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Fears about Property Rights Halt Pearl River County Comprehensive Smart Growth Plan
Recent criticisms of a comprehensive Smart Growth planning study process has caused the Pearl River Count board of supervisors to halt the plan. The plan was suggested to the previous board of supervisors by the Mississippi Development Authority (MDA) after the 2005 hurricane destruction along the Gulf Coast.
According to Picayune Item writer David A. Farrell, the new board asked Camp Dresser & McKee (CDM), the consulting-engineering firm that worked on the comprehensive plan draft, to delete all references to Smart Growth, the main target of criticism. The firm did so, but it failed to alleviate critics' fears about their property rights.
Critics dominated a May 17 public hearing, with no one speaking in favor of the plan. Although County Administrator Adrain Lumpkin and CDM consultant George Carbo pointed out that the comprehensive plan lacked the force of law and that the board's first priority was preservation of traditional homesteading, many believed it could eventually be morphed into anything the supervisors wanted.
The sole supervisor attending the hearing, staunch plan opponent Hudson Holliday, agreed. ''As a supervisor I don't want the responsibility to tell you what you can do with your land and I assure you I don't want the ones who follow me to have that power and responsibility,'' he said. Hudson called the CDM plan ''worthless'' without seeing the latest version, chiding the previous board for paying $300,000 for the first-phase planning study and his four colleagues for approving $143,000 of the $487,000 due for the final plan. ''It's grant money, but it's our tax money,'' he argued, referring to MDA reimbursements coming from EPA funds.
A week later, the writer reports, some 25 people gathered in front of the board of supervisors meeting room to protest smart growth. Several residents in the audience said they don't object to creation of some type of growth plan or economic development plan, but ''were against using federally sponsored and funded plans because of the control that the federal government might exert on supervisors and the local officials since they, the feds, paid for the studies.''
In the end, Supervisor Patrick Lee, seconded by Supervisor Joyce Culpepper, proposed to acknowledge the completed study without formal adoption of the final plan. 5/25/2010
Resource(s): http://picayuneitem.com/
Four Mississippi Towns Get on Complete Streets Track
Mississippi's Clarion-Ledger reports that the towns of Tupelo in Lee County and Hernando in De Soto County populations of some 36,000 and 10,000 in 2008, respectively, have just adopted Complete Streets legislation. Pelahatchie in Rankin County and Ridgeland in Madison County--about 1,500 and 21,500 residents, respectively--expect to follow suit soon.
''I'm proud of our city council's unanimous support of this initiative as we pro-actively change Tupelo's culture into a more walkable, cyclist-friendly community. I'm proud of Hernando, too. This is good for our whole state’s quality of life,'' said Tupelo Mayor Jack Reed. Hernando Mayor Chip Johnson felt the same, observing, ''This policy will create a safer and healthier environment for all of the citizens of Hernando.''
The mayors of Pelahatchie and Ridgeland, Knox Ross and Gene McGee, are moving in the same
direction. ''When you rebuild streets, it’s important to consider pedestrians. The idea is we ought to get more people hoofing it a little more. If you give people the opportunity, you will see it more,'' stressed Mayor Ross, with Mayor McGee saying that's what is happening in his city even without formal rules. ''We do a lot of things that could be considered Complete Streets already,'' he pointed out. 5/1/2010
Resource(s): www.clarionledger.com/ ; www.grist.org/
Planner Reminds Hattiesburg Readers of the Unspoken ''Tax'' -- Sprawl
''With all the election chatter about who will or will not raise your taxes, there's one self-imposed tariff that few people are talking about -- the sprawl tax,'' writes Hattiesburg architect and neighborhood planner James Polk in a Hattiesburg American guest column, reminding readers that as the nation's built landscape ''has morphed from compact neighborhoods with most services within walking or short driving distance to sprawling suburbs and commercial strips, the cost to each individual of supporting this way of building -- both in tax dollars and out-of-pocket expenses -- has gone up and up.''
Not that long ago, he recalls, one car per household was enough, because connections between homes, jobs and everything else were easy and all neighborhoods had sidewalks.
Over time, this built environment has become increasingly disconnected.
''We build large tracts of housing with no sidewalks and no place to walk even if there were sidewalks,'' he continues. ''Strip shopping centers and big-box retailers line up end to end, with parking lots cut off from the store next door. Regional K-12 megaplexes have replaced neighborhood schools in outlying parcels far away from the homes of students and teachers who drive there every day.''
Accustomed to this disconnect, many don't even realize its economic impact on everyone's life, though now the high gas prices make it especially obvious.
''We are now a one-car-per-adult society,'' he observes, its car-dependence reflected in the average increase in vehicle miles traveled per household from 12,000 to 21,000 over the past 30 years, despite a household-size decrease.
''But it's not just the price of gas. The bill to each taxpayer for longer and wider roads, expanded utilities and storm-water management increases when the components of our built environment are spread-out and disconnected,'' he points out, seeing solutions in community planning and neighborhoods where cluster housing surrounds businesses and ''walkability is a prime asset.''
With sprawl clearly an ''economic liability,'' he reiterates other urban experts' prediction that ''the suburban McMansions of today may just be the slums of tomorrow.'' See his blog at www.newamericanvillage.blogspot.com. -- Hattiesburg American 9/15/2008
Resource(s): www.hattiesburgamerican.com/
Editorial: Appeal of Mass Transit ''Grows Each Day'' for Mississippi Coast
The appeal of mass transit ''grows each day,'' states the Pascagoula Mississippi Press, saying although most people cherish a car-focused lifestyle and travel on their own schedules ''(t)hat freedom may be a luxury many of us cannot or no longer wish to afford,'' calling the constant gas price increases ''another emergency for the coast,'' and expecting the Mississippi Coast Transit Authority (CTA) both to expand its bus service and to work with city and Jackson County leaders to provide residents with carpools and vanpools.
At their recent meeting, the daily notes, CTA Executive Director Kevin Coggin said regular Monday through Saturday bus ridership jumped 50 percent last month from its May 2007 level, with staff concluding that some 63 percent of the county's employees may be candidates for carpooling, 15 or fewer miles one way, and 38 percent for vanpooling -- at longer distances and from seven to 15 riders per van.
The County Board of Supervisors, the daily observes, didn't seem eager to fund such a program solely for county employees, but they could become its base for ''configuring a public transportation system'' countywide.
At the same time, extension of CTA bus service throughout the county, with stops at major job and shopping sites, ''could draw riders, as could operating at peak travel times,'' especially since gas prices are unlikely ''to suddenly drop,'' the daily points out, concluding, ''Chances are pretty good the equation has tipped in favor of mass transit for many people.'' -- Mississippi Press 6/19/2008
Resource(s): www.gulflive.com/mississippipress/
Rebuilding From Katrina: Mississippi Towns Try to Balance Quick Reconstruction With Safe Building
Well into the third year since Hurricane Katrina destroyed almost all Mississippi Sound shoreline mansions and beachfront shops, the town of Bay St. Louis and much of Hancock, Harrison and Jackson counties see a construction boom, fueled by $38 billion in federal aid and private insurance money, but while Americans ''are willing to invest taxpayer dollars'' in the recovery, reports Christian Science Monitor writer Patrik Jonsson, ''many also want assurances that what rises from the cataclysm is sensible -- communities rebuilt to take another direct hit from a Category 3 storm without devastating loss of life or property.''
With federal recovery grants administered by the Mississippi Development Authority (MDA), its spokesman Lee Youngblood says a comprehensive recovery program must include direct assistance, help to build more homes, partnerships for large-scale projects, economic development, and a focus on long-term infrastructure and job needs.
