Smart Growth News

Tennessee

Federal Push Necessary to Remodel Car-Dependent Transportation System

''In the three decades since the interstate system was complete, we as a city, as a region and as a nation have failed to evolve beyond the Roads-R-Us mode,'' observes Nashville Scene writer Christine Kreyling. Kreyling expressed concern that Nashville may suffer blight and sprawl if it doesn't diversify transportation.

''America's transportation system was once the envy of the world. But the world has moved on in the last 30 years, leaving us behind,” she writes. ''Today we're stuck in traffic, gazing enviously at passengers hurtling across Europe on high-speed rail – while wincing at the oil oozing onto our shores.''

Nevertheless, 85 percent of federal transportation funds still go to road construction and maintenance, with Tennessee spending 81 percent. Tennessee at least adds sidewalks and bike lanes when roads are widened or resurfaced, she notes, reflecting on the PBS documentary Beyond the Motor City. The documentary spotlights Spain's 200-mph Alta Velocidad Espanola (AVE) rail, which reduced intercity travel times by up to 90 percent, induced significant private development, and spurred a related technology-export industry. Upon the system's completion, all Spaniards will have a station within 30 miles of where they live.

On the other hand, Detroit's dependence on cars and the auto industry, the latter now ''on billion-dollar life support,'' turned its main avenue into ''a wasteland corridor – an eight-lane escape route from a municipality where one-third of the land lies vacant.'' As the city strives to recover, it plans shrinkage and ''a denser, more sustainable footprint,'' commercial-scale urban agriculture, and light rail down the avenue.

Kreyling hopes Nashville will preempt decline and change its ''transportation monoculture that makes walking, biking or riding the bus all but impossible in many neighborhoods.'' However, she points out that Mayor Karl Dean faces these transportation challenges when Metro Nashville is cash-strapped and far behind other municipalities in a similar bind. ''The transportation initiatives that transformed America – the transcontinental railroad, the interstate system – demanded national intervention,'' she stresses, asking readers to imagine cities and counties responsible for planning and funding their own chunks of interstates. ''By the same token, long-range solutions such as light rail will require active collaboration among Middle Tennessee counties. Both alone and in concert, Nashville will be playing catch-up for years on these issues, as will the nation as a whole.''   6/23/2010

Resource(s): www.nashvillescene.com/

Civic Advocates Want Light Rail and Transit-Oriented Development South of Knoxville

Concerned about the lack of transit outside Knoxville, regional and Blount County activists oppose a planned 4.4-mile Pellissippi Parkway (SR 162) extension east of Alcoa and Maryville. Instead, the group envisions a 14-mile light-rail line from both through McGhee Tyson Airport north to downtown Knoxville. Such a line, suggested East Tennessee Quality Growth (ETQG) Inc. Interim Executive Director Joe Hultquist at a recent annual meeting of the Citizens Against the Pellissippi Parkway Extension (CAPPE) group, could use former Norfolk Southern freight tracks and hybrid diesel-electric cars. Doing so would keep its total cost at about $41 million, with $2.6 million in annual maintenance.

Outlining wider light rail benefits, reports Blunt Today , Director Hultquist, a former Knoxville councilman, cited the example of Charlotte, North Carolina. Opened in November 2007, its much more costly 9.6-mile line attracted some $1.5 billion in development near key stations, Hultquist observed, expecting similar investments along a potential Blount County line. People are increasingly looking to non-car mobility modes, and many new college graduates and older couples prefer cities over the suburbs, he noted.

An organizer of the Plain Talk on Quality Growth forum in March 2007, whose overwhelming public success inspired the creation of the 16-county East Tennessee Quality Growth, Inc., Hultquist said the next regional Plain Talk forum is scheduled for September 29. ''We assist local governments, giving them the tools to help promote quality growth in their community,'' he told the writer. ''Even in a recession, you have to address growth-related issues. Now is the time to plan for growth.''   3/11/2010

Resource(s): www.blounttoday.com/

Tennessee Conservation Voters Urge Lawmakers to Strengthen Environmental Protections for Better Economy

In a state as reliant on its beauty, biological diversity and tourism as Tennessee, it’s time for elected leaders to “both understand and honor” the importance of natural treasures for its economy, way of life and public health, says Tennessee Conservation Voters (TCV) Executive Director Chris Ford. At the onset of the new decade, Ford writes in a Tennessean guest opinion, the Tennessee General Assembly must begin to protect natural resources “in a sustainable manner that doesn’t divorce strong economic development from strong environmental protection.”

Accordingly, he calls on lawmakers to focus on five priority tasks: 1) to restore dedicated real estate transfer tax allocations for the Wetlands Fund, State Land Acquisition Fund, Local Parks and Recreation Fund, and Agriculture Resources Trust Fund; 2) to preserve water quality and oppose efforts to weaken stream and river protection; 3) to ban mountain top removal by restricting issuance of permits for coal-mining operations that could alter ridgelines and pollute streams; 4) to improve air quality through measures to regulate open burning and aerial spraying, while promoting renewable energy bills; and 5) to safeguard environmental outlays in a difficult economy and fight to keep enforcement, park and other conservation positions.

“As always, we will continue furthering proposals positive to our cause and working to defeat ones harmful to our goals, not only in the five priority areas above,” the TCV executive director pledges. “We ask Tennesseans to work to protect our way of life for the future, one that includes positive economic growth, strong environmental protection and a sustainable life for future generations.”

Learn more about TCV at www.tnconservationvoters.org.   1/24/2010

Resource(s): www.tennessean.com/

Davidson County Town Center Project Deferred Indefinitely

Proposed for 550 of the 1,500 acres owned by the May family in the rural Bells Bend area of western Davidson County, just across the Cumberland River from Nashville, a $4-billion May Town Center was called ''smart growth'' by developer Tony Giarratana and backed by the Mid-Tennessee Chapter of Associated Builders & Contractors, but opposed by environmentalists and many area residents, rejected by the Metro Planning Commission, and deferred indefinitely by the Metro Council, with the developer seeking a rehearing for weeks on procedural grounds yet abruptly dropping the request only minutes before the commission sat down.

Planned for 20 to 25 years, reported Nashville Business Journal, City Paper and Tennessean writers over the past months, the project was to include 5,000 townhouses and condos and at least 5 million square feet of offices -- including several corporate headquarters -- with street-level retail, all of which could ultimately generate about 22,000 jobs and millions of dollars in county and city revenue.

The developer and his Bell Bend Partners group offered 250 acres as a gift to ''the historically black'' Tennessee State University (TSU), plus $400,000 to endow a Chair of Excellence for Sustainable Agriculture, and promised to place some 650 acres in permanent conservation easements.

On the eve of the commission's second hearing, so suddenly given up by the developer, he said his commissioned survey of 400 voters found 50 percent for and 40 percent against the development, with 10 percent unsure.

Opponents' attorney David Briley described the survey as a ''push poll,'' which asks leading questions to get a preferred result, a charge rejected by the pollster, University of Alabama-Birmingham (UAB) Department of Communication Studies Professor Larry Powell, who called it ''typical'' for an opposition group, adding, ''I don't push polls.''

Should the developer reinstate his request for Planning Commission reconsideration of the project, he must act in 60 days.

For more from both sides see http://bellsbend.org, www.bellsbend.info, www.tennessee.sierraclub.org and www.maytowncenter.com. -- Nashville Business Journal, City Paper, Tennessean   7/24/2009

Resource(s): www.tennessean.com ; www.nashvillecitypaper.com

Germantown Mixed-Use Project Approved in City's Smart-Growth District

It took almost two years of public input and design changes for Germantown's first mixed-use, high-density, pedestrian-friendly project in its 380-acre smart-growth district to get Planning Commission approval for the architectural and site plans, reports Memphis Commercial Appeal writer Lela Garlington, but the $200-million Saddle Creek IV development time frame remains undetermined, with some nearby residents worrying about future traffic through their residential neighborhoods, and the Poag & McEwen company still having to secure project financing in a tight credit market and perhaps needing tax exempt bonds for the three planned garages.

Assistant City Administrator Andy Puncey told the Planning Commission he is comfortable with the development.

It's ''like a huge in-fill project'' in the middle of the city and that's ''a real challenge,'' he said, confident of the city's ability to solve any potential issues with Poag & McEwen, which developed the original Saddle Creek area.

''We've got a good record (with them),'' he pointed out, ''for 25-plus years.''

Called by a Commercial Appeal editorial as ''the kind of sustainable growth that suburban communities are smart to entertain,'' Saddle Creek IV will eventually include 11 high-rises with apartments, shops, offices, a hotel and garages.

Under the latest changes, the company will use HardiPlank -- a wood-resembling fiber-cement siding -- and synthetic stucco on some exteriors as accent material, metal halide lights and wider landscape screening, while trying to increase the number of windows to let in more natural light and aiming for ''green'' certification from the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program. -- Commercial Appeal   4/8/2009

Resource(s): www.commercialappeal.com/

Slow Economy Gives Planners a Chance to Push Smart Growth

As it does elsewhere, the recession constrains or immobilizes most Middle Tennessee developers, but by the same token it gives smart-growth activists an opportunity to prepare a better framework for development once conditions improve, reports Nashville City Paper news correspondent Richard Lawson, noting that the Cumberland Region Tomorrow (CRT) advocacy group's agenda for 2009 focuses on regional mass transit and higher densities, with local officials and business leaders expected to confront the challenges at its April summit.

Formed in 1999, when the region ''was on pace to eat up 356,000 acres with mostly low-density development outside the urban core,'' the correspondent observes, the CRT brought together hundreds of area residents in planning workshops to reduce the land consumption to 91,000 acres and concentrate growth in urban centers.

Although several dense projects were completed in Franklin and Nolensville, ''wholesale change has been elusive, mostly because words have been difficult to translate into action,'' he writes.

''The chief impediment has been development itself. Smart-growth advocates couldn't move as quickly as developers and cities couldn't simply halt development to implement new policies,'' he continues. ''In a sense, more development was needed to help pay for the costs of previous development. It was a tough cycle to break and local government officials couldn't give much more than lip service to the idea of 'smart growth.'''

That's changed now, with local government and transportation officials continuing work on a five-year transit plan, which may be ready this month.

Its first phase, the correspondent notes, will likely introduce bust rapid transit as less costly than light rail and better suited for certain area corridors.

Still, the key goal is to position the region for new federal transportation dollars, says CRT Executive Director Bridget Jones, stressing, ''It's all coming together beautifully.'' -- City Paper   12/15/2008

Resource(s): www.nashvillecitypaper.com/

Editorial: Smart Growth Needed to Protect Tennessee's Rivers

Its large and small scenic rivers have long provided Middle Tennessee with ''drinking water, rich crop and pasture land, diverse wildlife, cleansing wetlands, a wealth of electric power and endless recreational opportunities,'' but given the population boom and climate change, they can't be taken for granted, cautions a Nashville Tennessean editorial, urging all residents to adopt a spirit of conservation and pursue smart growth practices.

