The Grand Rapids Renaissance has changed the face of downtown and brought renewal to many blighted locations. But I have always said that Grand Rapids will rise or fall on the strength of its neighborhoods, not just its downtown.
I hail originally from Lansing, where there is not much sense of neighborhood. In Lansing, people navigate in reference to major thoroughfares and local landmarks. They don’t live “in” neighborhoods so much as “by” certain places or “off” of certain streets. Many of Lansing’s more notable Victorian neighborhoods and streets were destroyed in the “urban renewal” fever of the sixties – replaced by industrial expansion, the growing state complex, or expressway projects like I-496.
Grand Rapids, by contrast, seems more like Chicago: a city with a strong sense of neighborhood identity, organization, and history. Here, you can identify yourself with the east side or west side, with the quadrant you reside in, and most especially with the immediate neighborhood you call home.
I believe this neighborhood sensibility is a real advantage to Grand Rapids, and one of the reasons it has retained both population and desirability in the face of problems that have made other cities almost uninhabitable at times.
The redevelopment of blighted urban neighborhoods has been a tough challenge over the years, and it continues to be. Almost all of the successful projects (and there are many) involve a partnership between public and private sectors. But many of the rescues and revitalizations are still waiting to happen, delayed by a host of barriers – some unavoidable, some not.
Lately we seem to have reached a hopeful milestone along that path. The Grand Rapids Sustainability Package is a document that neatly ties together the City’s Master Plan, its new zoning ordinance, and the LEED-Neighborhood Development standards now being proposed by the U.S. Green Building Council.
Down to the Last Detail
Largely the work of City Planning Director Suzanne Schultz and City Planner Landon Bartley, the Sustainability Package lays the groundwork for developers to meet certifiable LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) criteria in designing their projects regardless of whether or not they intend to seek actual LEED certification.
One advantage to this kind of planning is that it is likely to build support for green building and greener neighborhoods, and thereby help to cement Grand Rapids’ position as a national leader in this kind of development.
This is no minor detail. Grand Rapids is competing with the icons of great city planning, places like Seattle and Portland, and outcompeting numerous larger cities, places like Houston and San Francisco, all of whom are in the LEED building race. As we get new LEED projects, we become more and more visible, enhancing our growing reputation as a cutting edge 21ST century city.
But the most important advantages are embodied in the planning details themselves. The Sustainability Package contains specifications for convenient transit, walkability, stormwater controls, and building placement. It talks about the kinds of commercial buildings and storefronts that make shoppers feel welcome. It includes clear guidance on reducing light pollution, maintaining parking, and other features.
The Package, which likely will require approval from the Planning Commission, the City Commission, and perhaps other city departmments, also offers options for controlling the heat island effect that stifles our urban air in summertime, as well as actual construction guidance for managing soil erosion and stormwater runoff.
Jumping Hurdles, Pushing Forward
Of course, there remain many impediments to urban redevelopment that are outside the scope of the LEED standards, not to say the whole Grand Rapids Sustainability Package. Here are four:
Access to capital. Total remediation costs for all the brownfield sites in the United States have been estimated by the US Environmental Protection Agency at over $650 billion. These are the kinds of costs that are generally going to be beyond the capacity of local governments. And while there have generally been ample subsidies for “greenfield” development, comparable subsidies for brownfields remain far fewer.
Disjointed land parcels. Most of the available urban acreage is fragmented. Developers tend to want to do their work on sites that occupy, at a minimum, five or ten acres. Opportunities like that are rare in cities. In a hotly contested decision, the U.S. Supreme Court recently upheld the right of governments to use eminent domain to acquire property and build contiguous acreage for private development purposes. But many states, including now Michigan, have elected to abolish such practices.
Highway construction. Federal transportation bureaucrats have traditionally preferred new road construction to improvement or maintenance of existing highways. Moreover, they have traditionally paid little serious attention to local plans or existing neighborhood boundaries. Most large communities can point to examples of neighborhoods unnecessarily split, or even totally removed, by road engineering run amok.
Ambigous land ownership. The lack of clear title is another thing that hinders development opportunities from being realized in urban settings. If eminent domain remains legal as a title-clearing tactic, then large abandoned brownfields can continue to be made available this way. But this is a long and laborious process.
Despite all these and many other issues, Grand Rapids continues to find ways to move forward on specific parcels. Renaissance zones and historic districts have helped immensely. The state's “Cool Cities” program has helped as well.
But perhaps nothing has helped more than the fact that we are relearning the historic lessons about the kinds of things that make cities livable and attractive. The Grand Rapids Sustainability Package, along with the evolving LEED-ND standards, seems destined to give our neighborhoods a welcome push forward.
Photographs:
JW Marriott Hotel and Amway Grand Plaza Hotel
Monroe Mall looking West
Photographs by Brian Kelly - All Rights Reserved