Nevertheless, Bay St. Louis historian Charles Gray considers the recovery ''much, much slower than we all thought it would be,'' and the writer calls the building boom ''a fragile one, susceptible to the vagaries of government decisionmakers and the whims of developers.''
Although many Gulf communities adopted better building codes and some pledged to center new construction on higher ground, ''time is of the essence,'' because some 8,000 Mississippi families still live in FEMA trailers throughout ravaged neighborhoods, and because newcomers and returnees need homes and jobs, the writer notes, concerned that ''expediency is not always the friend of prudence.''
Many observers worry about future coastal safety, since officials allow development in high-risk places and many homeowners prefer to rebuild in low areas rather than accept government buyouts.
Planning consultant Jeff Bounds shares these concerns.
''The most accurate answer is that we're only partly building back the right way,'' he says. ''The culture of the South is very big on independence and not liking handouts . . . but my view is that if federal taxpayers knew in detail a lot of what was going on, they'd be very, very unhappy.''
As views of ''safe'' rebuilding diverge, extra costs of the precautions mount, and engineers counter politicians while hydrologists see different urgent needs than does the business community, the writer observes, it all results in ''a push and pull, a stretch and twist of the new rules.''
Government officials, including MDA spokesman Youngblood, attribute much of the recovery delay to the strict rebuilding rules, from federal fill permits to storm-certification requirements for home construction.
''The irony is that the slow pace of rebuilding -- everyone's top complaint,'' the writer concludes, ''may be the greatest ally to a safer coast, forcing meticulous consideration of even mundane plans and projects, and plenty of time for everyone to talk the issues out.'' -- Christian Science Monitor 5/20/2008
Resource(s): www.csmonitor.com/
Coastal Development Strategies Conference Set for May 5-6
The Mississippi Department of Marine Resources (DMR) Office of Coastal Management and Planning and the Mississippi Gulf Coast Chamber of Commerce are inviting all interested in smart growth to their 9th annual Coastal Development Strategies Conference May 5-6 in Biloxi, with Office Director Tina Shumate saying, ''The conference is an excellent opportunity to share ideas as we keep current with national Smart Growth trends and build for the future of the Mississippi Gulf Coast.''
The conference will focus on sustainable growth, clean energy and energy efficiency, insurance strategies, community resilience, heritage tourism, watershed and economic development, housing-transportation-land use links, transfer of development rights, and grassroots stewardship.
The registration fees of $80 for students and $125 for others by April 25, with $155 later and $175 on-site, will cover the cost of two breakfasts, two lunches, refreshments and all conference materials. -- Sun Herald 2/8/2008
Resource(s): www.sunherald.com/
Gov. Barbour Urges Mississippi Officials to Create Smart Growth Community Plans
''Our goal is not to get it like it was; our goal is to get it how it can be,'' said Republican Governor Haley Barbour in his keynote speech at the 8th Annual Coastal Development Strategies Conference in Biloxi, urging local officials among some 400 attendees to take the advantage of post-hurricane recommendations from the Governor's Commission on Recovery, Rebuilding and Renewal, and create smart growth community plans for generations ahead.
With the coast's affordable housing shortage high on the audience's list of concerns, reports Biloxi Sun Herald writer Mike Keller, the governor and his housing advisor Tommy Walman called for faster and better workforce housing construction, the former pointing to the hardship of those still living in more than 25,000 Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) trailers.
''If we took the convicts in Parchman (state penitentiary) and put them into those FEMA trailers,'' the governor said, ''they'd sue us for cruel and inhuman treatment -- and win.''
The governor reiterated his intention to restore coastal marshlands, and rebuild the barrier island to their 1900 footprint and height -- an idea, the writer observes, questioned by the National Park Service and some experts.
In addition, he also announced that the state will require adoption of International Building Code standards in South Mississippi reconstruction and that it will try to get people up and out of the floodplain.
His housing advisor also told developers to raise construction standards, follow smart growth principles and provide housing for all income groups, a course that actually boosts property values throughout the community.
''The perception of affordable housing is that they increase crime, they are too dense and the decrease property values,'' he noted. ''We've got to change that perception.'' -- Sun Herald 5/11/2007
Resource(s): www.sunherald.com/
Coastal Development Strategies Conference Draws Crowd to Biloxi for Ideas on Smart Growth. Post-Hurricane Reconstruction
''We need to think and act more thoughtfully on how we grow our communities,'' with all the demographic, development and climate-change pressures ''amplified on the little coastal ribbon around the country,'' said Smart Growth America Executive Director Don Chen at the first day of the 8th Annual Coastal Development Strategies Conference in Biloxi, pointing to three sets of tools every community can use to change growth patterns -- ideas, models and policies; targeted infrastructure funds; and code, zoning and building-standard updates.
Organized by the state's Department of Marine Resources and the Coast Chamber of Commerce, reports Biloxi Sun Herald writer Mike Keller, the two-day conference brought together several hundred officials, activists, real estate professionals and others seeking ways to advance mixed uses, higher densities, walkability and natural resource preservation.
''If you don't have a plan and don't know where you're going, you can wind up anywhere,'' stressed Mississippi State University's Center for Urban Rural Interface Studies Director Patricia Southerland. ''No plan creates sprawl, long commutes, bedroom towns with no sense of community. It consumes natural areas. It damages the water and the air.''
Mississippi Development Authority expert Ann Daigle said post-hurricane reconstruction should focus on urbanized areas, not those that need new roads and other infrastructure.
''We haven't been doing a good job over the last 50 years and people realize that,'' she observed. ''Our quality of life is deteriorating, but smart growth improves property values. It's that number one tool for economic development.''
Helping coastal cities adopt principles of smart growth, consultant Jeffrey Bounds said the Mississippi Gulf Coast is ''off the rocks and moving in the right direction,'' except on issues like transportation.
''We have no control over transportation issues in the state,'' he explained. ''There needs to be rational road and street planning.''
Otherwise he was optimistic, and Department of Marine Resources Director Bill Walker shared his hopes.
Mentioning federal contributions to the restoration of the coastal environment and natural resources, which the writer calls ''an integral part of a more conscientious rebuilding plan,'' director Walkers said other states have had a somewhat negative view of Mississippi for years, but now they look to the state ''to see how to do things right.'' -- Sun Herald 5/10/2007
Resource(s): www.sunherald.com/
New Urbanist Duany Delivers Blunt Assessment of Jackson's Flaws
Having demolished much of its downtown since the 1950s and done little to recover in the past 10 years, Jackson has turned into ''a very empty city,'' said renowned architect-designer, New Urbanism leader Andres Duany, telling Jackson leaders they are competing against the suburbs, and ''the suburbs are outperforming'' the city, because of its loss of character, flawed development tactics and too many parking lots.
Invited by the two-county Rankin-Hinds Pearl River Flood and Drainage Control District to assess the city's potential and to work on the LeFleur Lakes flood-control and development plans, reports Jackson Clarion-Ledger writer Julie Goodman, the guest said the city's assets include the airport, colleges, civic buildings from the 1930 era, some residential neighborhoods and abundant trees.
On the other hand, he asked why the planned redevelopment around the TelCom Center downtown didn't take advantage of Town Creek to create a scenic waterfront.
Citing examples of other cities such as Memphis, Tennessee and Venice, Italy, whose walkable waterfronts bring in people for food, drinks and panoramic vistas, the writer notes, he ''painted a vision of harbors, homes, table umbrellas and small recreational boats.''
As important as the right resource mix is common will, he observed, pointing out that Providence, Rhode Island, with the mayor, residents and the state's governor aboard, sparked a downtown revitalization boom with spectacles of bonfires on river water.