''Smart growth means minimizing new construction in floodplains, wetlands and previously undeveloped areas, especially when redevelopment of existing infrastructure would serve,'' the editorial says. ''It also means dedicated government oversight of development to ensure environmental laws are met.''

With some 100,000 residents settled in several counties south of Nashville over the past 20 years and demand for water in the region's Duck River watershed projected to double to 50 million gallons a day by 2030, the editorial observes, its Normandy Dam, holding in a 3,600-acre lake, will soon become insufficient to secure regional water supply.

Glad that ''regional water managers now realize they need a plan to prepare the area for decades to come, but concerned that each of their three proposals -- to raise the dam, build a second one or run a pipeline from the Tennessee River or the Tims Ford Reservoir -- would need ''feasibility and environmental-impact studies that take years to complete,'' the editorial tells businesses and homeowners it's in their power to conserve water.

''Residences are by far the single biggest drain on rivers and municipal water supplies,'' the editorial says, asking customers to water lawns and gardens only with recycled water or captured rainwater and switch to tankless water heaters and low-flow toilets and showerheads.

''Even minor steps like turning off the faucet while brushing save over time,'' it notes, concluding, ''As you follow these practices, you are also helping preserve streams and rivers, their irreplaceable wildlife and scenic beauty, and drinking water for your family, their children and grandchildren to come.'' -- Tennessean   8/15/2008

Resource(s): www.tennessean.com/

Germantown's Smart Growth Zone Off to Rocky Start

Construction in Germantown's ''Smart Growth'' zone, created last year to spur higher-density redevelopment in the city's business core, may be far from easy, reports Memphis Commercial Appeal writer Kevin McKenzie, with the Board of Mayor and Aldermen unanimously approving an outline plan and five ''warrants'' for the zone's first mixed-use complex of offices, hotel rooms, apartments, stores and restaurants, but neighbors raising major concerns about traffic, and resident David Spann filing a Chancery Court suit that alleges the planning commission approved the warrants last month in violation of the Smart Growth code.

The warrants, the writer notes, allow Memphis-based Poag & McEwen to exceed a six-story cap and build an eight-story office building, an eight-story hotel, seven one-story buildings despite a two-story minimum, and to put some closer than 150 feet from each other.

Since the commission denied the builders a warrant for one eight-story building at a meeting in March, the resident's suit claims that Smart Growth rules didn't allow the commission to reconsider the denial and that only court can rule on appeals.

With Chancellor Kenny W. Armstrong scheduled to hear the suit July 28, the resident told the board after it approved the project plan and warrants that he had also petitioned for an injunction. -- Commercial Appeal   7/15/2008

Resource(s): www.commercialappeal.com/

Mayor Wharton Outlines Plan to Create a Sustainable Shelby County

Fresh from a German fact-finding trip focused on transportation reform, Shelby County Democratic Mayor A C Wharton Jr. released a full set of his broad-based task force's ''smart-growth'' recommendations to make the county more walkable, revitalize neighborhoods, and curb sprawl, telling the crowded ''Sustainable Shelby Call for Action'' meeting that Germany is losing population and gas is now above $8 a gallon, but nobody is whining.

''The only whining sound you hear in Stuttgart is a train going by that's jam-packed,'' Mayor Wharton said. ''One guy told us years ago people said you look stupid riding a bicycle. Now the only people who look stupid in Berlin are those driving to work. Alone. In a car. I say that, because it provides the backdrop for our deliberations today.''

Worked out in the task force's seven thematic committees in just four months, but in a very public and research-intensive planning process, reports Memphis Daily News writer Andy Meek, the recommendations will now be fine-tuned by county staff over the next three months.

Among the goals ranked by task force members and residents as most important is the creation of and reinvestment in ''a great public realm that includes parks, schools, streets and plazas,'' all appropriately scaled.

Chicago-based urban planner and author Doug Farr -- whose ''Sustainable Urbanism: Urban Design with Nature'' the mayor called a textbook for the landmark planning effort -- expressed confidence in its success, telling some doubters that the county can and should stay the course for numerous reasons, including public health.

Mayor Wharton reaffirmed his commitment.

''Today, for the first time in our history, we have a sustainability agenda and a clear message. This has been done in only four months -- some of you said I was crazy for suggesting that -- which speaks as much to the urgency of our mission as the ambition of our schedule,'' he stressed. ''With this new roadmap, we have a chance for a different destination. One with walkable and bikeable neighborhoods ... so we can quit bequeathing the cost of our lifestyle to our children and our grandchildren.''

See the task force's report at www.dpdgov.com. -- Daily News   7/12/2008

Resource(s): www.memphisdailynews.com/Default.aspx

Memphis-Shelby County Land Use Control Board Approves Amended Wal-Mart Proposal

Despite the Memphis-Shelby County Office of Planning and Development's recommendation, its Land Use Control Board of citizen appointees voted 8-1 for a long-contested Wal-Mart proposal to build a slightly scaled down and redesigned Supercenter a half-mile from an elementary school in Cordova, east of Memphis' beltway, a vote that a Memphis Commercial Appeal questions in the light of the county's turn toward smart growth.

''The problem with unlimited development of such stores,'' the editorial states, ''is that policy's conflict with the long-term goal of creating sustainable neighborhoods, where residents can walk or bike to neighborhood stores, parks and the like.''

That's exactly what troubled the board's lone dissenter, Emily Trenholm, reported Commercial Appeal writer Pamela Perkins from the public meeting two days earlier, quoting her concern that the Supercenter would not only draw traffic to the quiet area, but also defy the county's efforts to ensure sustainability, curb sprawl, and promote more walkable neighborhoods and local businesses.

The other board members, the writer noted, argued that Wal-Mart ''bent over backward'' to appease planners and neighbors, whose resistance made it withdraw its previous plan in February.

Submitting 2,000 local signatures in support of the project, the company reduced its size from 176,305 to 151,908 square feet, promised $1.4 million for 1,000-foot-long turning lanes for an adjacent intersection of two two-lane roads, moved the building a little from some homes, and redesigned the bland blue-gray exterior as mostly brick, with curvy roof lines.

Neighbors are not impressed.

''It doesn't matter how pretty the building is,'' said resident Traci Boord on behalf her group of parents with children in Macon-Hall Elementary. ''There are a lot of children who walk to school. It's not appropriate for this area.''

Grays Creek Association president David Sanders told the writer the nonprofit group will appeal the board's vote to the Memphis City Council and Shelby County Commission.

The editorial considers such an appeal helpful, since the proposed Supercenter warrants close scrutiny, especially in the sustainability context.

''That approach pays environmental and health dividends, reduces traffic and creates the kind of neighborhoods that attract new residents to the city. A number of Shelby County developers are beginning to specialize in the approach because of its appeal in the market,'' the editorial observes.

''If land use control is to be meaningful, there are going to be occasions when those who carry out the long-term strategies of the community must look beyond the immediate neighborhood to assess the impact,'' it points out. ''This is one of those occasions.''

Click here to visit the Memphis & Shelby County Division of Planning and Development website. -- Commercial Appeal   7/10/2008

Resource(s): www.commercialappeal.com/

Shelby County Task Force Taking Steps Toward Sustainability

''We're running out of land, we're running out of fuel, we're running out of clean air,'' said Shelby County Mayor A C Wharton in remarks to his seven-committee Sustainable Shelby task force, which held a joint session at the University of Memphis FedEx Institute of Technology to cap four months of Smart Growth and New Urbanism planning with wireless voting on the county's top development, preservation and mobility priorities.

''Today, our community regularly ends up at the bottom of the lists of sustainable, walkable, bikeable, fuel-efficient communities,'' the mayor reminded some 80 planners, developers, environmentalists and other volunteer committee members, hailing their commitment to change and reasserting his and their belief that it ''doesn't have to stay that way.''

Some daily readjustments to reality may come hard, observes Memphis Commercial Appeal writer Kevin McKenzie, because of deep-rooted car habits once again confirmed in an Ethridge & Associates survey of 600 registered county voters.

Although some 90 percent of respondents voiced support for sustainability principles, said pollster Steven Ethridge, most of them wouldn't join carpooling before gas costs $4.75 a gallon, and the average residents wouldn't take a Memphis Area Transit Authority bus before the price reached $6.12.

Still, the writer notes, three teenage session participants, Phillip Scruggs and Alec and Bobbie Hembree, bicycled to Memphis from as far as Germantown, some 12 miles southeast, and they ''may have represented the future.''

The session ranked conversion of government vehicle fleets to alternative fuels as the county's top immediate priority and set 10 long-range sustainability goals.

The county, the writer reports, should create or reinvest in public spaces and facilities, including parks, streets, plazas and schools, mindful of an appropriate scale since ''one size does not fit all.''

It should create or reinvest in great neighborhoods -- ''not merely subdivisions'' -- complete, walkable and filled with a sense of neighborhood.

It should also amend building, plumbing, electrical, mechanical and fuel codes by June 30, 2009; produce a comprehensive county and Memphis plan, with clear and predictable guidelines; require new building design to allow for flexibility and adaptation to potential use changes; emphasize the need for adaptive reuse of older buildings; amend local demolition regulations to identify and enact incentives for building reuse or else material recycling; provide incentives for property reclamation in established neighborhoods; and adopt comprehensive, community-based watershed management strategies to secure water quality and quantity, and to guide habitat decisions.

And finally, the county should create and enhance bike routes and pedestrian facilities, identify roads that can easily be stripped for bicycle lanes, and ensure ''dedicated funding through capital investment program for the routes,'' while installing ''share the road'' signs.

With a public ''Sustainable Shelby Call for Action'' input meeting scheduled for July 8, Mayor Wharton said his staff, basically the Memphis and Shelby County Division of Planning and Development, will draw up an implementation plan within 90 days. -- Commercial Appeal   6/20/2008

Resource(s): www.commercialappeal.com/

Nashville Residents Can Voice Transportation and Development Concerns at Area Workshops

''With gas prices doing wonders for the consumer psyche, now may be the best time for cities with commuter-centric workforces like Nashville's to look at future public transportation options,'' points out Nashville City Paper business writer Richard Lawson, expecting a series of five public workshops announced by the Nashville Area Metro Planning Organization for the first half of May to give Nashville, Hendersonville, Goodletsville and Gallatin residents ample opportunity to register their transportation and development wishes and priorities.

Although some ''scoff at the discussion of commuter rail,'' many believe it would be the wisest transportation investment, in line with smart growth, he observes, mentioning the idea of building ''rail that has density nodes along it'' and preserving green space between the nodes.

He predicts that road proposals ''will keep coming,'' but calls roads ''a budget drain,'' with their cost continuing to climb and making the state scramble, especially since federal aid is shrinking.

''At some point, the gas tax may have to go up to cover the costs. Or the state begins to take seriously the concept of toll roads,'' he writes, concerned that the discussion of commuter rail ''may not get serious until gas prices are substantially higher and our backs are against the wall.'' -- City Paper   4/29/2008

Resource(s): www.nashvillecitypaper.com/

Shelby County Mayor Seeks Unified Development Plan for Smart Growth

''We're building and expanding at a level that has grossly exceeded our financial abilities,'' said Shelby County Mayor A C Wharton, expanding his smart growth efforts with a ''Sustainable Shelby: A Future of Choice, Not Chance'' objective-setting process. ''There is no question in my mind that our citizens want a sustainable county -- one with walkable neighborhoods, healthy communities, energy efficient buildings, and complete streets that serve bikers, pedestrian, and transit; and that is sensitive to the needs of our environment, economy and community.''

