Architect Critiques Horizon West's Lakeside Village Siteplan



Lakeside Village Siteplan -- As Shown on the Developer's website

Tory Parish of Jackson Parish Architects posted a critique of the proposed Lakeside Village Siteplan on her blog.  Tory, a resident of Horizon West, relied on a siteplan and architectural renderings posted online by the developer, Boyd Development Corporation.   (There's no relationship between Boyd Development Corp. and Commissioner Scott Boyd). 

Tory writes:

Nothing about the current architectural renderings speak to the history or desirability of this area of Central Florida.  The current renderings depict a typical regurgitated shopping center as found anywhere in Florida.  Why can't the architecture be timeless?  Have some character?  Resonate with our history?  Reflect elements of the Florida vernacular as found in nearby Gotha and historic downtown Winter Garden?

What about apartments and offices above retail?

The current site plan prioritizes the automobile.  Pedestrians and bikers are a distant second.  Every building is surrounded by asphalt.  .... 

The critique comes late, after road and infrastructure construction has begun and when the developer is already seeking Development Plan approvals.  Nevertheless, Commissioner Boyd invited Ms. Parish and me to meet with the developer earlier this week. 

I respect Boyd Development Corporation as a fine conventional suburban retail and office developer.  Its principal partner developed Sand Lake Road's Plaza Venezia, an upscale strip retail center with Publix, Season's 52, Cedars, Shala's Salon, Roy's etc. 



Plaza Venezia, Sand Lake Road

Horizon West's pedestrian-friendly, pedestrian-oriented requirements challenge conventional suburban developers, who tend to propose siteplan layouts used in automobile-only, sprawl environments, like that depicted above.  Conventional suburban developers find comfort in their formula business and financing models.  The transition to a different model is not easy.  Resistance is natural.  The industry does not widely understand New Urban development's long-term financial return advantage compared to conventional suburban development. 

More than a year ago, Orange County approved the Lakeside Village Center's Preliminary Subdivision Plan (PSP), which included a Conceptual Layout.  Boyd Development Corp.'s proposed deviations do not necessarily favor the pedestrian.

How To Turn Main Street Into A Parking Lot

 

Tory writes, "The four central buildings, which could be tweaked to provide a pedestrian-friendly zone [with parallel parking], have been pushed apart" with perpendicular parking.  The Conceptual Layout below, approved by the County, shows diagonal parking, a compromise between parallel and perpendicular parking. 



Approved Concept Plan--Diagonal Parking narrows the roadway somewhat, keeping the buildings closer together to establish enclosure and a sense of place. 



Perpendicular parking, proposed by the developer, pushes the buildings further apart, and creates more of the appearance of a parking lot. 

Parallel parking requires parking lanes 7-8 feet in width and allows the narrowest street realm.  The charm of old European cities results, in part, from their narrow streets.  SmartCode, a model New Urban Code, allows diagonal parking lanes as little as 17 feet in width.  The perpendicular parking, proposed by the developer, will require two parking lanes, each 18 or 20 feet wide, as required by Section 38-1479(b) of the Orange County Code.  

The developer's explanation for wanting perpendicular parking is that a tenant in Retail Building "D" will not want a customer of Retail Building "C" parking in front of Building "D."  The developer--and perhaps their prospective tenants--do not appreciate the irrelevancy of where customers park in a shared parking environment, especially when the customers have a very narrow and safe street to cross.    

UPDATE Nov. 4--The Orange County Development Review Committee yesterday approved perpendicular parking. 

Lack of Pedestrian-Oriented Outparcels

While the approved Lakeside Village Center PD (called the "Frye PD") allows for more than 800 apartment and live-work townhome units to the west, within a five minute or so walk, the developer contends that "98% of people will drive" to the development.  That's the justification for omitting pedestrian amenities at the outparcels.  However, the omission will make exclusive automobile use a self-fulfilling prophesy.  Tory told the developer she would never walk between their disconnected outparcels.   

The disconnected outparcels give weight to Tory's criticism that the Lakeside Village Center plan "is in direct contrast to Orange County's goal of designing and creating sustainable communities designed for pedestrians."  

"The McDonald's Will Be Pedestrian Friendly"

We advocated an urban prototype for McDonalds with direct sidewalk connection to the restaurant door and a drive-thru in the rear (see the blog post on McDonald's below).  We noted the aesthetic benefits and how they could extend the internal main street's pedestrian experience.  Veteran Orange County planner John Smogor assured about 80 Horizon West residents attending a Community Meeting earlier this month that, "The McDonald's will be pedestrian-friendly." 