City economic development consultant Jimmy Heidel said he felt ''a little offended'' by Duany's criticism at first, but realized the architect was right and had already presented his suggestions to people involved in the TelCom Center area redevelopment project. -- Clarion-Ledger 3/19/2007
Resource(s): www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/frontpage
Southern Mississippi Smart Growth Conference Scheduled for May 9-10 in Biloxi
Continuing their environmental and economic sustainability campaign, the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources (DMR) and the Mississippi Gulf Coast Chamber of Commerce are inviting all committed to better land use and long-term quality of life in the Gulf Coast region to the 8th Coastal Development Strategies Conference on May 9-10 in Biloxi, with DMR's Comprehensive Resource Management Plan Director Tina Shumate saying, ''This annual smart-growth conference is important to everyone who calls southern Mississippi home.''
Presented by Partners for Smart Growth in Southern Mississippi, the conference ''touches on a range of issues and is vital to a myriad of professions and business leaders across the Gulf Coast,'' points out Chamber of Commerce CEO Kimberly Nastasi, adding, ''It really has something for everyone.''
Organizers encourage early registration, expecting the conference to attract hundreds of area officials, scientists, planners, real estate industry professionals, landowners, and community activists.
One of the conference's goal is to provide them with networking opportunities and spur new partnerships for smart growth along the Gulf Coast.
Details at www.dmr.state.ms.us and www.mscoastchamber.com. 2/10/2007
Resource(s): www.sunherald.com/
Proposed Harrison County Projects Would Create 2,500 Housing Units Near Wolf River, Little Biloxi River
Despite last year's hurricanes and increasingly risky weather changes, residential pressures continue to mount in the Gulfport area, but at least developers are moving six to ten miles away from the coast, becoming environmentally conscious, proposing mixed uses, and offering more for infrastructure -- all factors in the Harrison County supervisors' decision to allow rezoning for the 130-acre Hawks Landing and 800-acre River Hills projects on rural land north of I-10.
Hawks Landing, proposed by a local firm of that name and Brown & Mitchell Engineering, reports Biloxi Sun Herald writer J.R. Welsh, would include 360 condos, 320 luxury apartments, a number of lofts and townhouses, nearly 100,000 feet of offices, a hotel and several restaurants, with the adjacent Wolf River bank and wetlands preserved for residents' use.
The developers are still negotiating with the county about water supply, sewage service and fire protection.
Some seven miles northeast of Hawk Landings, huge River Hills, proposed by River Hills Venture and Jeffrey Allen of Eco Systems, would feature 1,097 single-family attached and detached homes, numerous businesses, and recreational and other facilities, with both sides of the Little Biloxi River, which runs across the site's northern section, protected as open space.
The developers have already set aside land for a school, a county sheriff substation, and a fire station, but their water supply and wastewater treatment plans are as yet unclear.
''In order for them to be successful,'' says County Board of Supervisors President Larry Benefield, ''they're going to have to make sure all those things are taken care of.'' -- Sun Herald 1/9/2007
Resource(s): www.sunherald.com/
More Public Input Sought on Harrison County's Smart Growth Redevelopment Plans
As part of the groundwork for Harrison County's prospective Smart Growth plan, area officials and a volunteer Ohio State University student team, led by Assistant Professor Jennifer Cowley, will hold more coastal town meetings on December 7 and 9, this time in Pineville, to seek local input for redevelopment both in this community and in even more hurricane-devastated Henderson Point and Pass Christian Isles on St. Louis Bay.
''We want every part of the county to grow and rebuild,'' says County Zoning Administrator Patrick Bonck, ''in a way that is sustainable over the long term and represents what the communities want for their future.''
So far, reports Biloxi Sun Herald writer J.R. Welsh, time ''seems to have stood still'' in Henderson Point and Pass Christian Isles since Katrina's storm surge and deadly winds ''blasted through nearly 14 months ago.'' Some ''hardy residents are still sticking it out in FEMA trailers,'' fewer have begun to rebuild, a ferry is again running across the bay, and construction proceeds on a new bay bridge.
To help move the planning and reconstruction process faster, the Ohio State University team has been focusing on Harrison County for the past several months, with Professor Cowley stating, ''Our role is to translate community desires into solutions that will lead to the community that the citizens want.''
One of her team's members, former New Orleans elementary school teacher Alton Willis, lost his home to the storm and lived in a FEMA trailer before going to Ohio State as a graduate student in regional planning. ''I feel a sense of responsibility to the people we have met on the Coast,'' he tells the writer. ''I am genuinely interested in the fate of these communities.'' -- Sun Herald 11/28/2006
Resource(s): www.sunherald.com/
Gulfport Official Optimistic About Prospects of Smart Growth for City
Outlined first in post-hurricane reconstruction charrettes early this year, Gulfport's SmartCode was finally ''hammered out'' by Mayor Brent Warr, city staff and urban planner Jeff Bounds for a series of presentations to council members, residents and developers, with proponents ready for ''a tough sell,'' said city spokeswoman Kelly Jakubik, but quite optimistic about the prospects of ''smart growth for Gulfport.''
A complex system of ''mixed-use zoning and design standards,'' the SmartCode will not replace current zoning laws, reports Biloxi Sun Herald writer Joshua Norman, quoting Mayor Warr, who called it ''an optional product.'' Expecting the council to make some changes and approve it within two months, the mayor said developers will be getting ''the standard zoning map and SmartCode (side by side),'' with the code making development ''faster, more profitable and better looking.'' He also expressed hope that in contrast to Moss Point -- the only coastal town that adopted SmartCode, but only for its downtown district -- the council will apply it to a wider area.
Planner Bounds hopes for that, too. Inspired by some of the best minds in America and attuned to local needs through substantial community input during the charrettes, he said, SmartCode certainly improves the city since a lot of its current zoning is ''pretty abysmal'' and makes it ''impossible to live in ways that are really Southern.'' -- Sun Herald 11/5/2006
Resource(s): www.sunherald.com/
Lafayette County Village of Taylor Works Hard to Preserve Character, Keep Focus on Community-Oriented Development
Known for catfish and artists, poets, potters and photographers, quiet Lafayette County's hamlet of Taylor -- population under 300, about five miles southwest of Oxford -- is determined also to make a name for careful community-oriented development, says Alderman Lyn Wright, stressing, ''We're working hard to make sure any growth in the future is smart growth and that it preserves the character of Taylor.''
Some of the recently built homes are so well nestled on wooded lots that they look long established, reports Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal writer Errol Castens, and now developers Campell McCool and Steward Speed are ready to convert a 65-acre pasture in the hamlet's center into a mixed-use pedestrian-friendly neighborhood of 200 tightly spaced homes featuring locally traditional metal roofs and front porches, with pocket parks, a shopping square, a restaurant, specialty businesses, a Montessori school and a cooking school.
Also, the writer adds, a more typical subdivision of another 200-plus homes just north of the hamlet is being built under the careful watch of an architectural review committee, with Oxford real estate broker Andrea Cummings saying it will have a ''country classic'' look. -- Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal 5/30/2006
Resource(s): www.djournal.com/
Municipal Leaders Look at Ways to Rebuild Coastal Communities Safer and Smarter at Biloxi Conference
Urging municipal leaders at a Comprehensive Resource Management Program in Biloxi to realize that what they build now ''will be their legacies for a hundred years,'' Mississippi Development Authority official Ann Daigle emphasized the benefits of New Urbanism community planning for post-hurricane coastal reconstruction, the arguments echoed by her Department of Marine Resources counterpart Jennifer Buchnan, who pointed out that the terrestial and aquatic systems of coastal habitats are co-dependent and shouldn't be separated, stressing, ''That is why we are having this smart growth conference -- to match the scope of our building with what we need.''
