The VillageTown from a Planner's perspective
We are not a developer, yet we propose to develop a 10,000 population, medium density urban community on roughly 50 hectares of land surrounded by 150 hectares of greenbelt with a 15 hectare industrial park. Villages located in rural areas will become anchors for surrounding farms, as they would seek to secure long-term contracts to provide daily food to feed 10,000 mouths.
We call the community a Village, although to be more accurate, it may be better to call it 21 villages clustered together - holons within a holon. It will have a village feel, but be big enough to retain a lifetime of interest and diversity. Each of these village-like clusters would have about 500 people living in about 200 homes with micro-zoning... each cluster has its own public plaza with cafés, shops and offices and open space for the public life of that neighbourhood.
Additional features on the plaza include classrooms (the Village is the campus), an Artist Guild Hall to ensure an enriched cultural life and a small nursing facility so the elderly and infirm do not experience the trauma of dislocation when debility strikes. Around the plaza, primary pedestrian streets would have homes with ground floor offices and workplaces that have less daily foot traffic, and secondary pedestrian streets that may have home offices, but no commercial visitors. The 21st plaza cluster is the Village Central Plaza able to hold all 10,000 persons standing to hear & see a speaker standing on the Village Hall balcony... a plaza with a Travellers Inn, large meeting hall and a non-sectarian cathedral (term used to denote size, feel and visual effect). Homes on this plaza would be higher and larger as the central plaza would have four story buildings.From a transport perspective, the habit is a 24-hour a day community intending to eliminate the need to commute outbound for daily work. It intends to take 6,000 to 7,000 cars off the road, permanently, for every 10,000 persons. The Village will be surrounded by a wall, no cars within - everything within a 10-minute walk. No mass-transit, villagers will use shoe leather, one-speed bicycles and very slow NEV's. It is a different approach to life intended to provide a high quality of life while addressing all sorts of problems endemic to 20th century development.
The process of getting there is different as well. For a start, we have two organisations... the Village Forum and the Village Organising Company (VOC). The Village Forum represents the buyers, the villagers, the people who will live there. In this way, the principle of enabling people and communities to provide for their wellbeing (language taken from Section 5 of New Zealand's Resource Management Act (click here to read) is made effective. The Forum works cooperatively, but at arms length with the VOC which builds the village but does much more than a typical developer. The VOC brief includes focusing on the effects of development.
The implications of the difference may be a learning curve for some council planners, as the fundamental relationship between developer and council is shifted. New Zealand's Resource Management Act's that inspired this process, speaks about sustainable management of resources defined as enabling people and communities to provide for their social, economic, and cultural wellbeing and for their health and safety while protecting and preserving the environment. Noble words, but how can the VOC actually do this? How does it enable both people and communities to provide?
We took a hint from a book that is required reading for architects, planners, designers and builders in many universities around the world - A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander who wrote "...most of the wonderful places of the world were not made by architects but by the people."
So we developed a process, a series of workshops, in which ordinary people are supported by a formal process to design a habitat that has an authenticity and character that gives it the potential to become one of those "wonderful places" that Alexander speaks of. The process, called Dynamic Engagement functions similar to that of the jury system, where ordinary people make the final decision, but within the context of a formal process supported by experts (lawyers, judges and rules of conduct in the case of a trial, or building & landscape architects, planners, designers and engineers in the case of a VillageTown).
This means the Forum organises the people who will live there into communities these small cluster-villages, and the VOC engage them in the design process. As future residents and a future community, these people's primary interest is not pecuniary but effects. How will the effects of the design shape the quality of their lives and their surrounding natural & physical environment?
Conventionally, developers do not concern themselves with effects, because their motivating force is pecuniary interest: buy, rezone, subdivide, sell, build, exit with profit. Conventionally, the role of the council planner is to assess the effects and to prohibit development where the adverse effects are more than minor, or not properly mitigated.
The VOC turns real estate development upside down. While it functions as a private enterprise with profit expectations, and therefore has a pecuniary interest, its job is to enable the people and community to provide for their wellbeing. It therefore must pay careful attention to the effects because effects are the primary concern of its clientèle and the surrounding host community that must view the proposed village favourably. as a form of checks and balances, the Village Forum is not a profit making entity, and it has no stock holders... only stakeholders - the future villagers. The Village Forum is there to ensure the VOC holds to its effects brief.
The VOC does this by reducing the variables. Unlike the normal process where the rezoning application and the development application are separate, in the Village process, a scale model is set out along the What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) principle. Once the land is selected and the 50 hectares for buildings set out, the design process focuses on a precise outcome. The rezoning application will identify precisely what goes where, what size and what function, thus when it is locked there will be no variations except to fix errors. This eliminates the guessing game where the planner tries to anticipate all the potential variations a developer can dream up that fit into loopholes, and block them. This also allows the engineers to finalise in days or weeks, not months, the infrastructure aspects of the plan to comply with all regulations.