The Gas Station Gateway

The developer proposes to move the gas station to the northernmost parcel along C.R. 535 and face the gasoline station pumps and canopy towards southbound motorists.  The view would be similar to this, with vegetation and a knee-wall obscuring much of the vehicles:

Typical suburban prototype gas station.

That is not the gateway view I imagined for a "Village Center."  We urged the developer to hide the gas pumps and canopy from C.R. 535 behind the building as shown below:
 

Pedestrian-friendly gas station.  Most motorists, even if not familiar with the area,  will recognize the Shell logo and understand where to go.

Orange County required such a layout in Avalon Park, a New Urban development east of the airport. 

Horizon West Residents: "Stick with the Vision."

Orange County Planner Luis Nieves-Ruiz is spearheading a "retrospective" study of Horizon West.  He told the Planning and Zoning Board that Horizon West residents who responded to a County survey want to "stick with the vision."  I'm hopeful the Orange County Development Review Committee, when considering the Lakeside Village Center Development Plan submittals, will do just that.      

"Walkable Schools" Presentation to the Orange County School Board

Planner and Central Florida Congress for New Urbanism coordinator Eliza Harris, transportation designer Jurgen Duncan, and I appeared before the Orange County School Board on April 27, and presented, "Walkable Schools: How Smart Growth Principles Can Help School Districts and Kids." 

To view the presentation, please CLICK HERE.

Gotha Middle School students crossing high speed traffic on Old Winter Garden Road.  The lanes are 12 ft.--as wide as those on an interstate highway.  

Children walking to Celebration Elementary School, built into the urban fabric. The narrow lanes, the bulb-out to reduce the pedestrian crossing distance, and on-street parking reduce speeds to safer levels. Windows on the rowhouses and on the school places "eyes on the street," and deter crime.

After the presentation, I sent the following email to the Orange County School Board:

Dear Chairman Cadle, Vice Chairman Flynn, and Board Members:

Jurgen Duncan, Eliza Harris, and I so much appreciated the opportunity to address you yesterday on the important issue of walkable schools. The analysis we shared demonstrated that walkable schools tend to reduce bus eligibility and associated OCPS transportation costs. We were delighted to hear of your strong support for, and efforts to achieve walkable schools within neighborhoods.

Chairman Cadle raised an important concern about societal attitudes. You may not know of an impressive group of Colonial High School students working to change them. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0lfqShrRlE

You may find instructive a Smart Growth "Report Card" at: http://smartgrowthschools.org/SGSReportCard.pdf

OCPS planners and others can download the new Walkable Thoroughfares manual from the Institute of Transportation Engineers' website without charge at: http://www.ite.org/emodules/scriptcontent/Orders/ProductDetail.cfm?pc=RP-036A-E

Congress for New Urbanism chapter members have a breadth of expertise to share. I certainly have learned much from them. Please advise if we can assist you in any manner on these issues. Your advocacy for pedestrian-friendly street design and appropriate school sites can play a crucial role with local governments in improving the health and safety of our children.

Thank you again,


Rick Geller

Olympia High School--disconnected from the adjacent residential neighborhoods and on a four-lane arterial road.  The 1960's-era suburban layout requires virtually everyone to drive to the school, resulting in a parking lot consuming about as much land as the buildings, at enormous cost to taxpayers.

Change Zoning Laws for Safer Roads

The Orlando Sentinel published the following op-ed:


(Click to enlarge)


Sidewalks three feet from travel lanes with cars whizzing by at highway speeds--about a half-mile from Windermere Preparatory School.

C.R. 535 in front of Windermere Preparatory School.  Posted speed: 40 mph.  Actual typical speeds: 40 - 50 mph.  No crossing walk across C.R. 535.  No wonder we don't let our kids walk to school anymore.



Our zoning laws require, or encourage development in the sprawl pattern, represented by the bottom of the diagram. All travel must go to, and concentrates on the collector or arterial road. Form-based codes can facilitate development in a more traditional, walkable form, represented by the top of the diagram.


The Orlando Sentinel published a very kind and supportive letter-to-the-editor from Marilyn Marks, on November 22, 2009:

Three cheers for Ideas that favor pedestrians

Rick Geller's down-to-earth My Word column, "Change laws for safer roads," on Tuesday was superb.

I never realized why I shudder while driving on West Colonial Drive's long, endless blocks of parking-lot fronts. It is maddening and just plain ugly.

You can forget parking at one place and attempting to walk to another store across the street. Why not consider the Miami plan, which creates better environments for the pedestrian? We should not continue to duplicate these Neanderthal-like massive concrete blocks of parking-lot frontages.