Others expressed similar determination to make the coast safer from another disaster, improve its livability and manage future growth, reports Biloxi Sun Herald writer Mike Keller.
The city's Coastal Environments Inc. principal Dr. Sherwood Gagliano said concrete barges sunk along the shore would create an effective miles-long breakwater for storm surges, at a cost of some $5 million a mile.
Guild Hardy architect Mark Lishen called on builders to embrace green practices during reconstruction, to secure greater efficiency and cost-effectiveness for buildings, and more comfort and better health for their occupants.
Tennessee Civil War National Heritage Area director Carroll Van West pointed out that the coast's heritage and its military and civil rights history, along with rich natural, cultural and culinary assets, could become greater tourism and development magnets than the standard casinos.
And U.S. Minerals Management Service official Stephanie Gambino observed that some funds for local smart growth projects could come from federal offshore gas and oil leases, an amount estimated by others at $120 million over four years. -- Sun Herald 5/4/2006
Resource(s): www.sunherald.com/
Adopting SmartCode Could Be Best Choice for Communities to Rebuild After Katrina
Complementing Mississippi Coast residents for their energetic involvement in the recent SmartCode workshops he and other national consultants helped conduct in several hurricane-hit areas, Faulkner University (Montgomery, Alabama) law professor Chad Emerson writes in a Biloxi Sun Herald guest column that for most communities, adoption of the SmartCode is the only practical way to rebuild many neighborhoods as they were before, because currently prevalent zoning bans traditional mixed-use town-center type development without special variances and exceptions.
''These outdated codes,'' he writes, ''do this by requiring that all uses be strictly separated from each other so that it essentially becomes illegal for the baker to live above his bakery or the architect to live above her office.''
The SmartCode still separates incompatible uses, he observes, but allows compatible uses within buildings, which would let communities rebuild their main streets and downtowns applying ''the traditional town planning techniques that made the Coast such a great and cherished place for so many years.''
Stressing that the SmartCode consolidates various planning issues ''while carefully avoiding any encroachment on municipal life and safety codes,'' professor Emerson cites the example of the tiny town of Flowood, just east of Jackson, the first in the state to adopt the SmartCode.
Within days, a developer used the code to design Flowood's first old-time town center, a development that will bring in tens of millions of dollars, the professor writes, adding that without the SmartCode the project ''would have been illegal'' even though Flowood embraced other traditional planning techniques ''that have made so many Mississippi main streets, downtowns, and communities great.'' -- Sun Herald
3/8/2006
Resource(s): www.sunherald.com/
Mississippi Gulf Coast Rebuilding Plans Rooted in Local Traditions
In the five months ''since Hurricane Katrina altered the landscape of the Gulf Coast in Mississippi and Louisiana and changed forever the lives of those who live here,'' the nation has understandably focused on the New Orleans flood disaster, while ''(t)oo many in the news media'' have yet to understand the scope of destruction along nearly 100 miles of Mississippi coastline and our will ''to build back better than before,'' writes Biloxi Sun Herald Publisher and Governor's Commission on Recovery, Rebuilding, and Renewal Vice-Chairman Ricky Mathews, thanking the Congress for New Urbanism and architect-planner Andres Duany for the three-county region's new hope and its 11 specific community revival plans.
Conceptualized by more than 100 national and 100 area experts led by Duany at the six-day Mississippi Renewal Forum in mid-October, and tuned up during subsequent community meetings, the plans match ''the depth and breadth of the effects of the storm,'' allowing communities ''to recover and rebuild at the same time,'' the publisher observes, pointing out that ''each short-term recovery decision has critical long-term rebuilding effects.''
Noting that criticism of this planning process usually comes from outsiders and ''often from people who didn't bother to read the reports of the Forum teams,'' he writes, ''Many of us who worked on a day-to-day basis with the New Urbanists were especially offended at the suggestion their agenda was to create a playground for the rich at the expense of cultural diversity, regional tradition, and working class neighborhoods.''
The opposite is true. ''Every plan was rooted in research and discussion with locals about traditions -- including design traditions -- citizens most wanted to preserve,'' he stresses. ''And I saw first-hand the passion of those planners to protect and to rebuild neighborhoods such as those settled by working-class Yugoslavian, French, Vietnamese and African Americans citizens in East Biloxi.''
New Urbanists brought in hope and belief that destroyed South Mississippi neighborhoods ''could emerge bigger and better,'' the publisher repeats, listing among the newly introduced common-sense principles and planning approaches ''the SmartCode that links so many of our rebuilding ambitions together and can help us recapture the essence of what was lost.'' -- Sun Herald
2/7/2006
Resource(s): www.planetizen.com/
Transit Reforms Outlined at Mississippi Renewal Forum Face Difficult Task of Changing Ingrained Transportation Habits
While the Mississippi Department of Transportation (MDOT) disassociates itself from the notorious ''our way or no highway'' business approach of many such departments nationwide, the structural transit-focused reform envisioned at the Mississippi Renewal Forum last October may still be difficult, reports Biloxi Sun Herald writer Don Hammack after his conversation with two key forum participants -- Portsmouth, NH-based Traditional Neighborhood Design (TND) Engineering principal Rick E. Chellman and University of Connecticut-Storrs Civil and Environmental Engineering Department Associate Professor Norman Garrick.
The good news is that some old-school transportation engineers have learned to do better than ramming highways and bridges down communities' throats, observed Rick Chellman, saying, ''It was definitely the way of the '60s, '70s and '80s, but things started to change a lot in the '90s.''
The bad news, noted Professor Garrick, is that MDOT still uses the ''predict and provide'' method, under which an increased traffic count in a location results in plans for road construction or widening, which he calls a self-fulfilling prophesy, or, in the writer's words, ''a classic if you build it, they will come situation.''
Equally formulaic is the ''design and defend'' method, under which officials come up with a road plan and rebuff all outside challenges.
In contrast, both experts said, Renewal Forum participants advised New Urbanism as a means to reduce mutually exacerbating sprawl and car dependency, prevent ''induced traffic,'' and pursue sustainable solutions, especially urgent in times of strained state budgets.
Some states already build boulevards instead of highways lined with big-box stores and use zoning and land-use ordinances to avert gridlock, they pointed out, adding that besides being more cost-effective, a grid of streets and local roads is more efficient than a big highway, where even a minor vehicle breakdown or accident can bring miles of traffic to a standstill. -- Sun Herald
2/6/2006
Resource(s): www.sunherald.com/
Rebuilding After Katrina Report Will Be Available Online January 11
Five months after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, Mississippi communities can count on a large influx of federal and state funds, but many key reconstruction questions remain unanswered, says a Jackson Clarion-Ledger editorial, expecting the uncertainty to abate after web publication of the gubernatorial Commission on Recovery, Rebuilding and Renewal's final report, with more than 230 recommendations on housing, infrastructure, transportation, tourism and a host of related issues.
Already submitted to Governor Haley Barbour, the 190-page report, ''After Katrina: Building Back Better than Ever,'' presents ideas, concepts and standards promoted by some 500 planners, designers, architects and other professionals who have volunteered their expertise since September.
The commission chairman, former Netscape CEO Jim Barksdale, said the report offers a new vision, which may prevent repetition of many past mistakes, but its implementation depends on local communities.
''The key,'' the editorial sums up, ''is whether local government officials, guided by strong citizen involvement, have the will to carry out what might be difficult tasks and unpopular political choices.''