By June, the mayor said, seven Sustainable Shelby committees -- composed of planners, policy experts, architects, developers and others -- will draw up a specific agenda on transportation and traffic, public building and public policies, neighborhood rebirth, public incentives; environment and natural resources, building codes, and land use and development, and 60 to 90 days later his staff will work out its implementation plan.

Accompanying the mayor during the announcement, Brookings Institution economist and CEO for Cities Joe Cortright promised the agenda will yield a $280 million ''green dividend'' thanks to ''a relatively modest change in commuting patterns.''

Frayser Community Development Corporation Executive Director Steve Lockwood, reports Memphis Commercial Appeal writer Alex Doniach, expects the agenda to reverse the results of long disinvestment in his north Memphis area, where roads, curbs and gutters fell into disrepair, and home depreciation, foreclosures and neglect went up.

''We've invested a great deal in sprawl and a great deal in urban flight,'' he observed, while Mayor Wharton noted that he envisioned a different course shortly after he took office in 2002, with an executive order making smart growth a priority for his administration.

Had the county had smart-growth planning a decade ago, it would likely have saved the $5 million it will now spend to widen two miles of Holmes Road, overwhelmed by too many new homes along the part southeast of Memphis.

With the Office of Planning and Development at work since 2004 on revision of the county's zoning and subdivision codes, the mayor said the goal is a more livable community.

''We live in a city where to go to the dry cleaners, you've got to drive, to pick up a chicken salad sandwich, you've got to drive,'' he stressed. ''We're getting sicker and sicker and fatter and fatter, and so we're expanding this (revision) beyond the narrow view of what building codes mean. It's everybody business.'' -- Commercial Appeal   3/7/2008

Resource(s): www.shelbycountytn.gov/ ; www.commercialappeal.com/

Memphis Transit Condenses Plans for Light Rail System to Eight-Mile Starter Line

In the decade since the Memphis Area Transit Authority (MATA) completed a study on a proposed regional light-rail system for the city and its three main suburban corridors, the plan has been condensed to an eight-mile starter line between downtown and Memphis International Airport, said MATA assistant general manager of planning and Smart Growth advocate Thomas D. Fox, expecting the prospective $400 million line to spur transit-oriented development near stations, and to be extended some day from downtown some 13 miles southeast to Germantown and another 10 miles to Collierville.

As an example of light-rail potential for investments, he cited Charlotte, North Carolina, where officials are seeing ''billions of dollars of development already around station locations, before they even open'' their first light-rail line late next month.

Presently, reports Memphis Commercial Appeal writer Kevin McKenzie, the city and MATA operate a bus system at a cost of about $49 million a year.

Its most popular route, between downtown and Germantown, counts 3,000 passengers a day, mostly Memphis residents with service jobs in Germantown, which would ensure at least the same ridership for the corridor's light rail.

But Germantown Mayor Sharon Goldsworthy worries about obstacles, the biggest of which is Norfolk Southern railroad's lack of interest in sharing its right-of-way, the best path for a light-rail line to the eastern suburbs.

Therefore, ''Smart Growth's first transportation step in Germantown'' will be making its core more pedestrian-friendly, the writer observes, quoting the mayor, who said, ''Right now, walking is not doable.'' -- Commercial Appeal   10/21/2007

Resource(s): www.commercialappeal.com/

Germantown Residents Disappointed With Mixed-Use Plan for Wooded Neighborhood Tract

Like most others in Germantown, about 13 miles southeast of downtown Memphis, Neshoba North neighborhood residents favor the overall Smart Growth rezoning plan just approved by the Board of Mayor and Aldermen for the city's 380-acre central business district, but they wanted it to exempt the 14-acre undeveloped Owen Tract -- with old woods and occasional wildlife -- amid their single-family homes just north of City Hall, fearing the prospective effect of dense mixed use development on area character, local traffic, and the safety of children walking and biking to school.

Under the plan, reports Memphis Commercial Appeal writer Kevin McKenzie, the Smart Growth district will feature six-story buildings, stores and offices topped by lofts, a health-care facility, townhouses and pedestrian-friendly streets, most of which Neshoba homeowners see as improper for their neighborhood.

''Unfortunately, the impact of one small portion of this plan on our quiet, stable, single-family residential neighborhood will be anything but smart,'' they wrote in a letter distributed a week earlier, some 200 of them packing a standing-room-only board meeting and expecting reconsideration, but leaving disappointed and criticizing Mayor Sharon Goldsworthy and the aldermen for invoking procedural rules against public comments just before their third and final vote on any subject.

''I think our Board of Mayor and Aldermen have forgotten that they are elected officials,'' said Neshoba resident, history professor Sarah Wilkerson-Freeman, who hoped for an art gallery or museum on the Owen Tract.

Mayor Goldsworthy, the writer notes, has previously pointed out that officials had made special efforts and instituted ''a rather lengthy and orderly process'' to gather and incorporate public input in the Smart Growth plan over the past 14 months, and that residents concerned about traffic and other issues will have many opportunities to seek solutions when the Planning Commission reviews specific development projects.

Aldermen Carole Hinley and Mike Palazzolo repeated that assurance at the latest meeting, the latter saying developers may submit three or four Smart Growth district projects in the next few months and neighbors should remain involved in refining these plans. -- Commercial Appeal   10/19/2007

Resource(s): www.commercialappeal.com/

Design Competition Launched for Memphis' Shelby Farms Urban Park

A working penal and rehabilitation farm until the 1960s, subsequently chosen by the Shelby County Commission for future public recreational use, the 4,500-acre Shelby Farms site some 10 miles east of Memphis will soon reassert its status as one of the nation's premier urban parks, with the nonprofit Shelby Farms Park Conservancy, which manages 2,900 acres of the site, inviting local, national and international architectural and planning firms to seek a $450,000 contract for a park improvement master plan.

The response deadline, writes Conservancy spokeswoman Pamela Perkins in the Memphis Commercial Appeal, is October 10, with three top firms selected by November 12 to enter an ''Innovative Design Competition,'' and their plans exhibited between March 6 and 26 at the city's central library.

With the advice of nationally-known urban planner Alex Garvin, and based on extensive public input, the winning plan will be announced April 9.

County Mayor A C Wharton and the County Commission are expected to have the plan ready for approval about two months later.

Conservancy Chairman Calvin Anderson said officials and residents ''are looking for creative, sensitive designs'' and a master plan ensuring a sense of community, financial sustainability and environmental sensibility.

More about Shelby Farms, the conservancy and the park master plan competition at www.shelbycountytn.gov and www.sfparkalliance.org. -- Commercial Appeal   9/6/2007

Resource(s): www.commercialappeal.com/

Germantown Expected to Approve Landmark SmartCode Zoning

''SmartCode is smart growth,'' reads the headline of a Memphis Commercial Appeal editorial on efforts to put ''the urban back into the suburban'' in mostly residential and tax-revenue hungry Germantown, some 10 miles southeast of central Memphis, expecting its aldermen to approve the landmark code in a bid to boost the economy and keep property taxes down.

''Steadfast in its determination to designate commercial pockets, clearly separating them from neighborhoods, and to hold buildings to a certain height,'' Germantown has already annexed all reserve areas and will become ''built out'' in the next 10 years, the editorial observes, pointing out that SmartCode, spearheaded by assistant city administrator Andy Pouncey, means a land-use shift and promises a better future.

''SmartCode recognizes that the city needs to diversify its tax base and, if it's about to be 'built out,' the only way to grow is up,'' the editorial says. ''The plan would allow buildings up to 10 stories with a mix of uses, including residential.''

It would also give the city an opportunity to acquire ''some flair and sense of place,'' and to ''rejuvenate a central business district.''

Of course, the editorial stresses, planners must ensure that SmartCode doesn't change Germantown's character as a successful residential suburb or compound traffic problems or strain services or hurt local businesses.

''The world and cities change,'' it concludes. ''Good leaders recognize this and plan accordingly. Germantown seems to be playing the right tune with SmartCode.'' -- Commercial Appeal   7/9/2007

Resource(s): www.commercialappeal.com/mca/home/

Writer Gives Murfreesboro Leaders Mixed Review for Smart Growth Efforts

Impressed with smart-growth recommendations from the book ''Save Our Land, Save Our Towns,'' by the head of a nonprofit of the same name and 1990 Pulitzer Prize winner, Pennsylvania journalist Thomas Hylton, now Pottstown Planning Commission chairman, Murfreesboro Daily News Journal writer Scott Broden reports that Murfreesboro leaders have been making almost all the recommended ''right moves,'' except containing development within urban boundaries and mixing high-end and affordable housing.

They insist on sidewalks and tree-lined streets, promote the bus system launched last year, encourage mixed uses and pedestrian-friendly design, and back construction of different-type homes at various prices.

Still, two other key goals remain elusive.

''Communities -- cities, villages, and towns -- should have clearly defined boundaries. They shouldn't overrun the countryside,'' wrote Thomas Hylton, and writer wishes Murfreesboro officials hadn't extended sewers to rural areas they expect to annex in the future.

He also wishes they had allowed lower-income housing in upscale neighborhoods ''to promote socioeconomic diversity and avoid having blighted and segregated areas where the poor live.''

Meantime in Pennsylvania's Pottstown, reported local Mercury writer Evan Brandt earlier, activist and planner Thomas Hylton continues his smart-growth work. -- Daily News Journal   6/9/2007

Resource(s): www.dnj.com/

Germantown Leaders Welcome Plan for Bringing Smart Growth to Memphis Suburb

At work with Lawrence Group consultants over the past year to revitalize Germantown's central business district, leaders of this sprawling Memphis suburb -- known for its equestrian heritage -- ''enthusiastically embraced'' the group's conceptual Smart Growth plan, reports Memphis Commercial Appeal writer Clay Bailey, as offering the aged area ''an identity, character and panache.''

The city will have to revise its requirements for building height and setbacks, said Lawrence team leader John Cock, stressing, ''There needs to be a shift from conventional.''

The conceptual plan aims for pedestrian-oriented mixed-use zoning, construction of a Main Street in the city center, landscaping and angled parking on some streets, and realignment of others.

One of the boldest proposals, the writer notes, envisions a possible sale of the Municipal Center site and relocation of its public buildings closer to the nearby Germantown Centre.

As they voiced their readiness for smart growth in the core, the writer adds, city leaders also responded to a predominant public wish and decided to retain the city seal, which shows a fence-lined country lane with a horse in the meadow. -- Commercial Appeal   3/7/2007

Resource(s): www.commercialappeal.com/

Nashville Writer Says Smart Growth Offers ''Win-Win'' Option; Some Experts Seek State Role in Advancing Sustainability Plans

The antithesis of sprawl, smart growth offers a ''win-win'' option for residents, developers and governments not only by reducing commute times, land waste and service costs, but also by attracting new industries, stresses Nashville Business Tennessee magazine writer Judith Tackett, confident that local charm, livability, culture and history always influence relocating executives and their spouses.

