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

michaelskis said:
Pints with Planners
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Edibles with Economic Developers would be better because you could strap on a helmet with a GoPro attached and livestream a drive-around to all the holes in the ground where developers bailed on those grant-funded and incentivized projects. There's plenty around here to generate tears of regret, however, when supplemented with some form of THC, I am sure there would be lots of uncontrollable giggling at how stupid everyone was when they approved those projects.
 
Wannaplan? said:
Edibles with Economic Developers would be better because you could strap on a helmet with a GoPro attached and livestream a drive-around to all the holes in the ground where developers bailed on those grant-funded and incentivized projects. There's plenty around here to generate tears of regret, however, when supplemented with some form of THC, I am sure there would be lots of uncontrollable giggling at how stupid everyone was when they approved those projects.
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Eddies with EDs
 
Dan said:
A or B?

A.

View attachment 59927

B.

View attachment 59928
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I'd take A over B.

A is an...interesting and certainly not boring...development (ugly church redevelopment in Lawrence, MA on the corner of Haverhill and Franklin), but the carbon footprint is much smaller due to preservation of sunk carbon expenditure and the neighborhood is likely a traditional 'city center' location and car-free/light living oriented.

B is for sure a new residential pod of crap houses that is 100% auto dependent...and likely boring. No thanks.
 
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Dan said:
A or B?
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Glasses Why Dont We Have Both GIF by nounish ⌐◨-◨
 
I can see prohibiting unprofessional or hand painted signs and signage amount. Regulating materials is fine. Requiring masonry to remain unpainted ok.

Regulating paint color and associating particular colors as negative especially based on ethnic preference is a lawsuit waiting to happen. A vague statement that allows administrative discretion is a sign attorney's dream.

I've only had to regulate paint color once as part of a small historic district. It was beyond painful. We finally got to where we had a range of masonry colors, a historic palette options for primary walls, and then allowed discretion on the trim.
 
bureaucrat#3 said:
I can see prohibiting unprofessional or hand painted signs and signage amount. Regulating materials is fine. Requiring masonry to remain unpainted ok.
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Actually Ft Worth has some sign regs that would apply. For instance a Dallas craft brewer opened a tap room here and they put a "mural" on the side of their building (which is fine) but a big part of the mural was their company name which was in violation of the Ft Worth sign ordinance and they made them paint over it since they didn't ask for a variance.

That said, tire shops, convenience stores, etc., all over town have painted on signage but the city turns a blind eye (probably because they've been like that forever so they're grandfathered). I suspect it depends on the neighborhood and whether anyone complains because Ft Worth is pretty laissez-faire about a lot of things, as long as no one complains.
 
A very important skill in the municipal realm of our profession:

Ability to enforce regulations with firmness and tact.
 
mendelman said:
If you build [parking], [cars] will come.

Field of Dreams 30 day movie challenge GIF
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We watched this with our son over the weekend- I forgot how kind of corny it was.

Faust_Motel said:
We watched this with our son over the weekend- I forgot how kind of corny it was.
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And I couldn't help but laugh at the part where Danny from the West Wing tells him he's going to bankrupt the whole dang farm by plowing under less than 3 acres of corn.
 
Dan said:
Possibly unpopular opinion: just because it's "ethnic vernacular" doesn't make it right.

View attachment 59917
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Ethnic vernacular aside - forget the content (as all good planners know to do in a post-Gilbert world) - how is that not a sign code violation? Just eyeballing it, signs must occupy at least half of the building's facade. One of the biggest reasons sign codes exist to begin with is to eliminate visual clutter. Another reason is to deter folks from trying to 'outdo' other businesses or 'standing out'. If a local sign code permits that much signage, it's just poor planning.
 
Have I mentioned Gilbert, the culprit to all our sign woes is one of the cities next door to me? Damn you Gilbert.
 
78rpm said:
(Notice that one store's signage is "Beauty Salon and Barber Shop"..)

Around these parts of New York City, many barbershops are filled with female clients getting the latest rage in haircut fashion: fades, tapers, undercuts, and hair tattoos.
It's also the rage, especially for women, to get the color of these hairstyles changed very often by colorists in barbershops.

@Dan Could it be possible that you underestimated the female consumer demand for downtown barbershop services?

BTW So many skilled "hair tattoo artists", (a new profession?), seem to work in barbershops.
One sort of trendy woman in my family has long thick hair--with a V-shaped undercut/fade & a hair tattoo at the nape of her neck.
It looks very similar to this:
View attachment 59868
The hair tattoo design seems to grow out quickly.
You wouldn't believe how often she visits the barbershop to get the design refreshed!
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re the proliferation of barber shops they are quick easy ways to make money, be self employed, and build generational wealth. that is if they are legal. I'm not sure why there hasn't been a boom of them before (that's sarcasm i know why....)
 
Speaking of barbershops. Has anyone started to get mobile barbershop/hair salons? We've had a few people ask about it recently and I'm tired of dealing with new things.
 
Received an absolute horrible design for a townhome project designed exclusively by a less-than-mediocre engineer. If built it will become our next future slum.

