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Figure 7.6
Houses with Porches, Davidson, NC. These
new houses, although a bit too traditional for the
authors’ tastes, provide an excellent illustration of the
rich streetscape and semi-public social spaces
provided by generous front porches located within
talking distance of the sidewalk.
Figure 7.7
Townhomes, Baxter, Fort Mill, SC. These
townhomes use the same design motifs, albeit very
traditional, of adjacent single-family homes, allowing
them to blend seamlessly with their more expensive
neighbors and achieving some measure of
residential diversity.
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provides the outline program for its design and
use. ‘Green space’ or ‘open space’ are vague and
indefinite terms, and often lead to poor design.
Parks, playgrounds, squares and gardens are
designed for daily use and enjoyment. These kinds
of ‘domesticated’ public open space are distinct
from those areas that are environmentally significant
and must be protected in their pristine state. They
are also significantly different from the open space
that has been grudgingly provided in conventional
sprawl development, which has often been defined
only in quantitative terms, as a function of popula-
tion or land area. In many subdivisions developers
have simply designated leftover or otherwise unus-
able land as open space irrespective of its location.
To improve this sorry state of affairs and to be
truly public, parks, squares and other types of open
space should be lined by the front façades of build-
ings and by public streets (see Figures 2.16 and
4.7). Safety in public open spaces is provided by
the visual supervision of people on their porches,
at their windows, or walking, jogging and driving.
7.
The jurisdictions in the CORE area should adopt
a compatible set of standards for Traditional
Neighborhood Development (TND)
.
To eliminate confusion in the marketplace and to
encourage more Traditional Neighborhood Devel-
opment, we suggested that a common TND ordi-
nance should be adopted by all CORE partners.
Approvals for TNDs should also be streamlined to
permit them by right with administrative approval
CHAPTER SEVEN
●
THE REGION
167
lower-cost housing. To this end, we maintained
our standard recommendation that approximately
15 percent of all new housing should be affordable
under the criteria of the US Department of
Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Apart
from providing a range of different types of smaller,
less expensive housing, it will always be necessary to
find creative ways of funding such developments to
keep housing affordable over time. Some mecha-
nisms for achieving this are discussed in more detail
in a subsequent case study in Chapter 10.
5.
Reduce the impact of parking and garages in all site
planning
.