Although Tennessee has only seen an influx of dense mixed-use development since 2002, she notes, Washington-based Smart Growth America sees it as one of the eight most promising new states in the national movement.

''The more people we talk to about smart growth,'' says former BellSouth Tennessee president, now Cumberland Region Tomorrow (CRT) Co-chairman DeWitt Ezell, ''the more people seem to understand.''

They understand that the goal isn't high density in every neighborhood, but regionalism and creation of the best possible long-term sustainability plans for each community -- not one size fits all, but ''balance and choices.''

Some affluent communities, which have little developable land left, increasingly look toward smart growth, says Nashville-based Hawkins Partners principal Kim Hawkins, because transformation of long underused commercial sites into mixed-use complexes -- which provide housing for hundreds of people and include extensive retail, restaurant and office space -- can quadruple the local tax base.

''You can't survive on taxation of starter homes,'' comments longtime smart-growth advocate, Cheatham County Mayor Bill Orange, both he and CRT Executive Director Bridget Jones emphasizing the need for public outreach and education to change outdated perceptions and development patterns.

Last December, helped by the Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT), the 10-county CRT advocacy group released its ''Quality Growth Toolbox'' for conservation zoning, project design, streetscape standards, public transit, pedestrian and bicycle accommodations, rural preservation and other community improvements, and now is using a TDOT grant to organize the statewide Tennessee Quality Growth Network.

Still, many experts, including Looney Ricks Kiss architecture firm planner Chuck Downham and Boyle Developments official Rusty Bloodworth, want the state to assert its role in advancing smart growth, as Maryland, Wisconsin and some other states have done.

''We've got some exceptional leaders across the state who have stepped up,'' the planner observes, ''but we've got to get everybody on the same page.''

Metro Memphis planning director Rick Bernhardt considers it absolutely essential for accommodating millions of new residents over the next decades.

''The question is not are we going to grow,'' he says. ''The question is how are we going to grow.'' -- Business Tennessee   2/10/2007

Resource(s): www.businesstn.com/

Infill Project Rejected in East Memphis Over Neighbors' Concerns of Smaller Lot Sizes

The smart-growth idea of encouraging denser development in neighborhoods with urban services makes sense for many reasons, but ''real life sometimes presents obstacles to that grand vision,'' says a terse Memphis Commercial Appeal editorial, concerned that the Land Use Control Board rejected a six-home infill project for 3.6 vacant acres in East Memphis because neighbors considered it incompatible with their larger lot sizes.

The issue requires the attention of the city's Office of Planning and Development during its current revision of local zoning regulations, the editorial observes, expecting it to set clear standards so all would know ''when infill projects are allowed and when they aren't.''

Otherwise, ''each new infill project will end up being voted up or down in arbitrary fashion,'' it concludes. ''And that doesn't sound smart at all.'' -- Commercial Appeal   8/14/2006

Resource(s): www.commercialappeal.com/mca/home/

Congested Roads Becoming Risky for Pedestrians and Cyclists as Rural Hendersonville Experiences Rapid Growth

Just northeast of Nashville, largely rural Hendersonville is growing and becoming heavily congested so fast that the city should do much more to make roads and streets safer for pedestrians and cyclists, say its greenway and pedestrian committee members David Hardin and Frank Bowyer, especially concerned about children.

''People don't just commute to work anymore. They commute to the store; they commute to go pick up their kids,'' points out David Harding, while Frank Bower adds, ''There are no sidewalks leading to and from the schools. No wonder children don't want to walk to school, they don't want to walk in the street.''

It's not only the old roads that are increasingly dangerous, they tell Hendersonville Star News writer Jeremy Johnson; several new ones also have no shoulders and mostly no sidewalks. The city, says David Hardin, started well on Saundersville Road ''by making the right of way large enough on the first two sections,'' but as the road gets nearer Station Camp High School, ''it narrows back down and becomes unfriendly.''

He agrees with Frank Bower that better bike and pedestrian access would also benefit local businesses, noting that it takes 15 or 20 minutes of driving to some places that could be reached in five minutes by bike if the city invested in a greenway. ''The extent of bicycling and walking in a community has been described as a barometer of how well that community is advancing its citizens quality of life,'' he observes. ''Streets that are busy with bicyclists and pedestrians are considered to be environments that work on a human scale and foster a heightened sense of neighborhood and community.'' -- Hendersonville Star News   7/26/2006

Resource(s): www.hendersonvillestarnews.com/

Quality of Life Concerns Drive Oakland, Tenn. Resident to Organize Smart Growth Group

Having made Oakland, some 30 miles from central Memphis, the state's fastest-growing municipality -- population of almost 2,500 -- its recent residents are taking the lead to protect local character from what many of them had escaped, with hair stylist Samantha Norton organizing a Citizens for Smart Growth group last month, involving husband Todd, two daughters and others in a door-to-door petition drive across all neighborhoods to block a planned Wal-Mart.

The owner of the 70-acre site sought by Wal-Mart, area developer David Goodwin, says the town ''out there is just elated with the idea'' and the company ''realizes that it's a very good market for them.''

According to Mayor Bill Mullins, reports Memphis Daily News writer Andy Meek, architects are already working with code enforcement officials on store specifications ''and everybody's just tickled to death.''

He apparently forgets Samantha Norton and her smart-growth network. ''I've already spoken with many people who feel the same way I do,'' she points out, ''that we don't want Wal-Mart in our town, that we're aware of the effects you have when you get a Wal-Mart in a small town, and we aren't really interested in that.''

To make others aware of those effects, too, she plans a screening of Robert Greenwald's 2005 documentary ''Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price,'' which shows several towns hurt by the company's practices and includes personal stories of family merchants who went out of business.

Among supporters of her anti-Wal-Mart petition drive is local S&P Coffee Café co-owner Donna Skinner who says it took a lot of time and ''a lot of hard work'' to get the café going and ''we're just afraid when something like Wal-Mart comes in, it'll just take all the business away from small businesses that have worked so hard.''

There are also risks of sprawl and higher taxes in the aftermath. ''I don't think anybody minds paying more taxes for a fire department or police services or school,'' stresses Samantha Norton, ''but nobody wants to do it just so we can have a Wal-Mart.'' -- Daily News   7/18/2006

Resource(s): www.memphisdailynews.com/

Memphis Newspaper Declares That Smart Growth Does Pay, Urges Focus on Development in Urban Areas

''Smart growth does pay,'' announces a Memphis Commercial Appeal editorial headline, with the editors saying if the industry ignored their earlier financial and environmental arguments for development in urban areas, it should now consider a shift by one of its own long-time suburban giants, namely Beazer Homes, which plans to concentrate on Memphis downtown condos and townhouses in the future.

The editorial quotes Beazer's Memphis division president Peter Canalia. ''In an area like Downtown, where there is a lot of demand and there are a lot of amenities, you can charge more,'' he said. ''Your opportunities to make money are much greater.''

Memphis Area Association of Realtors data illustrate these opportunities quite persuasively. In the riverside area of Mud Island and South Bluff, the average residential property sale price was $172.91 per square foot during the first four montks of the year; in Germantown, Collierville and Lakeland, 14 and some 20 miles away, the prices were $108.74, $109.87 and $111.91, respectively.

''So please,'' the editorial concludes, ''Even if urban development doesn't appeal to any other sensibility, just follow the money.'' -- Commercial Appeal   5/4/2006

Resource(s): www.commercialappeal.com/

Memphis Neighborhoods Development Group Hires Architect to Create Smart Growth Master Plan for University of Memphis Area

Working to promote revitalization and smart growth around the University of Memphis, the University Neighborhoods Development Corporation (UNDC) has hired local Looney Ricks Kiss Architects to draw up a master plan for the area, reports Memphis Commercial Appeal writer Amos Maki, noting that developers are taking an especially ''hard look'' at a mile-long stretch of South Highland Street two blocks west of campus, and that Dallas-based Trammel Crow's Higher Education Service division is already proposing a $20 million student-apartment tower, with a 340-car garage and street-level retail.

''This development is the perfect example of a smart growth, infill, mixed-use development,'' said Trammell Crow vice president Kemp Conrad, pointing out that now university students are living in 13 ZIP codes throughout the city and the 12-story tower ''will be a magnet and keep these students in the area where they spend money with merchants in the district.''

Another company vice president, Higher Education Services division head Chris Harness, added that local Poag & McEwen Lifestyle Centers is likely to acquire a nearby church property for commercial development, and that their two projects together ''will really stimulate growth in the area.''

Although neighborhood activist and UNDC board member Melissa Pierce would prefer smaller-scale student housing, incoming UNDC member and Mercury Investments CEO Earl Blankenship considers the proposed tower ''the classic example of highest and best use'' of the urban site. ''I think,'' he said, ''that area has largely been looked over by competent and capable developers.'' -- Commercial Appeal   3/4/2006

Resource(s): www.commercialappeal.com/

Maryville, Blount County Learn Benefits of Working Together to Prevent Sprawl, Preserve Quality of Life

If they are to secure their quality of life and sustainable future, Blount County and Maryville -- its largest city, just five miles northwest of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park -- should work together to prevent sprawl, said County Planning Director John Lamb, familiarizing county planning commissioners and several city guests with basic smart growth principles, but focusing on the benefits of compact mixed-use neighborhoods, where residents can walk more and drive less.

Speaking at the first county workshop on a 269-page growth strategy report by Hunter Interest Inc., reports Maryville Daily Times writer Lesli Bales-Sherrod, director Lamb also stressed the importance of various housing and transportation options, open space preservation, and urban redevelopment.

He pointed out that the county and the city can use some common strategy elements such as an urban growth boundary, road links, open space plans, purchase of development rights and cluster development requirements along U.S. 321 to Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Complementary elements, he said, include strengthening the Maryville core, protecting the rural periphery and coordinating development and infrastructure plans. He also mentioned separate elements, with the city especially interested in downtown design and rehabilitation of old commercial strips, and the county more focused on rural zoning and cluster projects for rural areas. -- Daily Times   1/18/2006

Resource(s): www.thedailytimes.com/

Memphis Region's Walking and Biking Trail Network Set to Grow Quickly in 2006

A vital part of Shelby County Mayor AC Wharton Jr.'s smart growth strategy, construction of the cross-county greenbelt, a 22-mile-long east-west network of scenic walking and biking trails from Collierville through Germantown and Memphis to the Mississippi River, will accelerate this year, once the county uses its $10 million grant for the Wolf River Restoration Project and begins work along eight miles of the river's eastern stretch to shore it up and halt erosion.

The network construction has recently proceeded ''in starts and fits,'' reports Memphis Daily News writer Andy Meek, not only because of the complexity of connecting many different paths, but also because of the county and the city budget gaps.

Now Memphis parks services director Bob Fouche thinks federal grants may cover 80 percent of construction costs, with much of the land needed for the greenbelt already owned by the city and the state Department of Transportation.

