2008 December | Charting Maine’s Future

Riverfront Community Bond projects announced December 19

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Today’s Bangor Daily News has a story about the projects that will be funded by Maine’s Riverfront Community Development Bond, a $4.9 million package that was approved by Maine voters in November 2007. These funds will be matched from other government and private sources to contribute to projects worth $41 million statewide.

GrowSmart Maine will be working this winter to institutionalize these sorts of investments statewide, and not only in riverfront communities. The proposed “Communities for Maine’s Future Program” would enhance the valuable quality of place of our downtowns and Main Streets, while also improving conditions for economic development in these communities.

This year’s grants include:

$675,000 to Bangor for the next phase of the city’s effort to develop a 12-acre park along the downtown waterfront from the intersection of Railroad and Front streets.
$215,500 to East Machias to redevelop an old mill and hatchery.
$652,000 to five Aroostook County communities to create trails, provide public access and complete other riverfront projects. Towns participating in the $2.5 million project are Grand Isle, Fort Kent, Madawaska, Frenchville and Van Buren.
$110,000 to Skowhegan for a riverside park featuring trails and water access.
$197,300 to Milo to rebuild a downtown block that was destroyed in a fire last October.
Biddeford — $500,000 for a river walk, dam and mill redevelopment.
Houlton — $22,600 for trails, public access and habitat improvement.
Orono — $96,400 for a river park, trails and public access.
Pittsfield — $32,200 for trails, public access and habitat improvement.
Richmond — $333,000 for a riverfront park and public access.
Saco — $675,000 to redevelop a mill, a riverfront park and public access.
Sanford — $675,000 to redevelop a mill, a riverfront park and public access.
Thomaston — $221,000 to redevelop Maine state prison, a river park and trails.

Retrofit and Revitalize our Town Centers December 16

Filed under Economic development, National news, Planning, Quality Places, Redevelopment by Kim | 0 comments

Last week, an analysis by Tux Turkel at the Maine Sunday Telegram confirmed what we’d been hearing anecdotally from developers and planners: that after unprecedented suburban sprawl in the 1990s, Mainers are now moving back into the bigger towns and cities where most jobs and services are located [we blogged about the Sunday Telegram feature here].

As was outlined in our most recent “Charting the Course” column for Mainebiz, one of GrowSmart’s priorities in the Legislature this winter will be to coordinate the state’s community investment programs under a new “Communities for Maine’s Future” fund, which would invest in downtown infrastructure and historic buildings in order to give an economic shot in the arm to Maine’s small Main Street businesses and improve the “quality of place” of our built environments. By investing in our village and town centers, our state can also make more efficient use of our tax money, by serving more people with smaller infrastructure investments.

The idea isn’t unique to Maine. Here are a few big news items and opinion pieces related to this concept have been making the rounds on the national media this past week:

In last week’s New York Times, columnist David Brooks criticizes the “roads and bridges” mindset and calls for more innovative investments in next year’s expected economic stimulus package. Fundamental to his arguments is the fact that more and more households are now seeking the community-oriented “quality of place” that can only be found in downtowns, Main Streets, and village centers:

“People overshot the mark. They moved to the exurbs because they wanted space and order. But once there, they found that they were missing community and social bonds. So in the past years there has been a new trend. Meeting places are popping up across the suburban landscape…

“To take advantage of the growing desire for community, the Obama plan would have to do two things. First, it would have to create new transportation patterns. The old metro design was based on a hub-and-spoke system — a series of highways that converged on an urban core. But in an age of multiple downtown nodes and complicated travel routes, it’s better to have a complex web of roads and rail systems.

“Second, the Obama stimulus plan could help localities create suburban town squares. Many communities are trying to build focal points. The stimulus plan could build charter schools, pre-K centers, national service centers and other such programs around new civic hubs.

“This kind of stimulus would be consistent with Obama’s campaign, which was all about bringing Americans together in new ways. It would help maintain the social capital that’s about to be decimated by the economic downturn.”
A few days later, the Brooks column generated a tremendous response on the NYT letters page. “We should retrofit our suburbs to make them livable communities with true civic centers, walkable neighborhoods, alternative transportation options and preserved open space, while using innovative sustainable development practices that could be a model for the world,” writes John Dutton, a Los Angeles architect and urban designer. “Aging baby boomers especially would benefit from a crash effort to remake suburbia with a new and innovative source of federal financing. Once considered youthful and family-oriented, suburban communities invented after World War II are now caught in the “age wave” … [suburbs] suffer from a lack of affordable housing, inadequate public transportation, and less than optimum access to health and other community services,” writes Dennis Kodner, a professor of gerontology at the New York Institute of Technology.
Finally, later last week, NPR’s All Things Considered broadcast a feature on innovative new plans to do exactly what David Brooks and others have suggested for a suburb of Washington DC. Tyson’s Corner, a Virginian suburb located just outside of Washington’s Beltway freeway, is currently an auto-oriented sprawl of parking lots, shopping malls, and pedestrian-inaccessible arterials (listen to the story here, and note how much Tyson’s Corner sounds like the Maine Mall, or the Exit 112 area of Augusta, or the Bangor Mall area). But with new plans to expand Washington’s subway system through the neighborhood, property owners are making new plans that focus on walkable streets, more jobs and housing with less traffic, and a better sense of place:

Above: Tyson’s Corner today (left) and how it could look in the future (right).

Of course, retrofitting and revitalizing Maine’s town centers is one of the things we work on every day here at GrowSmart Maine. To see some local examples, check out our Standish Model Town project, or take a look at our downtown revitalization accomplishments from last winter’s Legislative session.