Beginning January 11, the commission's report will be available at its web site www.governorscommission.com. -- Clarion-Ledger
1/9/2006
Resource(s): www.clarionledger.com/
Developers Receive Prison Sentence for Filling in Biloxi Wetlands
A federal jury found them guilty last February on all 41 counts of Clean Water Act violations, conspiracy and mail fraud at their 2620-acre mobile-home, half-wetland site in Vancleave, some 15 miles northeast of Biloxi, and now -- in the toughest ruling of its kind -- U.S. District Court Judge Louis Guirolla sent developer Robert Lucas, Jr. to prison for nine years, and his real-estate-agent daughter Robbie Lucas Wrigley and septic system engineer M.E. Thompson, Jr. for seven years and three months each; fined his Big Hill Acres and Consolidated Investment companies $4.8 million and $500,000, respectively; and ordered the three to pay $1.4 million in wetland mitigation costs.
The $1.4 million, reports Jackson Clarion-Ledger writer Chris Joyner, will buy protected acreage from Jackson County's Old Fort Bayou wetlands mitigation bank, which will free affected Big Hill Acres residents from wetlands restrictions and let them haul in material to protect their wells and property from contamination from leaking septic tanks.
Warned repeatedly by state and federal agencies since 1996 that their development needs a permit from the U.S. Corps of Engineers, and that septic tanks in saturated and often flooded soil will fail and contaminate both the site and the drinking water aquifer below, the defendants continued to fill wetlands and market mostly two-acre lots as ''high and dry,'' attracting low-income families with long-term installment purchase contracts at high interest rates.
As predicted, the writer notes, Big Hill Acres residents soon alerted authorities ''about sewage, stomach illnesses and well water with a bad odor, color and taste.''
Defendants' lawyers fought the federal sentencing recommendations, questioning each charge -- even the wetlands' existence -- ready to appeal in the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court.
Federal officials hailed Judge Guirolla. ''Today's historic sentencing demonstrates our resolve to vigorously prosecute those who despoil our nation's precious wetlands,'' said EPA regional official David McLeod.
And the Justice Department's Environmental and Natural Resources Division Assistant Attorney General Sue Ellen Wooldridge stressed: ''The defendants in this case defrauded their customers and destroyed wetlands that are critical to the Gulf Coast ecosystem. This landmark criminal case sends a strong message that corporations and individuals who commit flagrant violations of our environmental laws will be prosecuted vigorously and will face the possibility of lengthy prison sentences.'' -- Clarion-Ledger, Washington Post
12/7/2005
Resource(s): www.clarionledger.com/ ; www.washingtonpost.com/
Rebuilding Biloxi Bay’s Highway 90 Bridge: Will More Lanes Bring Added Congestion to Beaches?
Following the calls from the recent Mississippi renewal forums for public involvement in the planning process and for application of ''Smart Growth principles to present and future transportation needs,'' Ocean Spring resident Edna Boone challenges the state Department of Transportation's argument that the projected 25-year population growth requires reconstruction of Biloxi Bay's Highway 90 bridge with six lanes, pointing out in a letter to the Pascagoula Mississippi Press that the experts recommended no more than four lanes if communities want to ease traffic congestion along their beaches.
''One hard lesson learned from the 1980s' traffic control is that excess capacity actually creates sprawl and congestion,'' she writes, concerned that if the department still focuses on cars as ''the sole mode of travel in 2030, then the next generation will indeed be in serious trouble.''
Noting that Florida and Louisiana quickly built temporary bridges on existing footprints -- with Louisiana opening two lanes of a 5.4-mile bridge 47 days after Katrina at the cost of only $31 million -- she thinks the same should be done for the Biloxi-Ocean Spring bridge, just 1.7 miles long.
''For the post-Katrina Gulf Coast, Smart Growth is a model whose time has come,'' she writes. ''We need to apply the concepts to all aspects of our renewal, including roads and bridges.'' -- Mississippi Press
12/1/2005
Resource(s): www.gulflive.com/mississippipress/
Report from Mississippi Renewal Forum Outlines Transportation Plans with Focus on Sustainable Development
As the state's 120-mile, 11-city Gulf Coast plans its post-hurricane reconstruction, it has ''an opportunity to be the first U.S. region 'to arrive at the inevitable future' of sustainable development,'' observes Architectural Record writer Andrea Oppenheimer Dean, welcoming the final report from the joint state and Congress for the New Urbanism mid-October charette in Biloxi, where more than more than 200 national and local planners, designers and other experts worked for six days to ensure that ''development on an appropriate scale can take place just as quickly as sprawl development would.''
The report expects the Mississippi Department of Transportation to help reconnect coastal communities by turning Highway 90 into a beachfront boulevard, moving the parallel CSX freight line several miles north to replace it with a thoroughfare for cars and transit, and creating a high-speed rail network with links to Mobile and Pensacola in the east and Baton Rouge or Houston in the west.
Better freight and passenger service promises to ''bolster the economy and vitality of the Southern states,'' the report stresses, also telling designers to pay careful attention ''to the details of place-making'' in blueprints for strategic road and bridge projects.
The report also says mayors and other local officials should keep a sharp watch on all projects, builders and developers should embrace traditional urbanism values, and municipalities should stay in close contact during planning and rebuilding to make sure that best solutions ''can be duplicated elsewhere in the region.'' -- Architectural Record
11/30/2005
Resource(s): http://archrecord.construction.com/
Officials Endorse SmartCode Zoning for 138-Acre Flowood Town Center Project
Tired of ''strip centers and parking lots,'' Flowood Mayor Gary Rhoads wants his small city, several miles east of Jackson, to develop like the old towns ''we grew up with where you could walk up and down sidewalks,'' a goal shared by the Board of Aldermen, which just adopted SmartCode zoning for the $325-million mixed-use Flowood Town Center project on 138 acres north of Jackson International Airport.
Created by Duany Plater-Zyberk & Co. of Miami, Fla., whose principal and New Urbanism leader Andres Duany is instrumental in planning post-hurricane reconstruction along the Mississippi coast, notes Jackson Clarion-Ledger writer Sylvain Mets, SmartCode ''basically lays out an entire community before the first road is dug,'' the area's meticulously planned ''transects'' seamlessly blending together as it used to be until single-use zoning and sprawl pulled residential, commercial and other key destinations apart.
The Flowood Town Center plan, prepared by local developer Richard Ridgeway and the Neopolis Group LLC, envisions a downtown core, with three- to four-story buildings offering both housing and commercial space, a nearby mix of condos, town houses and carriage homes, and an outlying tier of mansions, as a buffer for an adjacent subdivision of 36 homes on one-acre lots.
The project's centerpiece, the writer reports, ''is a 28-acre lake that will provide the backdrop for parks, walking and bike trails, coffee shops and small restaurants that will dot the landscape.''
Built over 10 years, Flowood Town Center is likely to include about 650 residences and up to 1 million square feet of commercial space. -- Clarion-Ledger
10/26/2005
Resource(s): www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/frontpage
Architecture Critic Rejects Denunciation of Mississippi Renewal Forum, Calls Effort ''Significant Starting Point''
Marshaled by New Urbanism co-founder Andres Duany, the 100 architects, planners, traffic engineers and other experts from around the country and their 130 local counterparts at the six-day Mississippi Renewal Forum in Biloxi did an impressive job creating reconstruction plans for 11 towns along 80 miles of coastline, but since ''no good deed goes unpunished,'' their modernist foes, led by Southern California Institute of Architecture director Eric Owen Moss, ''painted them as sentimental traditionalists'' and revivalists of the ''good old days of the Old South,'' writes Chicago Tribune architecture critic Blair Kamin, seeing some renewal-blueprint weaknesses, but rejecting its denunciation as ''ideological cant'' and stressing that forum participants ''empowered people here with alternatives to placeless suburban sprawl.''