At the same time, county director of public works Ted Fox is encouraged by recent talks with officials in Fayette County, just to the east, about the possibility of future greenbelt extension into their territory.

Wolf River Conservancy executive director Keith Kirkland says the network of walking and biking trials will ''make Memphis a more attractive place to live,'' pointing out that such natural amenities help businesses recruit and retain talented professionals.

In addition, the writer observes, they will boost outdoor recreation and exercise, a benefit especially important in the city where 27 percent of elementary school students are overweight. On January 21, he adds, national health groups will hold a Memphis town hall meeting to discuss how the city can reverse its image as one of the most overweight in the nation. -- Daily News   1/4/2006

Resource(s): www.memphisdailynews.com/

Shelby County Imposes Moratorium on New Residential Projects to Allow Planners Time to Select Best Areas for Growth

After half-hearted discussions about checking Shelby County sprawl in 2000 and 2004 -- with 6,000 of the 16,000 lots approved meantime in unincorporated areas around Memphis, and with infrastructure-extension debt at $1.7 billion -- the County Commission finally imposed a six-month moratorium on new residential projects outside municipal limits, to let the Office of Planning and Development determine where growth should or shouldn't go, depending on local services, schools and environment.

A day before the commission's vote, Memphis Commercial Appeal writer Amos Maki quoted County Mayor A C Wharton as saying, ''Anything that evidences that we are breaking away from the ways of the past, where anything goes without regard to cost and sustainability, is welcomed.''

After the 11-0 vote, with two abstentions, the mayor said in a statement the moratorium will ''give us 'breathing room' necessary to develop effective mechanisms that will encourage growth of durable neighborhoods that pay for themselves.''

Moratorium sponsor Commissioner Deidre Malone also pointed out that officials need the map ''so when a new development goes before us we will know if it makes sense.''

With enough projects in the pipeline to keep developers busy for some time, the Memphis Area Home Builders Association took a ''neutral'' stance, though its president, Mack Andrews, expressed concern about lot shortages if the moratorium ''were to go past six months.''

Some developers criticized the commission, but those who favor smart growth voiced their support, including Looney Ricks Kiss architectural firm principals Carson Looney and Frank Ricks, Boyle Investment Co. senior vice president Rusty Bloodworth, Welch Realty Co. owner Jackie Welch, and Community Development Council executive director Emily Trenholm. Commercial Appeal writer Michael Erskine quotes her as saying ''this is watershed in terms of finally starting to move in the right direction'' and encouraging investment and redevelopment in urban areas.

As to the map of areas suited and unsuited for growth, the daily says in an editorial: ''If there are parts of the county where it would be in the public interest to prohibit new construction, planners shouldn't be intimidated by the prospect of upsetting a few developers.'' -- Commercial Appeal   11/13/2005

Resource(s): www.commercialappeal.com/

Shelby County Officials Delay Decision on 381-Acre Mixed-Use Project Over School Impact Fears

Although they called it ''excellent'' and praised developer Jeff Bronze for his ''smart growth'' approach -- a view shared by local residents -- Shelby County commissioners delayed decision on the 381-acre mixed-use Gardens of Gray's Hollow project, some 15 miles southeast of central Memphis, afraid of its school impact, with Commissioner Bruce Thompson saying approval would be like a ''stealth tax increase'' to pay for new schools.

Burdened with a $1.7 billion county debt, reports Memphis Commercial Appeal writer Michael Erskine, the commissioners recently enacted a six-month moratorium on new development proposals to give staff time for mapping areas suitable for growth, depending partly on their school and infrastructure capacity, but the Gray's Hollow project was already in the pipeline.

The project includes a mix of varied-size home lot and commercial sites, plus walking paths, lakes and ample open space, but its 943 housing units could add about 585 students to two already overcrowded schools. The county couldn't handle such an increase, said Commissioner Julian Bolton, adding, ''It is a fine plan, but we just can't afford it anymore.'' -- Commercial Appeal   11/8/2005

Resource(s): www.commercialappeal.com/

The Start of Something Big? Memphis Welcomes Pedestrian-Friendly Smart Growth Project

''It's been a long process, but the concept of 'smart growth' may finally be gaining some traction in the Memphis area,'' observes a Memphis Commercial Appeal editorial, complementing developer Jeff Bronze for his varied-lot and pedestrian-friendly Gardens of Gray's Hollow project, which implements many of the concepts that local planners have advocated for years.

Stressing the importance of various size lots to accommodate different homebuyer needs, the editorial notes that the proposed project includes a 1.2-mile walking path, interconnected streets and sidewalks, lakes, wetlands and ample open space.

The editorial realizes that some developers won't follow the example and will continue to build ''conventional subdivisions with look-alike houses and dead-end streets that wind around like pieces of spaghetti.'' But if consumers see better options, ''they'll buy them,'' and that, the editorial concludes, ''could be the start of something really big.'' -- Commercial Appeal   9/6/2005

Resource(s): www.commercialappeal.com/

Gallatin Rotarians Briefed on Importance of Curbing Sprawl

His Cumberland Region Tomorrow (CRT) nonprofit group strongly supportive of Smart Growth and investment in downtown Gallatin and other urban cores across the 10-county region as the best way to make it flourish while saving land and money, CRT co-chairman DeWitt Ezell told Gallatin Rotarians to curb sprawl now.

''It's not too late to change our direction,'' he said. ''You can't get discouraged when you look at sprawl. You have to look to the future.''

To facilitate the change, reports Gallatin News Examiner editor Deborah Highland, CRT is working with the region's officials on a six-part ''quality growth tool box.'' It will help governments and public groups to ensure economic vitality, conserve land and natural resources, plan transportation and land uses, reinvest in towns, city centers and communities, create varied housing opportunities and choices, and guide infrastructure investments.

CRT expects the tool box to be ready by December, with training sessions likely between April and December 2006. -- News Examiner   6/20/2005

Resource(s): www.gallatinnewsexaminer.com/index.shtml

Nashville's 50-Year Plan Includes Proposal to Remove Inner Beltway

One of the American cities badly hurt ''by highly efficient and destructive mid-century planners and engineers,'' Nashville is on its way back, its course set in an imaginative 50-year plan created by the Nashville Civic Design Center, writes New Urban News Editor-Publisher Robert Steuteville in his June commentary, excited about the plan's scope and meticulousness, but especially about the prospect of tearing down the 1960 era's inner beltway, which became ''a choke collar around downtown.''

Its background and context presented in the recent book The Plan of Nashville: Avenues to a Great City, written and edited by Christine Kreyling, the text overlooks no details. They range, the publisher writes, from ''enhancing key terminated vistas, to converting commercial strips into urban avenues, to designing better low- and moderate-income housing, to reclaiming vast underutilized, unloved sections of the city,'' with the proposed replacement of the entire inner highway loop with high-capacity boulevards certain to open ''tremendous development opportunities'' and also turn other low-value land nearby into ''lucrative real estate.''

According to former Milwaukee Mayor John Norquist, demolition of an elevated highway stub less then a mile long in his city boosted local property values by $250 million. Demolition of Nashville's inner loop would yield incomparably more, the publisher stresses, noting that replacement of the 95-acre ''Spaghetti Junction'' alone with three-to-four-story residential and mixed-use buildings would mean some $1.3 billion in construction and $20 million in annual tax revenue.

With Metro Development and Housing Agency Development Program manager David Koellein saying, ''The obese interchange is a field of gold waiting to be mined,'' the publisher points out that the removal of the inner loop would have little effect on long-distance travelers and truckers, who use the outer loop, but it ''would facilitate the development of a huge wasteland on the east side of the Cumberland River, across from downtown.'' -- New Urban News   6/7/2005

Resource(s): www.newurbannews.com/Jun05.html

Blount County to Ask EPA for Smart Growth Implementation Assistance

In line with a new growth-management report by Hunter Interests consultants, drafted for Blount County and its largest city, Maryville, County Planning Director John Lamb sought and received the Maryville Regional Planning Commission's support for submitting to U.S. EPA his Smart Growth Implementation Assistance Request, which may secure EPA help in tailoring city and county planning and zoning ordinances to advance smart growth.

With metro Knoxville some 10 miles north and Great Smoky Mountains National Park extending over the county's southeastern quadrant, the county planning director told his Maryville regional colleagues, ''We're kind of joined at the hip on this growth strategy.''

If EPA approves the assistance request, notes Maryville Daily Times writer Thomas Fraser, it will send in three smart growth experts to evaluate area circumstances and needs and outline the best local way to limit sprawl while promoting development. -- Daily Times   5/17/2005

Resource(s): www.thedailytimes.com/

Memphis' Infill Homes Meet Demand for Location-Based Housing, Create Tax Windfall for City

Part of Shelby County Mayor A.C. Wharton's ''smart growth'' agenda, infill homes within the I-240 loop have plenty of eager buyers, create a tax revenue boon for Memphis and help spur ambitious mixed-use redevelopment projects in the city's core, reports Memphis Commercial Appeal writer Tom Charlier, quoting city-based MarketGraphics president Don Berge, who says, ''You don't find any of these things sitting around empty.''

With the number of infill permits jumping from 104 in 2002 to 265 since then, the writer notes, Memphis officials are promoting Uptown, just north of the downtown area, a mixed-use and varied-income neighborhood of 1,200 homes and apartments, envisioning hundreds of other units in place of razed public housing nearby.

Once centered mostly in East Memphis, where they often cost $500,000-plus, infill homes are also in demand now in Midtown and other city sections, the writer observes, and they become ''something of a salve both for Memphis' frail tax base and Shelby County's swelling debt.'' Instead of requiring heavy public investment for new roads, schools and utilities, they boost property values and hence tax yield.

As an example, the writer cites a seven-home infill being build by developers John Gallina and Rob Hansom in place of a dismantled 60-year-old rancher on its 2.4-acre lot. Starting at $675,000, the new homes are expected to generate at least $85,000 a year in city and county taxes -- over nine times more than the old home paid. The project would have produced even more tax revenue, but the developers scaled it back from the originally planned 10 homes in response to local concerns about density.

Infill builders say their customers, usually retired empty-nesters, want to live near restaurants, shops and other city amenities, while having a low-maintenance lot and peace of mind about house security when they travel. -- Commercial Appeal   5/15/2005

Resource(s): www.commercialappeal.com/

Recognizing Need for Diverse Housing, Developer Shifts from Suburban Housing to New Urbanist Projects

''For years, a lot of consumer groups bought houses that did not fit their needs,'' said Lenox Village LLC President David McGowan in a conversation with Nashville City Paper writer William Williams, describing his 1998 mid-career switch from conventional suburban housing to the underserved demographic market eager for New Urbanism, Traditional Neighborhood Development (TND), urban infill and smart growth.

''In my recent demographic studies,'' he pointed out, ''I have learned that 75 percent of the homebuyers in the marketplace do not have kids 18 or younger.''

Having earlier studied Kentlands, Lakelands, Harbor Town, Seaside, Celebration and other successful neo-traditional projects, he discovered ''very diverse housing needs'' and responded to them with his Lenox Village (LV) in South Nashville, where he offers housing in the $90,000-$300,000 price range.

