Agenda - Planning Commission - 03/03/2011

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0 Thesestructures on the Galveston, Texas, "Strand" were all built before the Great Storm of 1900. Brownwood did not have enough of a sense of place nor the durability of construction to engender any kind of lasting defense. Galveston, Texas, however, provides another example of durability and sense of place. The most damaging storm ever to hit the United States in terms of loss of life destroyed all of Galveston, except the iconic Strand. The Strand is the original business district of Galveston, an impressive and beautiful group of buildings all dating to the period before the Great Storm of 1900. This remnant from the storm appears to have been enough to rally the hardy citi- zens of Galveston to rebuild their otherwise destroyed community, a herculean effort that involved raising substantial portions of the city and the construction of a massive seawall. Contrast Galveston with a sister city just down the coast: Indianola in Lavaca Bay. Indianola was a thriving, albeit somewhat smaller, city competing with Galveston. Two storms about 10 years apart devastated the city between 1875 and 1886. There was much less loss of life from these storms than from the later Galveston storm, but after the one in 1886, Indianola packed it in and left, never to be rebuilt again. There just didn't appear to be enough remaining structures to want to rebuild and start again, in contrast to Galves- ton, where a durable sense of place had formed around the Strand. A sense of place, something that smart growth should foster, appears to endow some resiliency to coastal communities in terms of the additional desire coastal citi- zens might have to defend or restore these places after a storm. But might not the prin- ciples of smart growth result in safer growth as well? We argue that they do, and further, that density is a key predictive characteristic of resilience in terms of coastal hazards. DENSITY, WALKABILITY, AND HAZARD RESILIENCE The discussion below highlights six postu- lated ways that density or compact form in the context of a walkable place could result in a greater resilience to coastal hazards. Some items on the list are self -evident — less area to protect, for example. But little research has been conducted on the spe- cific issue of density and walkability in the context of hazard resilience. We hope this article will spur more research. COMMUNICATING DENSITY — DECODING DENSITY 1. Drop the planning jargon. When engag- ing in the planning process it can be dif- ficult for non -planning professionals to understand density when it's being talked about as units per acre or floor area ratio. 2. Illustrate density. A more effective ap- proach to communicating density is by using pictures or illustrations, or better yet, a local example of a neighborhood where density was done right. 3. Connect density with real benefits. Density can afford greater engineered protection from flooding and storms, making places safer. It also contributes to quality of life issues by encouraging neighborhood cof- fee shops or restaurants to open within walking distance of residents Less Area to Protect A city of 500,00o people at 4,00o people/ square mile (a common suburban density in Houston) will occupy 125 square miles, while the same population at 15,00o peo- ple/square mile (the density of the French Quarter in New Orleans) will occupy only 33 square miles, a considerably smaller area needing protection. If each of these areas were arranged in a square and needed protection all the way around, the first city would require 45 miles of levees, whereas the second city would only require 23 miles of levee protection. At $5 to $io million per mile for levee construction, a savings of close to $20o million could be realized; or more importantly, much better levees, main- tained to a higher degree, could be built to protect the smaller area occupied by the same amount of people. Most of the levees built in New Orleans were built to protect and to enable development at suburban densities, areas nowhere close to the French Quarter in terms of density (or livability). Less area to protect can be significant at much lower densities than those de- scribed above. Even for a smaller coastal town or village, the difference between large -lot development (e.g.,1,50o people/ square mile) and a more compact form con- sistent with a small town (e.g, 8-10 units/ acre, or about 7,000-8,00o people/square mile) can be considerable. For a Soo -person community, that difference would be 4o versus about 200 acres, potentially a very significant difference in low-lying country. More Choices of Where to Locate The smaller area of the denser city described above obviously enables a greater ability to choose and stick to the higher or more pro- tected ground, affording much greater op- portunity for limiting settlement to the safer but scarcer locations where the situation is better, as described above. Sturdier Buildings More compact growth enables the construc- tion of sturdier buildings in two ways. First, people living in compact cities are much less dependent on automobiles and all the costs associated with them, and consequently could have more money to spend on housing (and could therefore build sturdier houses if they wished to or were required to do so for affordable insurance). Secondly, where build- ings share walls, such as in town houses, the cost of masonry construction per building is much less, making that kind of construction ZONINGPRACTICE i.ii AMERICAN PLANNING ASSOCIATION Ipage 4