After all, this is Orlando, the City Beautiful, right?

         Copyright © 2009, Orlando Sentinel

Mike Thomas slams Horizon West

Horizon West Neighborhood Center Walgreen's--Cross a highway with 55 mph traffic for a tube of toothpaste? A pedestrian's daunting view.


Baldin Park CVS--A drugstore in a true New Urbanist community to which people can walk or drive. In addition to on-street parking, a parking lot is behind the building.


The Winter Garden Historic Downtown District. Unlike Horizon West so far, Downtown Winter Garden contributes a real mixed-use, New Urbanist business district in West Orange County, within safe walking distance from numerous homes. The West Orange bike trail connects Downtown Winter Garden to nearby Oakland Park, the County's first certified green residential development.


Home in Oakland Park with no garage in front. The garage is loaded from an alley, which improves the aesthetics.


Typical front-loaded garage home in Providence, Horizon West, with a very wide driveway. Providence lacks the alleys found in New Urbanist communities.


Mike Thomas's column in yesterday's Orlando Sentinel describes accurately how Horizon West strays from the principles of New Urbanism. In my view, Horizon West's problems stem from drive-only suburbanism, not walkable New Urbanism. New Urbanism's guiding principle is to establish environments for the pedestrian--not six lane arterial highways with strip shopping centers. In a comment published afterward on www.OrlandoSentinel.com, Mr. Thomas clarifies, "It is the bastardization of the original intent of New Urbanism that I'm condemning."

I'm grateful that a strong consensus has developed in Orange County Government to improve Horizon West. My fellow Planning and Zoning Board commissioners and County staff (chief of urban design Jim Ward, assistant county attorney Vivien Monaco, among others) indulged me with dozens of hours as we re-worked the ordinance to eliminate loopholes, upgrade design standards, and provide incentives for mixed-use development off the arterial roads. The County Commission unanimously approved our revised Village Code last June on a motion by Commissioner Boyd, seconded by Commissioner Fernandez.

The Planning and Zoning Board backed me unanimously, and Commissioner Boyd and his fellow commissioners followed suit, when we refused to accept Seidel Road as another typical multi-lane arterial highway, cutting off the ability of people to walk between where they live, shop, dine, and go to school.

Here's Mr. Thomas's column:

Nothing 'new' here--It's the same old sprawl
Mike Thomas COMMENTARY

October 29, 2009


Developers have unlimited imagination when it comes to concocting real-estate scams.

Here at Horizon West, we see the latest one.

It is called "new urbanism."

Horizon West is a sprawling, fledgling 59-square-mile development in the boondocks of southwest Orange County. It should not be here.

Until a few short years ago, there was nothing here but swamps and dead citrus trees.

But the landowners got together to decide how best to get it paved. And they sold glassy-eyed county officials on ... new urbanism!

They would build self-contained, densely packed villages where residents would talk on quaint front porches, enter the garage through the back alley, and walk or bike to village centers and town centers to work and shop. No expansive yards to maintain, no ugly driveways emptying into the street.

Green paving!

And there was a precedent.

Only a few years earlier, the County Commission approved Avalon Park out in the hinterlands of east Orange County.

Only in Florida could you have new urbanism without the urban.

"I think this is extraordinarily good planning," said then-County Mayor Linda Chapin about Horizon West.

"In 20 years of experience, this is the most sophisticated planning I've seen," state planner Charlie Gauthier said at the time.

"Horizon West ... is a perfect example of how government can encourage development without encouraging urban sprawl," said our editorial board.

They were about to put 60,000 people in the middle of nowhere, all without encouraging urban sprawl.

New urbanism has become a virus that spread the illness it was supposed to cure.

This is not to say Horizon West, or at least the part of it that has been built, is hideous. It is what it is: a network of sprawling commuter subdivisions far from any urban center.

There is little mixing of homes, condos and apartments, as you see at Baldwin Park. There is no coherent whole created from a tapestry of different parts.

Residents don't walk to stores, don't walk to schools and don't walk to parks. When they go to work, they get in their cars and take their place in the long rush-hour lines.

"It has not developed into the vision we all wanted," says Rick Geller, a county Zoning Board member appointed by Commissioner Scott Boyd. "People were expecting Horizon West to look like Baldwin Park or Celebration. But instead it looks like suburban sprawl."

Like Avalon Park to the east, the homes went in at Horizon West, but the job centers did not. And so people drive to work, often long distances on the expressway. To ease the traffic jams, rural two-lane roads such as County Road 535 are being expanded into four-lane thoroughfares.

