywood and happens in many movies. Kerry Washington and Ebony Obsidian are the two main actresses, and easy on the eyes. Kerry played Charity Adams who ultimately became a Lt. Colonel and Fort Lee (R.E. Lee) was renamed Fort Gregg-Adams in 2023 after Lt. General Arthur James Gregg and Charity Adams.
 
Dan said:
This is supposedly in (or near) Murfeesboro, Tennessee. I believe it. I'm doing a little bit of Googledriving around the area, and I'm seeing relatively new residential subdivisions with overhead utilities along the street frontage, and lots of streets with developer's daughter names.

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In the last two cities I've worked for we had Multiple 1950s WWII suburbs where all the streets are named after the developers wives. Nowadays our GIS team is extremely strict with new street names and they HAVE to follow our grid system even if they're disconnected from other streets of the same name along the grid
 
joscoffee said:
I don't know about other states/regions, but we are seeing many projects of this type (1000-ish sf homes at 14' wide) around San Antonio, TX. We have one in our city proper and several nearby. Some do not even have garages or driveways for more than one car, so much more street parking happens. I believe our instance is in a PUD and the value-add was the fact that these are marketed at roughly =/<50% of your "normal" home thereby providing homes within the city for teachers and local employees. About half the homes were purchased before completion by commercial leasing entities and are now comparable to "normal" SF home rents.
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I haven't seen any of these in New York state. We're slow to pick up on new housing typologies, but I don't really see these taking off here, anytime soon. The narrowest site built housing type around here will be an 1800s-era worker's cottage, at about 18' to 20' wide on a 25' wide lot, and a suburban townhouse in a complex, at about the same width. There's a few oddball infill houses that are narrower, but these are mostly one-off projects, like this duplex.

narrow house buffalo.jpg
 
Dan said:
I haven't seen any of these in New York state. We're slow to pick up on new housing typologies, but I don't really see these taking off here, anytime soon. The narrowest site built housing type around here will be an 1800s-era worker's cottage, at about 18' to 20' wide on a 25' wide lot, and a suburban townhouse in a complex, at about the same width. There's a few oddball infill houses that are narrower, but these are mostly one-off projects, like this duplex.

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On a related note, I called a "for sale by owner" sign on a late-50s/early-60s concrete block house yesterday. It was on the corner of a small block. The property for sale was 2 50' lots facing one street and 8 25' lots facing the other way. So much infill opportunity....
 
Dan said:
Terminating vista.

Jesus Christ. $375K?

Walk Score is 4.

Totally commodity housing.
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Well...the Ind and the Res were getting built at about the same time (over about a 10 year period), so...eyes wide open and all that. Hey...it's the quietest side of the Ind property and your backyard isn't getting hammered by the summer setting sun. It's got that going for it which is nice. ;)

Murfreesboro_aerial_2014.jpg


Also - here's this cool historical aerials website you'll surely like...if you don't already know it.
 
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The dead blank vinyl siding, the drainage swale no maintenance backyard, souless concrete patio with plastic chair - but at least there's nice trees on the other side of the fence that makes it.
 
SlaveToTheGrind said:
Homes came in after the warehouse was constructed which was done in phases.
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:ttth:

OMG, who was the project manager at the design firm that said, dammit, we're gonna maximize the site potential out of this piece of garbage site, I need that bonus for my trip to Cancun next year!
 
We've been playing on Field #3 on Tuesdays for years (the one in the northwest corner).

I always thought it was a county-run park within city limits--I had no idea we'd been launching line drives and tough grounders to left into the unincorporated county this whole time. What if our center fielder wants to stand with one foot in the city and one in the county?

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Yay!! Another Commissioner was happy to take over the chair role. I am happy to remain on the Planning Commission, but, after three years, It's time to pass the gavel. Our new chair is the only one that's been on the PC longer than me, so she'll be a good fit. Our new vice chair has been on for about two years.

Jim
 
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A utility line project I am working on for my employer actually has a small segment (1/2 mile) going through the county I live, which needs PC approval (of which, I am one of the members.)

I am thinking this will be my first recusal in four years. Not sure if there actually is a conflict, but that will avoid any appearance.

Jim
 
A quote from my "page a day" calendar:

"I happen to be one of those people who thinks the aesthetics of a place are improved by putting a nice transmission line through it." - Chairman of Montana Power Company, Joe McElwain
 
JNA said:
As posted on Twitter
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Overall, its a good image.

I've only briefly ever lived in suburbs as an adult. I used to dream about living in a place next to all my friends stuck on a farm as a kid. I do think there are times when they can have some charm, but they're incomplete in a lot of ways.

As I get older, I'm starting to think that not all farm/rural life is what we envision. I think there are levels of ruralness and they don't usually align with the ideal planners think about in our transects. I've started to see more and more estates lots of 5-20 acres that are rural in feel, but really operate in a suburban way. Nothing is produced on them, they only act as the next iteration of suburbs. People in these homes are still commuting to urban areas for employment and needs. On the other end are the corporate factory farms. They utilize significant resources/infrastructure. Neither is self-supportive and can tax roads and the surrounding environment.
 
What's up with so many US planners not being 'urbanists'? Or even actively propping up suburban sprawl/car dependency? I feel like most people who are excited to be urban planners are doing it because they want to change the cruddy built environment but I guess I'm wrong about some of them?
 
busrider said:
What's up with so many US planners not being 'urbanists'? Or even actively propping up suburban sprawl/car dependency? I feel like most people who are excited to be urban planners are doing it because they want to change the cruddy built environment but I guess I'm wrong about some of them?
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A lot of us realize there are constraints that go above anything we can do in our planning departments, or at least that's how my office feels (for context we're a large suburb city). Even if we want things to change, there's elected officials and decades of backloggged political decisions and mismanagement of regional systems that make changes very difficult, even if it made sense in some areas.
 
busrider said:
What's up with so many US planners not being 'urbanists'? Or even actively propping up suburban sprawl/car dependency? I feel like most people who are excited to be urban planners are doing it because they want to change the cruddy built environment but I guess I'm wrong about some of them?
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Most working US urban planners are not elected decision-makers. Most also are not independently wealthy and if you're going to work in the average municipality in the US you're probably going to tangle with the suburbs. I know in my career I have maintained a balance of when I can bring some urbanist ideas into practice and when I have to go along with the more suburban bent of the electeds who sign my paycheck.
 
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busrider said:
What's up with so many US planners not being 'urbanists'? Or even actively propping up suburban sprawl/car dependency? I feel like most people who are excited to be urban planners are doing it because they want to change the cruddy built environment but I guess I'm wrong about some of them?
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Planner's don't create the plan that we want, we create plans for the community, whatever that may be. It can be hard and sometimes almost impossible to convince a large group to change their group mindset of the last 70 years.
 
bureaucrat#3 said:
Planner's don't create the plan that we want, we create plans for the community, whatever that may be. It can be hard and sometimes almost impossible to convince a large group to change their group mindset of the last 70 years.
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That is why my fair community still has a Zoning Ordinance with bandaids written in the 1960's.
 
JNA said:
That is why my fair community still has a Zoning Ordinance with bandaids written in the 1960's.
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Sounds like my first planning job; we had language from some universal zoning code template from the 50s that never fully got updated. There were many uses in that code that physically couldn't get built anymore/the zoning for them didn't exist anywhere.
 
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