Lest one become suspicious or cynical about what sounds like too noble altruism, consider the common sense aspect of it:
By engaging the future villagers in the design process, the buyers are known in advance, thus substantially reducing the risk of the project.By involving them in a Dynamic Engagement process, which is set to take three months, the exposure time is substantially reduced.
By addressing local community & council concerns in the dynamic engagement no time or energy is tied up in court battles.
By knowing precisely what will be built, the project can move forward in months, not years because we know what to build and can get on with it.
By building the whole project in 12 months, not over years or decades, the residents do not live among a construction zone, and the bridge loans to finance the construction do not accrue years of interest.
As discussed in the Dynamic Engagement section, the working relationship with the Council Planners does not change in terms of its arms length relationship (i.e. the council planners are not there to participate in formulating the plan, but to regulate it for compliance purposes), but only in terms of the time, place and manner in which the subject matter is addressed.
Time - The VOC negotiates with the Council to have the designated senior planners available full time for the project, so there is no other work-load that interferes with the review and approval process. It is expected this will require additional funding (billed to the VOC) so not to burden the staff that is already carrying a normal caseload of applications.
Place - The Dynamic Engagement process will probably require a large building to hold the scale models and the people who work on the process. The Council Planners have a special role, similar to that of referees in a rugby match. Indeed we even talk of using red, green and yellow cards as a way of signifying approval, disapproval or refer to a higher authority for a decision. The planners would report to work at that facility, and may find that work involves nights and weekends to accommodate for the schedules of the future villagers.
Manner - We propose to use 100:1 scale models of the land, in which the 50 hectares (or whatever) is set out with the boundaries between the respective village clusters and the connecting pedestrian roads predetermined based on the character of the land. The scale model is then cut at the boundaries, so each table is a cluster surrounded by about 200 homes and 50 workplaces on neighbourhood streets, alleys and footpaths. Model makers will standby to make people's homes, where price and aspiration will determine size and scale. Some homes will be large, others will be owned apartments or flats, but almost all will be attached housing. The people will work out the details supported by professionals - architects, designers, master planners, landscape architects and engineers. They also will be supported by a system of pattern cards that sets out timeless patterns as to what works. Their job is to create a model of their neighbourhood, like a child's Christmas train-set. They layout streets, orientation of buildings, and decide the look and feel of the plaza.
While they are engaged in this activity, concerned persons may participate and ask questions - typically "concerned persons" means neighbours and land-owners near the proposed village site... potentially affected parties. We note however, that for Country-Town villages with their 150 hectare surrounding greenbelt, we may find this buffer zone that prevents cross boundary conflicts, the inward focus of the village and the absence of outbound commuters removes concerns.
In addition to all these participants, the Council Planners stand in the room, but they maintain their arms length role. They are to examine what is proposed, as it is set out. If it meets the planning standards, it is then provisionally approved on the spot. If not, the planner advises the participants what the problem is. Without telling the participants what to do, a dialogue is then opened to find an acceptable resolution. This dialogue is similar to the settlement negotiations ordered by the Environment Court when a case is finally heard - only we seek to front end that process rather than wait years and spend money on lawyers that would be better spent on amenities for the village.
While the primary process will occur face-to-face, we expect to use the internet for real-time simulation of what is happening in the room so that parties who cannot physically attend can still participate. Using products such as Second Life and possibly products like Cisco's Telepresence, skilled animators will match the modelling on line and remote villagers will be able to have their elements put forth by the model makers.
When the neighbourhood clusters designs are all completed, the tables will be rejoined to show the full design. At this point the Council officers will assess the project in full, transforming the provisional approval into a locked approval. They may identify items that looked OK in isolation, but whose cumulative effects are adverse, for which a solution must be found. When these have been negotiated in the now familiar manner, the 3D design will be reduced to conventional paper documents to secure the conventional, official stamp of approval of Rezoning, Development, Subdivision and Building Approval. We note the intent for Build Approval is to set out about 25 master building plans with min-max specifications from which almost all buildings in the village will be based. Almost all buildings will use the same bulk material (Variable Density Concrete), thus simplifying both the design and the construction processes.
In some regards, this is a very new experience for many planners. Some embrace it, others are threatened by it, and look for ways to pick it apart. We seek out planners who will approach it with an open mind, and also suggest ways to improve it. Our goal is to achieve the highest common denominator, not the lowest, and to do so in short order. If you find this of interest, we welcome dialogue with you. Click the Contact Button and use the phone, email or send us a letter.