They slice the development into pieces-parts.

County ordinances require walls for developments situated on these roads.

What you have are people who live across the street from a Walgreens getting in their cars, driving to their development entrance, then driving across the street to get toothpaste.

A guiding principle of new urbanism is that you put the stores in village centers, creating easy access for residents living around them. This was done at Baldwin Park.

But the chain stores wanted to be on thoroughfares in Horizon West, and the county naturally caved in. The result is strip shopping centers and parking lots — prettier than most, but strip centers and parking lots nonetheless.

On a tour of the place, I saw a total of two people on sidewalks.

In some developments, they even left out the back alleys — a big no-no in new urbanism. Instead of quaint homes and front porches facing the street, there are lines of garage doors and wide driveways. The reason for this, of course, is that alleys take up land that developers don't want to give up.

As Geller explains, Baldwin Park was built by one developer with one plan. Horizon West has dozens of landowners, developers and builders, each looking to maximize return on investment.

Baldwin Park also has the advantage of being in the urban core, with the roads and infrastructure in place. There are no thoroughfares cutting through it.

Geller led a charge to scale back plans to widen one road. He wants curbside parking to lower speeds and make it more pedestrian-friendly. Boyd wants to move a proposed high school closer to residential areas.

It seems too little, too late. But Geller says most of the development remains to be built — including the main town center — and can be improved upon.

"If we're going to have sprawl," he says, "I'd like it to be new-urbanist sprawl."

Architecture, Not Parking Lots, Should Define Streets

At the last Planning and Zoning Commission meeting, I failed to win approval of a motion to "minimize" parking in front of a proposed 12,000 square foot, two-story professional office building on Apopka-Vineland Road. (The vote, 3-3, was technically "no action.") The applicant is proposing the new building to replace an existing one-story medical office building at the "Four Corners," just south of Conroy-Windermere Road, to continue and expand her medical practice.

We have degraded Central Florida's roads by lining them with parking lots.

The Windermere and Dr. Phillips communities opposed development at the "Four Corners" for many years. In the 1990's, the County Commission approved development along with expanding the intersecting roads to four lanes to support it. The concession to the community was a "Community Village Center" ordinance. The ordinance required "pedestrian oriented" development with a "streetscape" that would have "definition." The ordinance required development that would have a "sense of place."

I have never seen a parking lot with a "sense of place." A streetscape requiring "definition" needs architectural definition in addition to landscaping. We lose architectural definition by moving buildings far from our roads.

A huge parking lot in front of a building is not, by any stretch, "pedestrian oriented." Most people will not walk more than a 1/4 mile before opting for their cars. When we set back development 1/8 of a mile or more from the sidewalk, we make walking less convenient and encourage automobile travel, even by those who live in the subdivision next door. This development pattern unnecessarily adds to automobile congestion.

A professional office building, Perkins, and a CVS hide much, but not all of the parking on the northeast side of the Four Corners intersection. At the southeast corner, the stunning Tavistock Financial Center hides parking below and behind the building. Tavistock has set the correct example.


Tavistock Financial Center--No parking lot in front--Across from the proposed professional medical office building on Apopka-Vineland Road

Unicorp learned from the aesthetic mistake of placing huge parking lots along Sand Lake Road. Unicorp's most spectacular development to date, Dellagio, hides parking below and behind the buildings.


Dellagio. Sand Lake Road is to the right.


View of Sand Lake Road toward Plaza Venezia. Parking lot placement in front of buildings is an aesthetic error.

Celebration and Baldwin Park internalize their parking in the middle of blocks, which allows for on-street parking to buffer pedestrians.


Aerial View of Celebration Town Center. Buildings brought close to the street hide parking lots.


Aerial view of Baldwin Park. Buildings hide parking lots, in the middle of blocks.


Street-level view of Post Lake Apartments in Baldwin Park. Notice the parking lot hidden by the building at the far left.

Grocery stores and big box stores, where numerous customers make large, bulky purchases, can justify parking lots in front. But even in those instances, like the Baldwin Park Publix, developers should plan for future buildings to hide much of the parking lot. Another possibility: corner entrances can disperse parking at half the depth on two sides of the building, like at the Publix in Watercolor, Florida, in the Panhandle. One side can have a pedestrian orientation--ideally with small businesses wrapping an otherwise empty wall. The pedestrian side can connect to a residential area.


Watercolor, Florida Publix--Entrance at the corner to disperse parking on two sides.