Standish village planning update: three growth concepts and polling results December 15

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In last month’s second public workshop, Standish residents had a chance to see conceptual visualizations of what their village could look like under three different zoning options: the current zoning, which emphasizes more suburban-style development, or a range of more traditional village options, with mixed-use buildings and smaller lots, as called for in the town’s Comprehensive Plan.

A small sample (click the image to enlarge it):

At the public workshop, residents also had a chance to deliver instant feedback with keypad polling, a new technolgy we’re trying out. Model Town project coordinator Bruce Hyman summarized the feedback:

Those in attendance thought:

we were exploring a good range of distinct choices for future growth options

the committee and staff are “on the right track”

the types of images we presented — but some more so than others — were effective at conveying planning concepts and choices

change is needed in village center zoning

many of the ideas we presented that would represent positive change had merit

keypad polling was very beneficial to the conduct of the meeting

they would come back to the next meeting (all but one).

For more details, visit growsmartmaine.org/standish, or follow these links to view slide presentations from the November 20th meeting:
Standish Corner Village: Three growth concepts
Village growth keypad polling results

Maine is on the map December 10

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The Google Maps “street view” feature now covers most of the state’s major roads and highways, plus neighborhood streets in a number of small towns and cities.

It’s pretty neat: you can take a virtual walk through Old Orchard Beach on a quiet fall day:

View Larger Map

… or check out the Allagash:

View Larger Map

… or peer into Canada from downtown Eastport:

View Larger Map

The new “Street View” feature skips a lot of back roads, especially in more rural areas, but it does have good coverage of most downtown areas and surrounding neighborhoods, from East Millinocket to Berwick. So it should be a boon for Maine’s downtown businesses, which now have an easy way to give directions to their customers. It will also be handy for real estate developers as they hunt for potential site for new or renovated downtown buildings.

Here at GrowSmart, we’re excited to use the feature as we move forward with our planning and visioning project for the village of Standish Corner.

Is Maine kicking its sprawl habit? December 8

Filed under Economic development, Planning, Quality Places, Redevelopment by Kim | 1 comment

In an in-depth analysis of Maine census data from the past few years, Maine Sunday Telegram reporter Tux Turkel concludes that “an aging population, volatile energy prices and the ongoing economic meltdown might do what 20 years of land-use planning has largely failed to accomplish in Maine – slow suburban sprawl and coax development closer to cities.”

Population trends were generally negative in Maine’s bigger towns and cities during the 1990s, while the populations of small, rural towns, mostly located an hour’s drive away from big employment centers, exploded. Turkel’s data shows that the populations of service-center communities like Caribou, Bangor, and Waterville declined ten, five, and nine percent, respectively, during the 1990s, while small towns like Dayton, Acton, and Harrison saw populations increase by 51%, 24%, and 19%.

Those trends have been less evident since 2000. Caribou, Bangor, and Waterville are growing again, albeit slowly, by 1 to 2% in the past eight years. And while those rural towns are still gaining population, in general, their growth rates are much more subdued: Dayton has grown only 12% in the past 8 years, and Harrison’s population has only gone up 3%.

Keep in mind that the larger towns are starting with a much larger population base, so smaller percentage gains mask larger gains in actual numbers. A 1% growth rate in Bangor (population 31,473, as of the 2000 Census) means that it’s gained 310 people. A 12% growth rate for Dayton (population 1805 in 2000) means that it’s gained 217 people.

The story includes quotes from GrowSmart Maine president Alan Caron, who remarks that statewide fiscal constraints, plus continued long-term increases in credit costs and gasoline, point to increasing growth in cities and large towns.

Turkel also surveys some of the new real-estate projects that are beginning to respond to these trends. One is Dunstan Crossing, Eliot Chamberlain’s much-embattled “great American neighborhood” under construction in the center of Scarborough, Maine (and pictured at left). That project got underway this year under trying economic circumstances; nevertheless, a look at the project’s first phase shows half of the neighborhood’s proposed 26 homes sold or under contract. Moreover, the smaller, more compact “village homes” and townhouses at the center of the neighborhood are selling much better than the large-lot subdivision-style homes on the outskirts.

This feature is a more detailed follow-up to a story on trends in building permits in metropolitan Portland. In that report, Turkel noted that while building permits are drying up all across the region, as a result of the general economic downturn, the housing market is falling especially hard in far-flung suburbs with long commutes. After that report, we did some research of our own and found some fascinating patterns… more on that in tomorrow’s blog post.

Heading downtown December 1

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The new issue of Mainebiz has hit the newsstands with GrowSmart’s monthly column inside. It’s also available to read online. This month’s piece, written by advocacy director Maggie Drummond, is on the need to invest more in Maine’s downtowns, village centers, and Main Streets:

If businesses, households and governments invested more in our traditional Main Streets, village centers and downtowns, we could make more efficient use of our infrastructure and scarce public resources. Instead of spending huge portions of our paychecks at gas stations, Mainers and their employers would have more money to spend in the regional economy. And revitalizing our traditional community centers would also revitalize a key part of Maine’s legendary brand.

In the months to come, GrowSmart Maine will work in the State House to set up and fund a new “Communities for Maine’s Future” program, a bond fund that would stimulate economic development and revitalize our town and city centers by investing in infrastructure, historic preservation, and housing and business development in Maine’s traditional community centers.

Here’s a complete index of our “Charting the Course” columns for Mainebiz.

Charting Maine’s Future

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Maine Politics Blogroll

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Riverfront Community Bond projects announced December 19

Retrofit and Revitalize our Town Centers December 16

Standish village planning update: three growth concepts and polling results December 15

Maine is on the map December 10

Is Maine kicking its sprawl habit? December 8

Heading downtown December 1