7 Principles for Building Better Cities

Ted Talk: 7 Principles for Building Better Cities

Peter Calthorpe is a San Francisco based architect, urban designer and urban planner. He developed the concept of Transit Oriented Development in the early 1990’s. His clients include China which has some city blocks with 5,000 residents each and also the State of California which anticipates a population growth of 10 million more by 2050.

(Someday soon, Petaluma will have a population of 100,000 people. The “town” we are building today will be a city tomorrow.)

Summary of the TedTalk:

1) Preserve the natural environment, the history and the agriculture.

2) Mixed use. Create mixed use and mixed-income neighborhoods.

         Mixed incomes, mixed age groups, as well as mixed land use.

3) Walk. Design walkable streets and human scale neighborhoods.

4) Bike. Prioritize bicycle networks and auto-free streets.

5) Connect. Build street networks that provide many routes and many kinds of routes. Many kinds of streets instead of just one.

6) Ride. We have to invest more in transit.

7) Focus. Match density and mix to the transit capacity. Build the hierarchy of the city based on transit rather than on freeways. It’s a big paradigm shift.

“Walking, biking and transit are the way cities and communities thrive.”

Building a vibrant public transit corridor

Building the train tracks and stations is only the first step in developing a functional train system. Part two is the new land uses built within walking distance of the train stations and creating a vibrant public transit corridor.

Corona Station is our chance to begin building a pedestrian-friendly North McDowell corridor by creating a "destination" train station. A coffee shop and a small corner grocery store would be a huge step in this direction. Give the neighborhood something to walk to.




https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/1/17/las-lost-transit

Increasing automobile intensity

New Courtyard Marriott is being built.  It is close to highway 101 and the Lakeville Street interchange. Other side of 101 is the new Altura Apartments and also the new Marina Crossing Apartments. 

Petaluma continues to make big commitments to more automobiles in town.

Dear City Council,

As currently designed, the Corona train station will become yet another automobile dependent land use in East Petaluma.

*          If this were a transit oriented development site, we would build 3 or 4 stories of high density housing over the parking and utilize the entire 6.5 acres.

*          It appears as if SMART negotiated to save themselves $3 million by building an open air parking lot instead of a parking garage. This landmark intersection of Corona Road and North McDowell will be defined by an open air parking lot. Is this the best we can do?

*          The Corona Station housing development project is “packaged” as “multi-family” housing units. But actually there is an air gap between each housing unit. This project is really 116 single family houses.

*          This property is 6.5 acres. SMART wants to remove 1.27 acres and throw away the buildable housing density. Yet still, there is 5.23 acres for the developer to work with.

*          The North River Apartments will be 184 housing units plus 5,000 square feet of commercial on a total of 3.92 acres.

*          Marina Crossing Apartments are 92 housing units on 2.17 acres.

*          Haystack Pacifica at the downtown train station will be 178 housing units plus 24,855 square feet of ground floor commercial on a 4.1 acre parcel.

*          East Petaluma could sorely use a sense of place defined by a prominent building at this major Corona Road intersection.

*          Is this the best that we can do? One more suburban, automobile dependent single family housing subdivision conceived of and designed as if the new train station doesn’t even exist on site.

*          The General Plan and the Zoning Regulations are outdated for this train station but it could easily be fixed with amendments right now.

I strongly urge a much higher housing density at the Corona train station. We can do much better here. Let’s create a real train station here with a strong sense of place, identity and functional transit oriented development.

Please take a look at this 2 ¾ minute video showing the automobile intensity of walking along North McDowell up to the train station project site. Let's create a walkable sense of having arrived at this major intersection and train station.

Dear Planning Commissioners,

The proposed 5.23 acre portion of the Corona Station Residential Project ignores the fact that it is an integral portion of the adjacent SMART train station. This proposal is more suburban (infill) sprawl. It is more of the same.

What about this residential development is Transit Oriented Development? Nothing.

These houses are more suburban sprawl with two car parking garages each. These proposed houses will be sold to people who may or may not ever use the train.

Point #1: Why don’t we encourage several 4 to 5 story buildings with a much higher density than that proposed? For comparison, what about several buildings like the new Marina Crossing apartments with 92 units each?

Point #2: There is no “there” there. As a rule, east side Petaluma suffers from a lack of land use and architecture that grants a sense of place. Much of the east side is drive by suburban housing tracts.

This proposal does nothing to celebrate the new train station.

This proposal does nothing to anchor the major, important intersection of North McDowell and Corona Road. How will you even know that there is a new train station there? All you will see is a parking lot full of cars on the corner.

I believe that this site provides a huge opportunity to do the following two things:

Solution A: Let’s create much more density (many more housing units) to provide some real Transit Oriented Development at this site. Make these units smaller and somewhat more “affordable”.

Solution B: Make this project Stand Out as different from the monotony of residential suburban sprawl. Provide an anchor for the intersection of North McDowell and Corona Road. Let’s encourage the developer to create a sense of place at this intersection. Provide an anchor with taller, bigger, more dense buildings.

This location deserves much better than more of the same. Usually, the developer drives the overall vision and plan for the site. But the conditional use permit puts the Planning Commission in the driver’s seat.

Ten years from now, when the new SMART corridor is fully functional, what are we going to wish was at this residential site?

Yes, we need the park and ride parking lot. But we also need some for real Transit Oriented Development housing next to it.