Agenda - Planning Commission - 02/03/2005

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considered at a~(. Forwarddooking communi- ties may have design review boards, but usually they are called in after land-use decisions are made to critique and refine the architecture and landscaping. However, the best places are not so much collections of separate, well-appointed land uses as they are compositions of bujJdings, street trees, street lamps, sidewalks, transporta- tion infrastructure, residences, and bus[- nesses. Land use is only one element in the composition of a ~andscape. Photo-reimal]'- in§ toils that story. "Courthouse'Square was the heart of ' Santa Rosa, but became a center of conflict," says Laura Hall, a planner with Fisher and Hall of Santa Rosa, Ca(ifornia, about her own neighborhood. ]'he picturesque square was featured prominently in Affred Hitchcock's t943 movie Shadowofu Doubt. But in the E97os, traffic engineers decided that the town square was an obstruction to tral:fic moving throu§h downtown. Mendocino Avenue was' extended through the middle, 'cutting the square in two. Landscape designers attempted to salvage what was left by creati!~g sunken courts, different seating- areas, and raised planters, and filling the square with redwood trees, but the square no longer cohered as a central gatheri.n§ place. Rather, it was a collection of landscape desi§n exer; cises burdened with traffic noise. "The com- munity ar§ued about the future of Courthouse Square tot ~o years. We weren't getting any- where," Hall says. Then Santa Rosa Main Street, a down- [own business :~roup to which Hall belongs, commissioned a photo-reima§d~§ of the sou;ire. Fhq '~rm.lr) 'Nan[ed ;o '/i';ualize the removed. The photo-reimaged vision showed a restol;ed square with a fountain in the middle where the avenue, was, with people strolling, throwing balls, gathering for a musical event, and shoppin§ along its periphery. "A council member was one of our biggest opponents. But seeing the photo-reimaged square Chan~ed, her ~hinking dramatically," says Hall. Seeing a v!sion of citizens coming iogether in a shared space was emotionally stirring, and the.cduncil:woman became the b. iggest advo- cate oi' the square's restoration. "The photo- .reimaging trained the eyes of the community to see," Hall says. Planners in the past have treated plan- nih§ as if it were purely a verbal exercise with written policy statements, parking requirements, and lists of permitted land uses being the final and sufficient products. Most traditional zoning documents are long on words, yet have failed to stop the frag- mentation and dispersion of the towns they are meant to safeguard. A test of whether a town's development regulations are mean- ZONING PRACTICF. 12.04 .AMERICAN PLANNING ASSOCIATION