Redevelopment Revolution: Market-based Solutions

Whatever happened to "place"?

OHM is committed to Advancing Communities. So, when we met "The Placemakers" at Bird Houk Collaborative, it felt to us like a marriage made in heaven. And it is, in a sense - we just announced our merger in March.

One of Bird Houk's defining characteristics is their commitment to collaboration and market-based solutions. That's kind of rare. Economics isn't always first on an architect or planner's list of considerations.

Redevelopment of our cities, especially in the first and second ring suburbs is an important issue. One that we think will only increase in importance, as these communties age, infrastructure crumbles and residents demand a different lifestyle.

In an issue of Bird Houk's Place Maker, published back in 2005, president Jim Houk, one of the leading experts on mixed-use development in the US, advocates a comprehensive approach to redevelopment.

Read the entire Place Maker article here.

Here's a great takeaway - Bird Houk founders share the process for making place making work in redevelopment work.

-Understand the marketplace
-Define the problem
-Explore creative solutions that are market-based
-Build consensus
-Develop an implementation strategy based on a strong understanding of the redevelopment community
-Define an incubator project

The guiding principle? Solutions must be strongly market-based for redevelopment to be successful.

Engineering the Earth for Natural Stormwater Management

The City of Ann Arbor had a problem at Harvard Place. The residential neighborhood is characterized by hilly terrain, unique homes and the surrounding 125-acre Nichols Arboretum nature preserve, owned and operated by the University of Michigan. Sounds idyllic, right?

Beautiful, yes. Trouble-free, no.

The rolling terrain of Harvard Place and the "Arb" are a delight to nature lovers, but it created big storm water management challenges for the City of Ann Arbor and the University. The storm sewer piping system discharged to a channel designed and constructed decades ago in the typical "engineered" fashion - straight alignment, 90 degree bends. The steep grades at the storm sewer outfall created high velocity discharges, leaving significant erosion and sedimentation issues in its wake.

The project was launched with three goals:

-reduce storm water velocities
-eliminate soil erosion and
-create aesthetic land features.

The project team - made of OHM, the City of Ann Arbor, the University of Michigan - collaborated with Harvard Place residents to create a landform-based storm water management plan:

-replace the storm sewer, including in-system dissipation devices
-design a circuitous channel with step-pool structures to control the 15-foot grade differential
-stream channel overflow "pocket" areas to reduce storm water infiltration and treatment
-plant the area using native species and maples from around the world, as part of U of M's Nichols Arboretum maple collection.

Landform-based Erosion Control for Stormwater Management

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The result? An inviting land improvement feature that includes innovative storm water best management practices (BMPs) within an intimate neighborhood and park setting.

Green Parking Lots in Cold Climates are Even More Effective. Who Knew?

Here's a little story about a city going green, right in its own parking lot. The City of Southfield's tagline is “The Center of it All.” So it was a problem for City officials to invite the public to the City’s municipal complex where the roads surrounding the complex had badly deteriorated.

Being progressive types, City adminstrators took the lead in environmental stewardship. An environmentally sensitive way to manage parking lot storm water runoff is to use porous asphalt pavement in the design. Porous pavement is a permeable pavement surface. Here's how it works. Under the pavement, a reservoir temporarily stores surface runoff before infiltrating it into the subsoil. This process reduces water contamination by providing some water quality treatment. It also reduces the amount of storm water run off into the drainage system and provides some groundwater recharge.

So how quickly can porous pavement absorb rain water?

After installing the porous pavement, municipal workers demonstrated the porous pavement’s ability to absorb water by spraying 1,000 GPM from a fire-hose. The water quickly disappeared with no trace of ponding.

Okay, so porous pavement makes for less runoff to streams. How does it work long term?

Porous pavement requires more frequent maintenance than traditional impervious paved surfaces. Over time, the voids that encourage infiltration fill with dirt and debris, reducing its effectiveness. The Michigan Asphalt Paving Association recommends that porous pavement be cleaned with a vacuum sweeper at least twice a year to maintain proper function.

For more information on porous pavement and other going green elements of the City of Southfield's project, check out the presentation below. (P.S. This project won ASCE's Quality of Life award and APWA's Project of the Year award.)

Green Parking Lots in Cold Climates - APWA Award

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Award Winning Roundabout Gives Lessons in Effective Public Outreach

Before it's built, the majority of community residents hate the idea of a roundabout. Like any new experience, a roundabout brings out the fear of the unknown, along with it's pal, skeptism.

This is true even though the approval curve on every single roundabout in the United States follows the same path. When roundabouts are first introduced in an area, residents initially oppose them (usually about 55% are against). After the public experiences the roundabout's ease of use and the improved traffic conditions, they generally clamor for more (typically about 70% in favor.) For more information on studies of driver opinions of roundabouts, visit the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety's site.

Shorten the Acceptance Curve
When officials in Ann Arbor, Michigan announced that the City's first roundabout was in the planning stages, they used an aggressive and comprehensive public outreach process to shorten the acceptance curve.

Location and Stakeholders
The project location, the intersection of Nixon Road and Huron Parkway, combined high vehicle traffic with high pedestrian traffic. The area's population includes multinational and elderly residents, as well as individuals with physical impairments. Two mini-malls, an elder care facility and an Ann Arbor Transit Authority bus stop are close to the project site.

The City's primary objective was to create a safer and greener thoroughfare for residents and visitors.

Gather Input
The project team held four public meetings during the design phase. During the project kick off meeting, City officials invited the public to discuss ideas for better accomodating stakeholders. This meeting was held two years before the project started.

Be Inclusive
During a meeting held to educate area residents on how roundabouts function, Chinese and Russian translators interpreted the presentation in real-time. The presentation was also broadcast on local access television, along with closed captioning. The project team also met with area business owners several times before construction began.

Be Creative
In the public works arena, many projects are launched with an obligatory public meeting where the project is posted as a schematic on a display board. Not so for the Nixon/Huron roundabout. The project team - the City, the design engineers and the public - were all important stakeholders. Prior to starting design, the traffic engineer, OHM's Stephen Dearing, PE, PTOE, traveled with several visually impaired people to visit another roundabout in the state, to gain insight on ways to tweak the design for Ann Arbor's roundabout to be more pedestrian friendly, especially for those with impairments. One of the results: the designers included a first-of-its-kind innovation: pavement corrugations, or "rumble strips" placed before all pedestrian crossings in the roundabout's travel lanes. These grooves serve as an audible cue to both pedestrians and drivers.

A few more pedestrian-friendly features:

-All pedestrian crossings were marked with large signs mounted on mast arms.
-The cross walk signs are lighted form underneath to shine onto the crosswalk.
-Light Emitting Diode (LED) lights were installed to illuminate the roundabout.

Win Awards
The Huron Parkway-Nixon Road Roundabout project met the City's objectives for the intersection. It's safer, greener and smarter. The Michigan Chapter of the American Public Works Association recently named it Project of the Year for 2009. You can read more about the project and see photos below.

APWA Award Winning Roundabout in Ann Arbor

View more presentations from OHM Advancing Communities.