Asked him to do better in the design which he replied that as a developer we need to maximize units for entitlements. They're not even thinking of building this, just increasing property 'value' on paper.
 
Planit said:
Picked up 7 signs at a particular (known reoccurring) location on Thursday. Picked up 6 signs at same location yesterday.

Keep putting them out, I'll keep pulling them up. I drive by there a few times a week.
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My second employment stop was 25 years ago when I was a still wet-behind-the-ears-gung-ho-planner set to change the community. I would drive the community (24,000 pop) and hit the freeway off ramps and load up the back of a pickup with snipe signs. They took notice and started nailing up higher on utility posts...I had a garden tool with several claws that I would pull the signs down with ease. You can't get past me.
 
SlaveToTheGrind said:
My second employment stop was 25 years ago when I was a still wet-behind-the-ears-gung-ho-planner set to change the community. I would drive the community (24,000 pop) and hit the freeway off ramps and load up the back of a pickup with snipe signs. They took notice and started nailing up higher on utility posts...I had a garden tool with several claws that I would pull the signs down with ease. You can't get past me.
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A pole saw works pretty well to grab them off utility poles as well. That's what I use.

I just grab them them I'm out and about and notice them. There's a few spots it's really hard to get to unless you are on foot before 6AM- too much traffic otherwise.
 
SlaveToTheGrind said:
My second employment stop was 25 years ago when I was a still wet-behind-the-ears-gung-ho-planner set to change the community. I would drive the community (24,000 pop) and hit the freeway off ramps and load up the back of a pickup with snipe signs. They took notice and started nailing up higher on utility posts...I had a garden tool with several claws that I would pull the signs down with ease. You can't get past me.
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I kept a weeding tool in the back of our truck just for this purpose.
 
michaelskis said:
I found these several years ago when I had almost no travel and training budget and needed to maintain my CM credits. Many of these are really good.

Another source for those in NC is the LeverageNC webinar series. https://www.leveragenc.org/upcoming-webinars
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Those look like some quality webinars. I always like hearing Ed McMahon and Rypkema. Sieglar, Borgstrom, Silver and Preuss are usually good talks too. Those are some of the people and types of talks that I feel like APA has gotten too far away from. ULI, Main Street, and CNU are doing a better job showing transformative projects.
 
TIL Canadian planners stamp their work with engineer-style seals.

Seriously, is this really a thing north of the border? I've read countless numbers of zoning codes, design guidelines, and staff reports from north of the border, and I never saw a planner's seal on any of them, until now.

canadian planning seal.png
 
Faust_Motel said:
Is anybody else playing with Midjourney? I asked it for some planner-ish pictures and they are nicer than what I was getting from dall-e...
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Responding to an older post in this thread, I know, but I wonder if Midjourney (or any other AI art generator) can generate Dover Kohl or typical watercolor-ish New Urbanism practitioner-style art. You know, something like this ...

generic residential 1.jpg


dover kohl style illustration.jpg
 
But, this prompt: "oil painting of a modern 5 story apartment building with a pitched roof and dormers, balconies facing the street and mature trees on the street and a nice sidewalk in Vermont with views of the Adirondack mountains in the background"

Got me this:
1683899311072.png
 
Dall-e is just not nearly as good at people. I tried:

“An exterior view of a big box store that has been converted into a community center with lots of people coming and going in the style of renoir”

and got:

1683899541529.png
 
Faust_Motel said:
Dall-e is just not nearly as good at people. I tried:

“An exterior view of a big box store that has been converted into a community center with lots of people coming and going in the style of renoir”

and got:

View attachment 60103
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It's very good at people...
If the "style of Renoir' means the luxury RENOIR HOUSE apartments on Manhattan's Upper East Side!
The immediate area is interracial & almost everybody dresses super-casually.

Don't believe me? Renoir House is behind the scaffolding:
www.google.com

Google Maps

Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.
www.google.com www.google.com


P..S. Hope you didn't get Jackson Hole, Duane Reed, or the subway station--but if you did, you're on the Renoir House block!
 
Faust_Motel said:
But, this prompt: "oil painting of a modern 5 story apartment building with a pitched roof and dormers, balconies facing the street and mature trees on the street and a nice sidewalk in Vermont with views of the Adirondack mountains in the background"

Got me this:
View attachment 60102
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There are no Adirondack Mountains (which begin west of the Hudson River in NYS) in Vermont. Those are the Green Mountains. In fact, the Adirondacks aren't even consider part of the Appalachian chain; they're "walled off" by the Hudson and Mohawk rivers.


...not that AI cares.
 
Doohickie said:
There are no Adirondack Mountains (which begin west of the Hudson River in NYS) in Vermont. Those are the Green Mountains. In fact, the Adirondacks aren't even consider part of the Appalachian chain; they're "walled off" by the Hudson and Mohawk rivers.


...not that AI cares.
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Yes, but I asked for VIEWS of the ADK's from Vermont- Of which there are many. Not that it really got that right either.
 
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