''You can have a single home with (two or) three generations of a family because many LV homes have 'bounce-back' above-garage apartments for recent college grads or aging parents,'' he said, noting that low-density zoning in cities like Brentwood and Franklin -- one unit and 1.7 units per acre, respectively -- ''puts a high burden on future generations that will maintain and operate these communities.'' It also separates classes economically, because service workers and others who make under $100,000 can't afford large-lot houses and have to live elsewhere.

Both cities allow office condos at 12 units per acre, creating jobs without housing to support these jobs, he stressed, observing, ''Workers are driving from other communities, and city officials complain about the main roads being clogged with traffic.''

In contrast, he is readying a $5.5 million four-story residential infill project, with underground parking, in West Nashville, and ''looking forward to moving into the core of the city'' with many other infills.

Asked about his recent visit to Oklahoma City, where he outlined TND issues, the developer commended its officials for ''looking to Nashville to find solutions for housing and planning problems,'' adding, ''It says a lot about Mayor Bill Purcell and Metro Planning Department Executive Director Rick Bernhardt and how they support New Urbanism/smart growth.''

A former president of the Homebuilders Association of Middle Tennessee, still holding its various key posts, the writer observes, the New Urbanism and smart growth advocate said his hypothetical dream job would be the Tennessee governorship. -- City Paper   5/11/2005

Resource(s): www.nashvillecitypaper.com/

Plan for ''Traditional'' Neighborhood in Emerging City of Lakeland Needs Support from Local Zoning Codes

''One cannot propose a new Annapolis, Marblehead or Key West without seeking substantial variances from current codes,'' writes Congress for New Urbanism co-founder Andres Duany in the Memphis Commercial Appeal, expressing hope that Shelby County's young city of Lakeland, some 20 miles northeast of central Memphis and in the path of its growth, will complete the ongoing land use and zoning revaluation with ''a progressive code'' that allows implementation of his firm's plan for the traditional Lakeland Green neighborhood.

The mixed-use, walkable, 1,200-acre neighborhood, with half of the land set aside as open space and 165 acres for a municipal center, he writes, is modeled after those that defined America from the first settlements to the Second World War. In contrast to the post-war suburban sprawl model, which ''contains environmental, social and economic deficiencies that inevitably choke sustained growth,'' he points out, the traditional neighborhood accommodates a majority of the population within a five-minute walk of its center; the center ''provides an excellent location for a transit stop, convenient workplaces, retail, community events and leisure activities;'' streets, in a network, are relatively narrow -- with parking, trees, sidewalks and buildings -- and ''suitable for both vehicles and pedestrians;'' mixed uses include a variety of houses, small apartments buildings, shops, offices, warehouses and restaurants, with civic buildings often placed at squares or ''at the termination of street vistas,'' and with parks, playgrounds, greenbelts and other common spaces.

''The challenge to Lakeland is to redefine the way the city will grow by allowing a new choice for developers,'' the architect stresses, ''one that will encourage neighborhoods, not urban sprawl.'' -- Commercial Appeal   5/1/2005

Resource(s): www.commercialappeal.com/

Memphis Editorial Cites Smart Growth as Answer to City's Leapfrog Development

Although ''a lot of people want big, inexpensive homes on large lots, with low taxes and good access to highway,'' a growing number of others increasingly realize that this model can't be sustained and that it puts a heavy burden on taxpayers, the environment and ultimately ''those who choose to live at the edge of urban sprawl,'' observes a Memphis Commercial Appeal editorial, stressing that ''smart growth policies give homebuyers more options'' in their search ''for the kind of lifestyle and the kind of neighborhood that suits them best.''

Before the Memphis City Council and Shelby County Commission vote on the forthcoming Unified Development Code later this year, the editorial says, residents will have ample time for input on their long-term preferences for the area.

''What good is a private car if you're stuck in traffic on Germantown Parkway, choking on exhaust fumes, wasting gasoline at more than $2 a gallon, and there's no land left on either side of the road to widen it some more?'' the editorial asks, confident that the answer to leapfrog development, which ''has put county taxpayers $1.7 billion in debt,'' lies in smart growth.

Vouching for walkable mixed-use neighborhoods and redevelopment of older areas ''that don't require a lot of new infrastructure,'' the editorial expresses hope that ''the leapfrog pattern will finally be seen for the costly and limiting model that it really is.'' -- Commercial Appeal   4/24/2005

Resource(s): www.commercialappeal.com/

Nashville's Dramatic 50-Year Plan Calls for Reconnecting Urban Core, Adjacent Neighborhoods

The fruit of intense work by local officials, planners and hundreds of residents brought together by the nonprofit Nashville Civic Design Center in a series of open sessions over the past two years, the newly unveiled 50-year Plan for Nashville envisions the city without the 8-mile downtown loop of three interstates -- 65, 40 and 24 -- suggesting its replacement with parks, boulevards and mixed-use communities that would reconnect the urban core and adjacent neighborhoods.

Presented at a sold-out luncheon attended by Mayor Mill Purcell, Metro Council members, state officials and many residents, notes Tennessean writer Bill Lewis, the plan also advocates improving quality of life, developing land along the Cumberland River, enhancing neighborhoods, and making the city more cohesive, but the loop removal vision attracted the most attention.

''We're not talking about going out and blowing up the interstates,'' said Civic Design Center executive director Kate Monaghan, focusing instead on the need for gradual changes, which would encourage residents to use transit, ride bicycles and walk in the central city.

The plan, the writer reports, recommends four steps to reduce the loop's impact on neighborhoods it began to divide 42 years ago. In the first step, the city would add loop landscaping, remove chain link fences, install public art, erect soundproof walls and reduce glare, all of which would enhance entryways, but not reconnect neighborhoods, boost transit or encourage walking. In the second step, the city would build bridges over the loop or tunnels under it to meet the key goals to some extent and perhaps attract commercial and residential projects. In the third step, the city would replace cloverleaf entrances and exit ramps downtown with long, straight ramps intersecting city streets where residents could use buses or other transit.

Currently, the plan says, just one ''super interchange'' in east Nashville takes 95 acres worth about $15 million now and perhaps more than $100 million if the land was freed for development, with a potential mixed-use neighborhood pumping some $20 million in taxes into the Metro budget each year.

In the fourth step, the city would convert the loop's Coliseum stretch into an urban boulevard, reconnecting adjacent neighborhoods, returning most freed land to other uses, and restoring former streets. ''I-40 plowed through these neighborhoods without regard to the geometry of the street system or the natural boundaries of the neighborhoods,'' the plan states, offering their residents a long-hoped-for change. -- Tennessean   10/8/2004

Resource(s): http://tennessean.com/

Editorial Recognizes Infill as Most Useful Element of Shelby County's New Land-Use Plan

With Shelby County launching its long-overdue work on a comprehensive land-use plan, with zoning and subdivision rules designed to curb sprawl, reduce car dependency, and encourage healthier lifestyle and smart growth, a Memphis Commercial Appeal editorial thinks the most useful new regulations expected in two years may be ones that advance infill -- residential and commercial projects on land left vacant, but with infrastructure still intact.

The migration of Memphis residents to rural areas spurred demand for new schools and other publicly funded infrastructure, the editorial points out, calling it ''one of the reasons county government is $1.6 billion in debt.''

Complementing County Mayor A. C. Wharton for his commitment to the change in growth patterns, the editorial regrets that a proposed moratorium on development in unincorporated areas, to give planners time to complete their work, drew strong resistance and had to be given up. This, the editorial worries, ''opens the prospects for a race against the calendar to build as many new neighborhoods as possible before the new regulations are put into effect.''

But the editorial also hopes that a ''slow and deliberate process ... will give various stakeholders a chance to participate, ideally giving everyone from environmentalists to developers a sense of ownership in the final product.''

The editorial concludes that ''only through consistent and fair application of a smart new set of rules can the community get a handle on urban sprawl.'' -- Commercial Appeal   10/7/2004

Resource(s): www.commercialappeal.com/

New Conservation Easement Program Allows Landowners to Own, Farm -- and Sell -- Their Rural Land

With 124,000 acres of prime Tennessee farmland taken by urban sprawl between 1991 and 1997, and his own boyhood home lost to Knox County's Forks of the River industrial park, dairyman Earl Cruze made sure his three daughters were safe from such a loss by becoming the first in the state to tap the new federal Farm and Ranch Lands Protection Program and sell development rights to his 425-acre farm along the French Broad River.

Under the program, the U.S. Department of Agriculture will pay him about $900,000 -- or half of the land value -- and Knox County $450,000 more, with the conservation easement held by the Land Trust for Tennessee, reports Associated Press writer Duncan Mansfield.

''They will still own their farm,'' says trust chairman Byron Trauger. ''They will still work their farm. They will even be able to sell it if they want. But because of the conservation easement ... they will know that this land forever will look much like it looks today.''

State and local officials are optimistic about the future of land preservation, with state conservationist James Ford saying, ''We hope this will be a landmark decision where other landowners would take advantage of the program.''

Knox County Mayor Mike Ragsdale points out that some county areas require ''logical, planned development,'' while others should ''stay in their natural pristine condition,'' stressing, ''This project moves us a step toward doing that.'' -- The Charlotte Observer   9/10/2004

Resource(s): www.charlotte.com/

Memphis-Shelby County Consolidation Offers Benefits, But Would It Help Stop Sprawl?

The proposed consolidation of Memphis and Shelby County ''would surely lower the cost of government'' and yield other benefits but not necessarily ''stop inner-city decline and the loss of countryside to sprawling development,'' writes Pennsylvania journalist and Save Our Land, Save Our Towns Inc. president Thomas Hylton in his guest column for The Commercial Appeal (Memphis), cautioning, ''whether we're dealing with inefficient small municipalities or larger, more cost-effective ones, growth management laws won't really work until more Americans decide they prefer walkable neighborhoods over isolated housing lots.''

So far, he considers the prospects mixed. In his own state, especially in Pittsburgh and Allegheny County, which are also exploring a merger idea, jurisdictional and school district fragmentation, inefficiency and duplication inflate service costs and people are still leaving urban neighborhoods for outer areas.

The same applies to Metro Nashville-Davidson County, Tenn., whose voter-approved merger became a national model. On the other hand, the ongoing downtown Memphis rejuvenation shows that major lifestyle changes are possible, whenever more and more people, tired of ''traffic congestion and homogenous sprawl ... are looking for traditional communities with a sense of place and community.''

Also citing the example of Great Britain, which ''enjoys both the laws and the cultural disposition to control sprawl,'' the writer hopes for Memphis area residents' interest in a September series of tours, lectures and exhibitions organized by Memphis Heritage Inc. and the American Institute of Architects to spotlight the city's older buildings and comfortable neighborhoods.