Crediting Republican Governor Haley Barbour for giving the Duany team a free hand, he writes, ''The New Urbanists aren't the enemy. The enemy is a rebuilding process in which design isn't on the agenda at all.''
With ''the nitty-gritty matters of housing and community building'' clearly the top priority for the post-hurricane reconstruction, the New Urbanist plans are not the final word, but ''a significant starting point for debate'' about how to prevent another socially and environmentally disastrous storm of suburban sprawl, the Chicago Tribune critic observes, calling Biloxi ''a poster child'' of the sprawl-inflicted damage.
The elevated I-110 spur into Biloxi -- population about 50,000 -- ''does some incredibly dumb things,'' sweeping over the gulf and the beach and shooting drivers ''right past the depressed downtown business district.''
Presenting renewal plans to Biloxi leaders, architect Stefanos Polyzoides of Pasadena, California, told them, ''Your downtown has died because nobody can take a left into it.''
Such old mistakes abound, the writer notes, citing suburban malls that undercut the downtown pedestrian mall, the choked coastal Highway 90, and the inward-turned and isolated casinos that had to install skybridges between the town's land side and the waterfront.
Area residents don't like what's happened to their towns and the coastline. They want to rebuild, but rebuild in a way ''that reconnects them to the special character of their region,'' character taken away by sprawl, but offered again by New Urbanism.
Although concerned about elements of ''pure Disney fakery, like a replacement Wal-Mart for the town of Past Christian that would be faced in old-fashioned storefronts,'' about the risk that ''gentrification around the proposed light-rail line could displace the poor,'' and about the need to pay sufficient attention ''to rebuilding the coastline's economy,'' the writer sees reasons ''for guarded optimism,'' with the plans being presented for public scrutiny at town-hall meetings and the final recommendations due at the governor's desk by the end of December. ''This may come as a shock to modernists,'' he concludes, ''but traditionalism can be progressive.'' -- Chicago Tribune
10/23/2005
Resource(s): www.chicagotribune.com/
Mississippi Renewal Forum Wraps Up Reconstruction Plans for 11 Coastal Cities
Likely to have cost about $300,000 if compiled by a private firm, a catalog of post-hurricane reconstruction concepts worked out by more than 200 architects, planners and officials for each of the 11 hard-hit coastal cities at the six-day Mississippi Renewal Forum in Biloxi will be given local and regional developers free, said its leader, New Urbanism co-founder Andres Duany, urging their cooperation among themselves and with local officials, and expecting municipalities to make the permitting process simpler, less costly and more affordable for small builders.
''People are so desperate for housing they will buy whatever is available,'' he pointed out. ''It is up to the builders to determine what that will be.''
In response to some builders' concern about the higher cost of proposed designs, which will be presented to area residents in an already-launched series of 40 town meetings, reports Jackson Clarion-Ledger writer Scott Waller, Andres Duany expressed hope that hurricane victims will get assistance for rebuilding and that businesses, especially manufactured-housing firms, will obtain some incentives for locating in the area.
''Building (the manufactured housing) here makes it much less expensive to deliver than if they are coming from Alabama or Tennessee,'' he observed, noting that almost all displaced residents want to come back, and that they may feel forced to sell, because ''insurance is (still) not paying.''
Commenting on the six-day planning forum, Homebuilders Association of Mississippi CEO Marty Milstead agreed that cooperation and communication will be crucial for success. ''The government bodies and the builders are going to have to be working like never before,'' he stressed. ''Access is going to be critical.''
Initially distrustful of the forum, Gulfport Mayor Brent Warr also changed his mind. ''I didn't want someone to come into my town and borrow my watch to tell me what time it was. But now we have a great opportunity,'' he said. ''We have to think about what is best for the community and the legacy we will create.'' -- Clarion-Ledger 10/19/2005
Resource(s): www.clarionledger.com/
Biloxi S.G. Conference Told That Rapid Growth Is Gulf Coast Region's Greatest Challenge
The Gulf coastal region faces tremendous development and to make sure people like what they see by 2025, ''we have to start making decisions today,'' said Mississippi Department of Marine Resources (DMR) Director William Walker as he opened the department's sixth annual Smart Growth conference in Biloxi, a warning echoed by the guest keynote speaker, Smart Growth Leadership Institute President and former Maryland Democratic Governor Parris N. Glendening, who stressed, ''We must have a real sense of urgency.''
With Director Walker especially concerned about the surge of condo construction along the coast, the former governor pointed out that sprawl, which has sprung from the interstate highway system and preferential suburban mortgage programs since the 1950s, has left large city sections boarded up.
The governor, reports Biloxi Sun Herald writer David Tortorano, told the audience of some 500 officials, planners, builders, bankers and others from across the nation that such growth threatens quality of life, the next most important factor for high-tech company location decisions after an educated workforce.
In related news, Sun Herald writer Karen Nelson reports that the chambers of commerce of the Mississippi Gulf Coast, Hancock County and Jackson County passed a resolution asking local government officials to consider smart growth in their condo permitting process.
''Cities and counties need some standard to use when confronted by developers,'' said Jackson County Chamber president Carla Todd, while Coast Chamber communication committee chairman Rex Kelly noted that the resolution encourages public-private cooperation on smart growth, to set consistent height, density, landscaping and other requirements for condo development. ''The hope is to do it collectively,'' he said. ''But there's nothing in the resolution that tells them (cities and counties) how to do it.'' -- Sun Herald
5/18/2005
Resource(s): www.sunherald.com/
Compromise Ordinance Sets Height, Density Limits for Long Beach Condos Near Gulfport
Mindful of the public split on height and density for Long Beach's condo development, generally accepted as crucial for boosting tax revenue and averting deterioration of this small city just southwest of Gulfport, the Board of Aldermen ended its series of open hearings and internal debates on the issue by unanimously passing a compromise ordinance that allows condos of at most 16 stories in strictly commercial areas along coastal U.S. 90 and at most eight stories in all its other zones, with density limited to 42 and 30 units per acre, respectively.
Speaking earlier on behalf of California developer Rick Camarena, who plans to build on three of the eight prospective sites alongside U.S. 90, local resident Richard Smith pushed for much taller condo buildings, stressing that the city would get from them about $4 million a year in property taxes; the Long Beach school district, $5 million; and Harrison County, $3 million.
Long Beach Chamber of Commerce president and Long Beach Citizens for Smart Growth chairman W.C. Fowler made similar points, submitting a list of 450 voter signatures in support of taller buildings with more units.
On the other hand, reported Biloxi Sun Herald writer Melissa M. Scallan, Long Beach Citizens for RESPONSIBLE Growth representative Richard Burton argued that almost half of some 500 voters he reached in a Web poll opposed condos higher than tree tops. Although the compromise ordinance allows condos only along U.S. 90 in zones not strictly residential, requires two parking spaces per unit and leaves city leaders an option to deny zoning-compatible projects if developers can't provide water and sewer extension and fire protection, and although developer Camarena is ready to help upgrade local infrastructure, the writer notes, some residents still complain about insufficient public input and predict a court challenge.