The application for the 12,000 square foot Four Corners professional office building goes to the Board of County Commissioners for consideration in October. Section 38-1476 of the Orange County Code requires five parking spaces per 1,000 square feet of office use. Sixty more parking spaces lining Apopka-Vineland Road is too much. The County should insist on a parking lot to the building's side and rear, with perhaps a limited amount of parking in front for medical emergencies.

I agree with the Commissioners who did not support my motion, who took the principled position that we should amend the ordinance Countywide for uniformity. The more predictability we give developers and the community, the better for everyone.

Re-Imagining Our Roads

The Orlando Sentinel published the following op-ed:


(click to enlarge)


West Colonial Drive near Kirkman--typical arterial road sprawl.


Village at Lake Lilly Apartments, Maitland, Florida


9th of July Avenue--Note the low speed lanes on the side for local traffic. Even the billboards blend into the built environment. "We don't need Buenos Aires' scale, but we do need vertical mixed use buildings..."


Buenos Aires street life--Parked cars buffer pedestrians and cafe patrons


Charles de Gaulle Avenue in Paris. Again, medians separate lanes for slower, local traffic. Boulevards like this one inspired 9th of July Avenue.

Here's an interesting video about multi-way boulevards constructed in San Francisco after the City tore down elevated freeways:


San Francisco: Removal of the Embarcadero Freeway from Streetfilms on Vimeo.

County Commission Unanimously Passes Horizon West Code

ORLANDO, June 2 - The Orange County Commission unanimously approved sweeping revisions to the Horizon West Village Code. The Commissioners adopted the ordinance 7-0 on a motion by Commissioner Scott Boyd, seconded by Commissioner Mildred Fernandez.
Planning and Zoning Commissioner Rick Geller spoke in favor of adoption. Afterwards, Geller said, "This ordinance will hopefully make it possible for Horizon West to look more like Baldwin Park and less like suburban sprawl."
The new Village Code contains new provisions intended to improve the architecture and layout of Horizon West neighborhoods. The Code closed a loophole allowing front-loaded garages with little setback.

The new code does not increase residential density, which was set by Special Area Plans, some adopted in the late 1990s. The new Code reduces Neighborhood Center business districts from four to two acres. Mixed use development, with dwellings over retail is encouraged.

Code Fixes Could Salvage Hope for Horizon West

(Click on image to enlarge)

New Horizon West Code On Way to Commission

Classic Summerport Home--no garage in front

ORLANDO, April 18 - Orange County's Planning and Zoning Board unanimously approved sweeping changes to the Horizon West Code in an attempt to steer development back to the original vision. The County Commission will consider the new Code for final adoption.

Instead of development along the lines of that seen in Baldwin Park, Avalon Park, or Celebration, development in Horizon West has mostly followed the suburban sprawl model, with isolated single-uses, according to District 1 Planning and Zoning Commissioner Rick Geller. "Development has taken on some characteristics of New Urbanism--small lots for example--but without enough mixing of uses."

The new Code provides incentives to developers and builders to: (1) construct a small corner general store in neighborhood centers to lessen traffic outside of neighborhoods; (2) serve more homes with alleys or side-entry garages to lessen the number of front-entry garages; and (3) dress up stormwater retention ponds with trees, pathways, park benches, reflecting pools, and other amenities.

Entrance to Independence

The new Code encourages the mixing of uses--with apartments over offices and retail, like that seen in Avalon Park.

Mixing uses creates character--Avalon Park apartments over retail

One of the more disappointing aspects of Horizon West has been suburban-style, single-use apartment sprawl, said Geller. The new Code brings apartment buildings to the street in block formations, with parking both on-street and hidden behind buildings, like in the Baldwin Park Town Center, with more architectural variety.

Apartment sprawl in Horizon West

"Post Properties REIT did it right in Baldwin Park," said Geller. "Seventeen buildings scattered about the Town Center, none looking the same."

Post Lake Apartments at Baldwin Park -- 17 Scattered Buildings with Different Architecture

The County faced economic pressures to place neighborhood commercial areas on the arterial roadways, instead of in the center of neighborhoods. The result, according to Geller, is a less walkable neighorhood. "No one will walk a half-mile from the Altis Apartments along C.R. 535 to the Subway up by Chase Road," said Geller. "We need to do a better job of locating commercial uses where they're in easy walking distance from where people live, in an attractive Main Street setting, and not across a highways."

Baldwin Park Town Center--pedestrian oriented and within walking distance of numerous homes, condominiums, and apartments, including those on the top floors

Lake Burden Neighborhood Center in Horizon West--isolated by wetlands and eight lanes of highway