''The more people who move into Shelby County's countryside, the more it loses its rural character,'' he writes. ''But the more people who migrate to Memphis, the more livable, inviting and sustainable the city becomes.'' -- The Commercial Appeal   9/2/2004

Resource(s): www.commercialappeal.com/

Nashville Enlists Aid of S.G. Leadership Institute to Update Metro Region's Subdivision and Zoning Standards

Tired of old ''one-size-fits-all regulations'' that force builders to continue the same pattern no matter whether they work on projects so different as infill in Germantown or a new subdivision in Bellevue, Nashville Metro officials are getting technical assistance from the Washington-based Smart Growth Leadership Institute for a comprehensive update of subdivision and zoning standards, to make them mutually compatible and conducive to smart growth.

The institute, said Metro's Planning Department assistant executive director Ann Hammond, has afforded Nashville ''a team of three professional planners'' through a grant from the U.S. EPA, helping area officials audit development regulations, in preparation for their overhaul, which will involve Metro planners, council members, developers, neighborhood representatives and other community stakeholders.

The institute's goal, notes Nashville City Paper writer Judith R. Tackett, is to help a number of applicant communities -- selected from more than 100 nationwide -- ''weed through a thicket'' of outdated codes, misinformation about smart growth, and NIMBY obstructionism. The institute is also preparing a national Smart Growth Implementation Kit, the writer notes, citing the announcement that the kit will allow other communities ''to gauge whether their current policy and regulation frameworks, their approval of review processes or their design standards encourage and support smart growth.'' -- City Paper   6/16/2004

Resource(s): www.nashvillecitypaper.com/

Franklin Mayor Points to Economic, Efficient Qualities of Smart Growth in State of the City Speech

A New Urbanism and smart growth fan, Franklin Mayor Tom Miller trusts in compact, mixed-use, urban neighborhoods because they ensure efficient city services, walkability and less car dependency, while ''(g)eneric suburbia, bland at best and alienating at worst, cannot meet these requirements.''

Reasserting this belief in his State of the City speech before the Cool Springs and Williamson County-Franklin chambers of commerce, reports Williamson County Review Appeal writer Clint Confehr, Mayor Miller instructed planners to keep Franklin -- some 15 miles south of Nashville -- from becoming like ''anyplace, anywhere'' and expressed readiness to work with the county government for mutual benefits.

Although disappointed that developers ''have chosen'' to build typical bland housing, ''guaranteed to sell in the marketplace without enhancing Franklin's charm,'' he pointed out that the city's growth pays for itself with $1.5 million in impact fees, $1.3 million in facility taxes, and the increased assessed value and sales tax revenue.

Answering questions, the mayor confirmed corridor revitalization plans for the city's south-central Natchez Street, and repeated that a Wal-Mart proposed for Columbia Avenue farther south ''ain't gonna happen,'' because of already ''horrible'' traffic and access to the site from only one side. -- Review Appeal   5/27/2004

Resource(s): http://reviewappeal.midsouthnews.com/

Revival of Traditional Courthouse Square Taking Place in Tennessee

The traditional Southern courthouse square, the activity hub of all 95 Tennessee county seats in the 18th and early 19th centuries, ''is being revived as a center of commerce and a public gathering place'' throughout the region, reports Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service writer Alison Miller, quoting University of Tennessee's College of Architecture and Design Professor Marian Moffitt, who points out that Tennessee courthouse squares were the result of planning.

''Legislation creating new counties typically called for establishment of a centrally located county seat provided with convenient streets, lanes and alleys, along with a public square on which the courthouse and jail were to be placed.''

After the downfall of courthouse squares in decades of suburban sprawl, local officials are moving to bring them back. ''In the case of downtown Chattanooga,'' emphasizes RiverCity Co. president Ken Hays, ''it is our heart, and the stronger the heart pumps the better of the whole region is.''

Jasper Regional History Museum director Gwen Carter says a state grant for downtown Jasper revitalization helped attract ''more professional-type businesses (such as law firms) to the square.''

Winchester Mayor Monty Adams points out that the city is redeveloping its square, creating a plaza and improving sidewalks and lighting, while bringing in more merchants.

Cleveland planning director Greg Thomas stresses that the city's development plan will enhance the public space around the square to restore its ''earlier feel'' and make it ''a focal point of the community.''

Some 15 miles southwest from Chattanooga, in Georgia, Trenton Mayor Anthony Emanuel pursues the same goal. ''The courthouse square represents not only who we are today,'' he says, ''but it's a vital part of our history and an integral part of our future as we attempt to get people off the interstate system (and into) downtown.'' -- Chicago Tribune   5/22/2004

Resource(s): www.chicagotribune.com/

Mid-Tennessee Home Builders Association Present Smart Growth Award

In recognition of their leadership in creating planned communities open to all socio-economic groups, Home Builders Association of Middle Tennessee President Ric Maddux presented the association's Smart Growth Award to Metro Nashville Mayor Bill Purcell, Planning Director Rick Bernhardt and Lenox Village LLC President David McGowan for the 101-acre mixed-use Lenox Village in southeast Davidson County. The village's residential section offers a variety of housing types, sizes and prices -- condos, town houses and single-family homes, more than 200 sold so far -- along with sidewalks, green space and public amenities. Development of a retail center is under contract, with construction of a drugstore and a grocery store scheduled for next year.   12/15/2003

Resource(s): http://nashville.bizjournals.com/nashville/

Tennessee Road Builders Upset Over Cancellation of Road Projects

Upset by Democratic Governor Phil Bredesen's success in taking $65 million from the Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) for other programs during the last legislative session, Tennessee Road Builders Association (TRBA) executive director Kent Starwalt issued a ''call to arms'' against the administration's ''new set of rules'' that favor small local groups of road opponents -- most vocal at public hearings and backed by ''traveling hordes of anti-everything, build-nothing extremists'' -- writing in his association's magazine that elective office candidates ''who have a history, or a propensity, of running and hiding at the first sign of NIMBY (not in my backyard) need to find their support in the NIMBY community and not in our pocketbooks or with our employees.'' Citing two recent TDOT cancellations of road projects as examples of the ''new set of rules,'' the TRBA director urges road builders to ensure a big friendly turnout at public hearings since ''we all know the opponents will be there with the same old song and dance about muddy water and supposedly critical 'no where else, anywhere on earth' habitat for this or that bug or bunny.'' Noting that the TRBA political action committee is always among the top ten donors to state candidates, with an average above $100,000 a year and equal contributions to both parties' candidates in the 2002 gubernatorial race, Knox News writer Tom Humphrey quotes TDOT commissioner Gerald Nicely and Tennessee Environmental Council executive director Will Calloway, both seeing the article as an ''extreme'' overreaction to the agency's search for balance and its effort to correct old problems. -- Knox News   10/22/2003

Resource(s): www.knoxnews.com/

Nashville-Clarksville Regional Summit Will Spotlight Growth Management Achievements

After two years of ''visioning workshops'' throughout the ten-county middle Tennessee area of Nashville-Clarksville -- its population expected to grow by more than 400,000 to about 1.9 million in 2020 -- the nonprofit Cumberland Region Tomorrow (CRT) planning group will name winners of its first Tomorrow Awards for regional cooperation, project design, preservation efforts, individual leadership and other growth-management achievements at the 2003 Regional Summit, October 29 in Franklin, with CRT executive director Bridget Jones-Kelly stressing, ''As we present the awards and discover new ways to handle smart growth, I think people will realize (those projects) are possible -- and desirable.'' CRT selection team chairwoman, landscape architect Kim Hawkins says the awards will spotlight ''all the good things happening throughout the region that intelligently address the tremendous growth and development we are experiencing and will continue to see.'' Formed in 2000, reports Nashville Tennessean writer Kelli Samantha Hewett, the CRT encourages regional planning, focusing on land use, transportation, and preservation of open space and agriculture, to protect the region's distinctive character and its quality of life. -- Tennessean   9/9/2003

Resource(s): www.tennessean.com/

Memphis Zoning Regulation Overhaul Seen as Move Toward Smart Growth

With an overhaul of the Memphis area's zoning regulations ''surely overdue'' to help neighborhoods control ''what they consider the latest outrage by developers,'' a Commercial Appeal editorial applauds Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton and Shelby County Mayor A. C. Wharton for their willingness to move the issue forward, stressing that together with ''such innovations as impact fees, which would help shift more of the cost burden of growth to those who create it and benefit most from it, new development and zoning rules could be part of an overall shift to 'smart growth' policies.'' For decades, many area residents have leapfrogged to the latest suburbs, stayed until these deteriorated, then moved again, with the county accumulating $1.5 billion debt for schools, parks, sewers, roads and other infrastructure, the editorial observes, quoting Mayor Wharton, who says, ''We've got to stop that. We simply cannot afford to keep going the way that we are going.'' The editorial notes that the current inner-city redevelopment projects and infills help reverse the trend and reduce pockets of concentrated poverty, but urges more efforts ''to keep Memphis' inner core from eroding further and to create a greater sense of order in suburban development.'' -- Commercial Appeal   8/26/2003

Resource(s): www.gomemphis.com/

Transport Officials Prepare to Overhaul Tennessee Road and Transit Planning Guidelines

Although Tennessee VMT (vehicle miles traveled) have more than tripled within three decades to 64.7 billion in 1999 and Nashville commuters saw their average time wasted in traffic jump from 27 to 44 hours a year between 1994 and 2000, the Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) stuck to outdated road-focused plans and failed to address new needs for environmental safeguards, compact growth and public transit, with grave results in road congestion and air quality, says a state Comptroller's report, with senior legislative research analyst Greg Spradley noting long-overdue changes initiated by Democratic Governor Phil Bredesen's administration after two-term Republican Governor Don Sundquist left office in January. New transportation officials told Nashville Tennessean writer Bonna de la Cruz they already held several community meetings on mass transit and began work on a long-range plan to ''change the way we do business.'' TDOT Commissioner Gerald Nicely said the plan will guide investment in roads and transit, including rail, bicycle and pedestrian trails, aviation and waterways. Defending his record, former Governor Sundquist said Tennessee air, land and water were the cleanest in 25 years during his tenure. He called the idea of transit as a solution to air-quality problems ''pie-in-the-sky stuff,'' arguing that even if the state had enough money to build mass transit systems, it would also have to clean up stationary pollution sources such as coal plants and change public attitudes toward buses and trains. According to the writer, the comptroller office's report found that TDOT cared little how residents of ever farther-flung subdivisions will reach their jobs, disregarded federal environmental standards stricter than the mandatory ones and spent less than one percent of its discretionary federal funds on transportation alternatives that could help ease congestion and improve air quality. Calling that amount ''really pathetic,'' Knoxville Mayor Victor Ashe praised Commissioner Nicely for offering a ''breath of fresh air.'' -- Tennessean   7/25/2003

