Randall Arendt Seminar and Workshop May 14
Internationally known landscape planner, site designer, author and lecturer Randall Arendt will lead a seminar and workshop featuring the concepts of creative development design and sustainable approaches to commercial corridor redevelopment at the Fontana Village Hall on Wednesday, May 14, 2008 from 7:00 to 9:00 PM.
All interested members of the public and the business community are welcome and encouraged to attend the program, titled “Reclaiming the Strip: Towards a Smarter, More Sustainable Future for our Gateway Approaches."
The workshop presentation is being sponsored by the Village of Fontana Community Development Authority. The program, which is geared for local officials and planning staff members, identifies the kinds of creative development design standards that could enable their communities to take fuller charge of how its future will evolve along the critical gateway approaches to their town centers. The topics specifically addressed include those listed below, in addition to issues pertaining to the infilling and redevelopment of sites within town centers. Many of the cited examples are drawn from Arendt’s book, "Rural by Design: Maintaining Small Town Character," and others are drawn from a smaller publication, "Smart Development for Quality Communities," which was prepared about six years ago by Arendt for a rural county in upstate New York.
Program Synopsis
The presentation focuses on practical ways of reclaiming the highway strip, rebuilding it gradually with multi-story mixed-use buildings instead of single-story, single-use strip structures, and with attention to storm-water infiltration/recharge, native specie landscaping, and dark-sky lighting standards.
The talk addresses the visual blight and land-use dysfunctional of highway commercial corridors -- the areas which produce the largest visual impact, as they are so well-travelled, by both residents and visitors alike. The greatest opportunity offered by such areas, however, is that the design life of most of their current buildings is about 25 years. This means that if a locality articulates a vision and adopts a plan to guide the replacement of current structures when they are demolished, it can assure that the future will not simply be more of the same old same old.
This workshop addresses the following specific topic areas, among others:
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Storm-water management to emphasize groundwater infiltration and recharge, through the creation of rain gardens, and planting areas that are situated below grade several inches rather than elevated up above the surrounding asphalt in "desert plateaus" ringed by concrete curbing.
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Outdoor lighting with vertical "cut-offs'" to keep light rays directed to the ground, not outward or upward (preventing roadside glare, light trespass onto adjoining properties, or violation of dark-sky principles).
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Minimum height standards, including requirements for a certain percentage of buildings to be at least two stories in functional height, and 1.5 stories in functional height, to encourage vertical integration of compatible mixed uses, such as retail and office, or rental residential. (One very invisible way of providing some affordable housing would be to build it above shops and offices, as was commonly done in downtowns before WWII, taking advantage of the same foundation and roof system already being provided).
The talk is illustrated with numerous successful examples, including photos of national chains and franchises, which have been required to produce original buildings fitting the City's character, rather than erecting their standard boxes. It also includes examples of infilling techniques for downtown situations.
Biographical Information
Randall Arendt is a landscape planner, site designer, author, lecturer, and an advocate of "conservation planning". He received a Bachelor of Arts Degree from Wesleyan University (magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa) and a Matster's of Philosophy Degree in Urban Design and Regional Planning from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, where he was a St. Andrew's Scholar. He is Senior Conservation Advisor at the Natural Lands Trust in Media, PA, and is the former Director of Planning and Research at the Center for Rural Massachusetts, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where he also served as an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning. In 2003 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Town Planning Institute in London. In 2004 he was named an Honorary Member of the American Society of Landscape Architects, and in 2005 he received the American Institute of Architects' Award for Collaborative Achievement.
Arendt is the author of more than 20 publications. After co-authoring the award-winning Dealing with Change in the Connecticut River Valley: A Design Manual for Conservation and Development (now in its fourth printing), he produced a 450-page sequel entitled Rural by Design: Maintaining Small Town Character (published in 1994 by the Planners' Press). This title, which is currently in its second printing, is listed among 39 volumes recommended by the American Planning Association for "the essential planning library". His third major work Conservation Design for Subdivisions: A Practical Guide to Creating Open Space Networks, was published in 1996 by Island Press, which published a companion volume by Mr. Arendt in 1999, Growing Greener: Putting Conservation into Local Plans and Ordinances. Later that same year the American Planning Association published Mr. Arendt's most recent work, Crossroads, Hamlet, Village, Town: Design Characteristics of Traditional Neighborhoods, Old and New. Mr. Arendt's articles have appeared in a wide range of periodicals, including the Orion Nature Quarterly, Civil Engineering News, Habitat, Land Development, American Farmland, the Land Trust Exchange, Environment & Development, the Planning Commissioners' Journal, and the Journal of the American Planning Association.
Arendt has presented slide lectures in 46 states, six Canadian provinces, and in Europe (most recently in Switzerland). In recent years he has been featured as a key speaker at national conferences sponsored by the American Planning Association, the Urban land Institute, the American Farmland Trust, the American Society of Landscape Architects, the national Association of Home Builders, the Land Trust Alliance, and the US Environmental Protection Agency. His work has been featured in leading newspapers and periodicals including the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, the Wall Street Journal, Landscape Architect, Urban Land, the Amicus Journal, the Smithsonian, and the New Yorker.
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