''That's what I'd like to see,'' said resident Charles Boggs, telling the writer that voters should decide about condos. Referring to the city elections in five months, he added, ''The real referendum on condos will be in June.'' -- Sun Herald
1/20/2005
Resource(s): www.sunherald.com/
Editorial Urges South Mississippi Communities to Embrace Smart Growth, Forge Regionalism
Having gradually shed much of their habitual self-isolation and rivalry in the past four years, the six counties, 15 municipalities and numerous local communities of South Mississippi must avoid backward steps and forge solid regionalism, writes Biloxi Sun Herald vice president and executive editor Stan Tiner in his editorial, stressing, ''Smart growth is essential, and can occur only when everyone is working together, so that we can see this as a South Mississippi decision, not just our own small piece of terra firma.''
Concerned about the area's ''incredibly fragile ecosystems,'' especially in its three coastal counties, the editor points out that ''unshackled'' construction of major industrial plants or many thousands of condo units would hurt not only local communities, but the entire region. He also calls local governments' attention to potential cost savings through integration of some services.
Noting that local cleanup costs after Hurricane Ivan, which hit the region in mid-September, ranged from $3.25 to $19.50 for ''in-house'' removal of a cubic yard of debris, and from $6.16 to $10.45 for the same work by a contractor, the editor writes, ''On the contract work alone one is left to wonder if working together might have resulted in savings that would have accrued to everyone.''
And urging bipartisanship among South Mississippi lawmakers in the state legislature, he observes that Republican Governor Haley Barbour recognizes the region's power as ''a fairly homogenous voting block'' and one of the state's growth engines. As an indication, the editor cites the governor's remark during his recent Gulfport visit: ''What's good for the Coast is good for Mississippi, and what's good for South Mississippi is good for all of Mississippi.'' -- Sun Herald
12/12/2004
Resource(s): www.sunherald.com/
Editorial Urges Mississippi Leaders to Learn More About Smart Growth
''Smart Growth occurs only with smart leaders,'' states the Biloxi Sun Herald Editorial Board after the fifth annual Coastal Development Strategies Conference brought together more than 400 South Mississippi officials, planners, conservationists and builders interested in sustainability, addressing others with this appeal, ''We urge every person who is privileged to be a leader, in any capacity, who was unable or who chose not to attend the sessions to make a commitment to learn more about Smart Growth.''
This includes builders who think National Heritage areas ''are a roadblock to profits,'' supervisors who shun multi-jurisdictional cooperation, economic development officials who measure job growth but ignore quality of life, and mayors who rationalize their decisions saying ''we've always done it that way.''
With the world rapidly changing, new technologies and ever larger populations posing new challenges, and encyclopedias and diplomas fast becoming outdated, the editorial stresses, ''No one in a leadership position can afford to cease learning at age 21.'' -- Sun Herald
5/16/2004
Resource(s): www.sunherald.com/
Coastal Development Strategies Conference Focuses on Tools for Growth Control, Sustainability
Having welcomed hundreds of attendees at the fifth smart-growth Coastal Development Strategies Conference in Biloxi with a guest editorial ''The best development is often re-development,'' by Washington Post Writers Group member Neal Peirce, Biloxi Sun Herald publisher Ricky Mathews commended their two days of debates, stressing, ''At the end of the day, what your responsibility is is to have a commitment not to let the old ways -- if the old ways are the wrong ways -- continue.''
Hosted by the state Department of Marine Resources, under the Comprehensive Resource Management Plan, in association with its stakeholders, the Mississippi Gulf Coast Chamber of Commerce and the Harrison County Development Commission, reports Sun Herald writer Greg Harman, the conference brought together political leaders, planners, conservationists, developers and others, all committed to the region's sustainability.
They focused on tools for smart growth, stormwater management, brownfield reclamation, casino and dock ''sprawl'' impact, GIS applications, National Heritage Areas, regional partnerships, and related growth-control issues.
Guided by Republican Governor Haley Barbour's message, ''Economic development and environmental stewardship are not mutually exclusive activities,'' the conferees agreed that the Gulf Coast can preserve its natural assets, revitalize older areas and enhance quality of life, but also that the road to sustainable development demands changes in common values, public behavior and corporate practices. -- Sun Herald
5/13/2004
Resource(s): www.sunherald.com/
Biloxi Conference Participants Seek Balance in Economic Development, Mississippi Coast Environment
Welcomed by Governor Ronnie Musgrove and encouraged by seven-term
Charleston Mayor Joseph Riley Jr. to follow his South Carolina city
in promoting urban beauty, historic preservation and affordable
housing, 200 participants in the second annual ''Smart Business,
Smart Growth Conference,'' held in Biloxi by the Coast Chamber of
Commerce, spent two days on cross-sector consultations about ways
to make the Mississippi Coast sustainable, raise its quality of
life and balance economic development with the environment. Many
people, unable to visit sea shores or mountains ''spend all of their
time in our cities'' and ''look for beauty where they live,'' pointed
out Mayor Riley, asking ''(w)hy shouldn't our cities be beautiful
for them.'' In their pursuit of a better future, he said, cities
must craft community-based land use master plans while using a
''holistic'' implementation approach, to create ''a public realm'' such
as a downtown area, a park or a boardwalk, where people can enjoy
amenities or scenery together. During panel discussions, reports
Biloxi Sun Herald writer Timothy Boone, Audubon Mississippi
executive director Madge Lindsay expressed hope that the heightened
national concern about natural resources will ''put communities back
together'' and noted the state's economic opportunity to tap into
the $35-billion-a-year birdwatching industry, while Green Hotel
Association founder and president Patricia Griffin focused on
economic benefits of recycling, pointing to the Chicago Hyatt's 80
percent savings on its waste hauling costs. Some of the region's
biggest employees, adds Sun Herald writer David Tortorano,
also confirmed their commitment to better quality of life as an
integral part of their overall strategy. He mentions Northrop
Grumman, ChevronTexaco, DuPont, Wellman, Mississippi Power, Stennis
Space Center and the University of Southern Mississippi, whose
officials highlighted their environmental stewardship efforts,
agreeing with DuPont representative Aldo Morell, who said, ''It is
a business advantage to move beyond compliance.'' -- Biloxi Sun
Herald
3/29/2003
Resource(s): www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/
Vicksburg Proposes Selective Mixed-Use Development Rules
''Vicksburg is not ready for Smart Growth, but we would like to work
in that direction,'' said Mayor Laurence Leyens, pointing out that
new zoning for this small city in Warren County near the
Mississippi-Louisiana line will allow different neighborhood
development rules and mixed uses in some areas. To help design
Smart Growth codes, Vicksburg held two public hearings and hosted
a team of design experts for two charrette sessions at a total cost
of $250,000, reports Vicksburg Post writer Mark J.