Resource(s): http://tennessean.com/

Fayette County Presents Long-Term Growth Plan, Hopes Funding Drought Is Over

The only Tennessee county self-deprived of some state housing, infrastructure and development grants since July 2001 -- due to local officials' failure to meet that deadline for a common 20-year growth plan required under its 1998 landmark land-use law -- Fayette County now expects an administrative judicial panel in the Secretary of State's office to approve its belated plan and to end the money drought, with County Mayor Rhea Taylor, just nine months in office, attributing the previous problems to strong eastward development pressure from Memphis and Shelby County, adding, ''We've got 10 towns and each of them has a different idea how to grow.'' Much of the dispute, reports Associated Press writer Richard Locker, involved the cities of Piperton just east of the county line and Oakland some 13 miles farther northeast, with Oakland wanting to annex the currently unincorporated town of Hickory White about four miles to its west and Piperton preferring it to win its status confirmation in the state Supreme Court or officials to craft a ''smart growth' plan for the area. It's hard to know exactly how many millions of dollars the county agencies, municipalities and nonprofit groups have missed over the past two years, the mayor said, since state law denied it federal Community Development Block Grants (CDBG), along with grants for utility extension, industrial site preparation an worker training, housing and tourism. In addition, the writer notes, county taxpayers face bills for state arbitration, attorney services and consultant planning. -- GoMemphis.com   6/29/2003

Resource(s): www.gomemphis.com/mca/home/0,1426,MCA_435,00.html

''Collaboration, Not Competition'' Needed for Smart Growth in Shelby County

''While sprawl is filling in our farmlands and wetlands, it's also draining the life out of our aging, inner-city neighborhoods,'' writes Memphis Commercial Appeal columnist David Waters, stressing that while Shelby County is losing 3,000 green acres a year, studies put the number of Memphis vacant lots at 7,000 to 22,000 and the number of substandard housing units at 38,000 to 68,000. Memphis metro area sprawl ''is creating all sorts of problems for all of us,'' the columnist comments after Shelby County's Summit for Equitable Growth. Quoting former Indianapolis mayor Bill Hudnut, who said, ''Sprawl tends to concentrate poverty,'' the columnist adds that it also aggravates urban decay, pollutes the environment, crowds schools and roads, pushes up taxes and drives wedges among municipalities ''forced to compete for dwindling public and private resources.'' To remedy these problems, Shelby County needs smart growth, which ''requires collaboration, not competition,'' the columnist points out, seconding County Mayor A. C. Wharton, who said, ''Smart growth can help shore up our economy and our sense of community.'' -- Memphis Commercial Appeal   3/12/2003

Resource(s): www.gomemphis.com/mca/faith_values/

Sprawl Solutions Sought at Shelby County Growth Summit

Alarmed by the outflow of 50,000 people from Memphis' interstate loop to eastern Shelby County's sprawling ''cookie-cutter ... disposable communities'' in the past decade -- and the resulting debt of over $1 billion for 20 new schools and other services -- County Mayor A. C. Wharton brought three national experts to his Summit for Equitable Growth, to familiarize the 300 officials, activists, developers and residents in the audience with ways to devise balanced and enforceable planning, spur inner city redevelopment and streamline the builder permitting process. The experts, reports Memphis Commercial Appeal writer Michael Erskine, focused on the need to revamp growth policies and encourage urban development by making it easier and more profitable. Calling growth ''a sign of vitality,'' the director of environment and policy education at the Washington-based Urban Land Institute, Michael Pawlukiewicz, said everyone ''wants to blame developers for sprawl,'' while they ''are only implementing public policy when they build -- the zoning codes, the ordinances.'' The director of the Knight Program in Community Building at the University of Miami School of Architecture, Charles Bohl, concurred, pointing out, ''You can't have generic policies and generic ordinances and expect quality growth.'' The manager of smart growth programs at the National Association of Realtors in Washington, Joe Molinaro, repeated that the county should consider investing more in higher-density pedestrian-friendly projects, saying earlier that most people still want ''a single-family house in the suburbs where you have to drive everywhere,'' but those who prefer ''less reliance on the car, more mixed-use, walkable neighborhoods'' are ''not a negligible number'' and that's why ''we're starting to see more downtown housing across the country, more money being put into transit.'' Memphis Area Home Builders Association executive director Mark Billingsley responded that it will take public-private cooperation to make better planning ''a reality,'' but builder incentives, including a simpler permit process, would help. But suburban Cordova community activist Stacey Hydrick, whose area lost hundred of acres to growth in the last two years and who may move back to the city, said: ''We can't afford what we have. We're in debt. We're overcrowded. And our commission and our council keep giving them the green light to build more.'' -- Memphis Commercial Appeal   3/12/2003

Resource(s): www.gomemphis.com/mca/local_news/

Condos Moving Quickly in Downtown Memphis

Demand for downtown Memphis condos is high as buyers seek less costly housing, maintenance-free living or a place to stay in town, reports Memphis Business Journal writer Kate Miller, finding that units under $170,000 are selling best, but the $200,000-$400,000 market is also seeing an upturn after the post-September 11 standstill. FaxonGillis Homes began pre-selling its $148,000-$172,000 Central Station Loft condos in January and has sold 15 of 24 so far. Henry Turley Co. started conversion of its Paperworks' apartments into condos last September, raising their prices four times to the current $84,000-$210,000 range and already selling 37 of 62 units. The company has sold only 12 of its 21 Yacht Club condos for $277,000 to $424,000 since December 2000, but expects more sales soon and has high hopes for the project's second phase, which will include 12 cottages, 20 lofts and 36 other units, priced from $145,000 to $340,000. Other builders also plan higher-end condos. The writer quotes Prudential affiliate broker Tracie Gaia, who explains the popularity of downtown condos this way: ''You get the best of both worlds. You're right in the realm of all the excitement but you don't have the maintenance of the exterior. A lot of people just don't want the maintenance any more.'' -- Memphis Business Journal   7/22/2002

Resource(s): http://memphis.bizjournals.com/memphis/

Chattanooga Finds Success with Residents' Participation in Renaissance of Downtown and Riverfront Areas

With Chattanooga drawing plans to advance its 1990s riverfront and downtown renaissance even further, the Chattanooga Times Free Press rallies residents with a call to do it ''the Chattanooga way,'' a planning approach admired by national experts, which ''combines the broadest possible public involvement with a commitment to 'think big' and set high standards for development.'' This approach, says the daily in an editorial entitled ''The Chattanooga way,'' was born with Vision 2000 in the mid-1980s, when ''substantial public participation in community planning has grown from a novel idea to a powerful community-building tool'' and become a norm, with its powerful impact highlighted by this month's observance of the 10th anniversary of the Tennessee Aquarium. This world-class attraction, the editorial notes, was not only ''a major catalyst for the brick-and-mortar transformation of the urban riverfront,'' but also ''the transformation of the spirit in this community.'' The centerpiece of a strategy to reconnect Chattanooga with the Tennessee River, the editorial continues, the aquarium accomplishment ''infused the community with an extraordinary sense of civic pride and confidence,'' gradually permeating the city's ''psyche.'' Amazed and impressed in the mid-1990s by what become known as ''the Chattanooga way,'' a consultant for the blighted Southside's redevelopment, now executive director of the Congress for New Urbanism, Shelley Poticha, recalls, ''There was a sense that people felt they had a real responsibility to be part of the process of determining the future of the community.'' And that's what we must repeat, the editorial concludes, to ''take riverfront development to the next level'' and to complete the downtown renewal with the ''huge infusion of residential development'' required for a truly vibrant 24-hour city.   5/6/2002

Resource(s): www.timesfreepress.com

Rating Tennessee's economic, social and environmental progress ...

Rating Tennessee's economic, social and environmental progress as good, but incomplete, Governor Don Sundquist (R) expressed special satisfaction that the state's investments in roads have made them the best in the country and "helped pave the way to more and better jobs," and that much of the state remains as "awe- inspiring" as the day it was discovered. In the last six years, the governor said, the state has acquired 23 natural areas "covering thousands of acres". Thanks to private donors and cooperation between government agencies, this land "has come at very little cost and requires only minor maintenance." One of the largest private-company land donations is the 10,000-acre Bridgestone/Firestone Wilderness near Chestnut Mountain and Scott's Gulf. The governor stressed that Tennessee's lakes and rivers "are cleaner than they've been in over 25 years," that its new 6,800-acre State Forest, the Gulf Tract in Cocke County, is the first in more than 50 years and that "in rugged areas of East Tennessee, elk run free for the first time in 135 years." Pointing also to cleaner air, soil and the entire environment, the governor said these are just some of the ways in which "together, we are protecting, conserving and managing Tennessee's treasures for generations to come."   2/20/2001

Resource(s): www.nga.org

Memphis is getting ugly," warns councilman John ...

"Memphis is getting ugly," warns councilman John Vergos, on a mission to stop billboard proliferation in the city and Shelby County, and spark a joint beautification strategy. He says Memphis is poised to avoid the mistakes of "the Houstons and the Atlantas of the world", which are "nothing but sprawl." The Memphis Business Journal reports that the efforts reflect "a national trend of municipal governments taking greater control of billboards." This year, billboard ordinances were adopted in Jacksonville, Fla., and Houston, Tex.; one was just recommended by city planners in Dallas, Tex.; and another awaits a November vote in St. Pau, Minn.   10/26/1999

For the first time an electric bus ...

For the first time an electric bus has completed the rigorous gear, chassis and suspension durability test required for buses purchased with federal funds. The 22-foot shuttle bus has passed the test "with flying colors." The bus was manufactured by Advanced Vehicle Systems, Inc. (AVS) of Chattanooga for the Chattanooga Area Regional Transportation Authority (CARTA), which has 18 electric buses, the nation's largest fleet. Previously, the buses were exempt from federal testing due to their rarity and prototype status. Lifting of the exemption reflects the growing popularity of electric and hybrid-electric buses. In the past six years, AVS has sold under 100 buses. In the last several months, the firm has received orders from Tampa, Fla, Tempe, Ariz., and Los Angeles for a total of 48 buses. It has purchase options for 250 more.   9/22/1999

A syndicated columnist, Neal Peirce, hails Tennessee ...

A syndicated columnist, Neal Peirce, hails Tennessee for its new planning law, which places the state at the forefront of the growth management movement. Tougher than Maryland's 1997 Smart Growth law, the Tennessee act orders its cities and counties to set 20-year coordinated urban growth boundaries by mid-2001. The columnist stresses that "local governments that fail to agree on an approved growth plan will face sudden termination of all their state subsidies for highways, community development, even tourism."   10/1/1998

Chattanooga: Joint efforts of local and federal ...

Chattanooga: Joint efforts of local and federal government, business and community groups transformed a decaying city into a model of urban renewal within a decade. The accomplishments include ongoing redevelopment of the Tennessee River waterfront, conversion of old downtown warehouses into shopping malls and affordable apartment buildings, and a free electric bus shuttle between the city center and its outskirts. The city is planning a model eco-industrial park that will recover and recycle waste energy.   6/1/1998

In May, the legislature and Governor Don ...

In May, the legislature and Governor Don Sundquist approved a bill directing counties and cities to develop joint plans for urban growth and open space preservation. This excludes counties with a metropolitan form of government. Each joint coordinating committee must be appointed by September 1, to develop a growth plan by January 1, 2000, with at least two prior public hearings. The plans, outlining growth for 20 years, with three-year adjustments, must be submitted to and approved by the state's local government planning advisory no later than July 1, 2001.   5/1/1998

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