Armstrong, with the mayor saying the money wasn't wasted because
the city ''got a lot of good information out those meetings.'' Newly
hired City Planner Wayne Mansfield promised to combine zoning
provisions worked out by a citizen committee four years ago with
those culled from the Smart Growth charrette in a uniform zoning
code he will submit to the city board this summer. -- Vicksburg
Post
2/6/2003
Resource(s): www.vicksburgpost.com/
Tax Exemption Offered for Residential Redevelopment in Jackson, MS
To encourage conversion of Jackson's worst ''eyesores'' into much-
needed housing, the City Council is offering an up to 10-year city
tax exemption to redevelop at least 25-year-old commercial
buildings larger than 5,000 square feet for residential use, with
planning department deputy director Corrine Fox stressing that the
new ordinance taking effect in 30 days covers not only downtown,
but the whole city. Clarion-Ledger writer Gregg Mayer quotes
Councilwoman Margaret Barrett-Simon as saying that with ''a lot of
commercial property'' adaptable to residential use, the ordinance
''could be a real incentive to redevelopment.'' A Realtor with Cook
Commercial Properties, Savita Nair, sees the council's move as a
''step in the right direction'' and thinks that once a few pioneer
developers are found, the ordinance ''will fly.'' 1/23/2002
Resource(s): www.clarionledger.com/
Residents Uneasy About Growth in Rural Mississippi
Businesses are profiting, but residents are apprehensive about
their rural area becoming a city, reports Sun Herald writer
Reni Winter from an ''unincorporated swatch of Hancock County,''
distinguished by a sole intersection stoplight at Mississippi 603
and called by locals ''the Kiln.'' This second-fastest growing
community in the fastest-growing county of southern Mississippi
increased ''a whopping 62 percent'' to almost 3,300 in the past
decade, she writes, quoting local homestyle eatery owner Dolly
Odom, who says people are coming ''because of the school system and
because we are a small community, with nice land, lots of trees,
and we're real friendly.'' Another lifetime resident, Mike Henley,
who opened a roadside grocery three months ago, says more and more
people ''are moving into this area, trying to get out of the city,
but turning our place into a city.'' Among the recent additions
along this stretch of highway, the writer notes, are a building
contractor office, a Dollar Store, a Hancock Bank branch, a dance
and karate school, a tobacco shop, storage units and several
restaurants. If the fast growth continues, she ends, ''bumper
stickers for sale at Dolly's Quick Stop that read 'Where the hell
is Kiln, Mississippi?' may soon be obsolete.'' 1/23/2002
Resource(s): www.clarionledger.com/
The key to the Delta's future is ...
The key to the Delta's future is regionalism, said Delta State University President David Potter in a speech to Greenville Rotarians, urging them to take the lead, become regional "stewards" and overcome the fragmentation of area communities. Stressing his belief that community leaders can develop relations that are "competitive and collaborative at the same time," the president said his university has moved in that direction by joining several organizations and agencies in the Delta Health Initiative, designed six months ago to help area children. The other participants include the office of Senator Thad Cochran, the Delta Council and the University of Mississippi Medical Center. Focused on pre-kindergarten children, the initiative aims to identify and deal with their potential health and development problems. The president expressed his hope that the initiative will inspire others to embrace the concept of regional stewardship. 08.31.2001 9/4/2001
Resource(s): www.ddonline.com
Facing two rivals in the Republican primary ...
Facing two rivals in the Republican primary, Gulfport Mayor Bob Short hopes to gain the upper hand by urging further downtown and waterfront development combined with green space preservation, which includes saving Jones Park from a proposed casino. Meeting the Sun Herald editorial board, the mayor mentioned his work with the Gulfport Downtown Association on a tax incentive program to spur revitalization while the federal government is building a $55 million courthouse on an old school site downtown. He stressed that the waterfront needs more shops and restaurants and that an enlarged harbor attract cruise ships more easily. Then he warned against sacrificing the city's heritage for "tax dollars," saying, "People want to continue to grow, but they also want to preserve this area. They don't want to see just concrete and asphalt" 4/26/2001
Resource(s): www.sunherald.com
Scenic America, a national organization created in ...
Scenic America, a national organization created in 1978 with a mission to preserve natural beauty and distinctive community character, released its 2000 Last Chance Landscapes report, listing the ten that are most threatened by billboards, new roads and other symptoms of sprawl. This year's list of the last chance landscapes includes Oakmont (Verdugo Mountains), Glendale, California; Ravalli County, Montana; the entire state of Colorado; Upper Mississippi Blufflands Region of Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin and Illinois; State Highway 131 between Ontario and Rockton, Wisconsin; Erin Township, Wisconsin; Springfield, Illnois; Poplar Point, Anacostia, Washington, D. C.; Cook Creek and Tributaries, Springfield Township, Pennsylvania; and the Mount Tom and Mount Holyoke Ranges, Massachusetts. Scenic America President Meg Maguire said these ten landscapes typify problems present in many other areas. Yet, for every problem, she stressed, there is a solution which other communities have adopted, showing once again that change is inevitable, but ugliness is not. 11/28/2000
Resource(s): www.scenic.org
Do we care enough to stop the ...
Do we care enough to stop the bulldozers of progress ... before they turn the Mississippi Coast into Anyplace USA? wonders Sun Herald reporter Kat Bergeron, saying balance is imperative for the area's sense of place and progress is possible without destroying its special buildings, trees and views. In the 1980s, Biloxi Mayor Gerald Blessey hoped to secure such a balance through his Progress with Preservation plan, mostly discarded by the next administration. Currently, the city is hoping to reach this balance with its historic Preservation 101 program. The program's recent guest speaker, the noted New Urbanism advocate and social critic, James H. Kunstler, said pre-World War II urban aesthetics and functionality had made people want to live, work and shop downtown. Convinced that many share his feelings about the tragic landscape of highway strips, parking lots, housing tracts, mega-malls, junked cities and ravaged countryside where most Americans live and work, he warned, A land full of places that are not worth caring about will soon be a nation and a way of life that is not worth defending. 10/17/2000
Resource(s): www.sunherald.com
A decade since Harrison County's first attempt ...
A decade since Harrison County's first attempt to plan land use and regulate growth was defeated by a 70 percent majority in a nonbinding referendum, its Board of Supervisors approved a final draft of zoning regulations, determined to turn them into law on August 28 and to start enforcement shortly after. This time, the fast- growing county's supervisors will do without a zoning referendum. County attorney Joe meadows says There is no legal requirement for the board to put this to a vote. The chairman of the Coast 21 residents' group, Gene Warr, hails the prospective county zoning as long overdue and complementary to local cities' land use plans. Once county zoning is instituted, he adds, we can start moving toward unified, countywide land-use plans and unified zoning laws. But some unincorporated area residents think otherwise. One says the county has been fine without zoning for over 150 years, so those who want zoning should move within city limits, where is plenty of land to zone. Another accuses supervisors of violating his constitutional rights and threatens them with a federal lawsuit. 8/10/2000
Gulfport residents concerned with the impact of ...
Gulfport residents concerned with the impact of growth on the quality of life in Harrison County have organized the Citizens Association for Responsible Development, CARD. Its charterer, Jeff Taylor, says victories of two environmentalists, Deborah Dawkins and Connie Rockco, in state and local primaries last month prove that quality of life is a major issue for Gulf Coast communities. 9/27/1999
Addressing the Southern States Environmental Conference in ...
Addressing the Southern States Environmental Conference in Biloxi, EPA's Southeast Administrator John Hankinson said that these days environmental concerns include traffic congestion, sewage system overload, and the loss of park and forest to development, all of which directly affects quality of life. As to frequent pronouncements about a trade-off between the environment and the economy, he said, "There is no trade-off. They are two sides of the same coin." He noted that revenues from economic growth rarely cover the cost of new services. He added that voters often decide to save environmentally sensitive areas from development, and that 37 governors have spoken "in support of 'smart growth', which means preserving he quality of life." 9/27/1999
Harrison County: With the public as the ...
Harrison County: With the public as the driving force, county supervisors passed the area's first land-use plan, to be followed by residential, commercial, industrial, agricultural and planned community zoning regulations. Without such regulations residents lack a basis to fight unwanted projects and protect their neighborhoods from random growth. Supervisors aim at controlling both growth and landfill operations. Helped by Gulf Regional Planning Commission, they will be presenting a draft of zoning regulations at public hearings in August, hoping to enact them in September. 7/21/1999
The Home Builders Association of Mississippi and ...
The Home Builders Association of Mississippi and the Home Builders Association of the Mississippi Coast have adopted a nine-point Smart Growth agenda to "increase their participation in community development." At a conference in Tunica, leaders of both groups called for "balanced development that protects the environment, improves the quality of life and bolsters home ownership." 6/18/1999
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