Ready for Rurbanism?
Posted: January 25th, 2009 | Author: James Glave | Filed under: autoculture, Housing, sprawl, top | Tags: sprawl rurban rurbanism | 10 Comments »We know that low-density suburban development is bad news for the atmosphere, for community, for taxpayers, and lots of other things. As I note in my book, Almost Green, I don’t think we’re quite a suburb over here on Bowen Island, though we have some suburban housing forms and neighborhoods, including mine. But thanks to an outdated community plan and land use bylaw—documents designed to preserve and protect rural character, but which have in fact have set us down a path of vehicle dependence and unaffordability–we’re heading more that way all the time.
There’s been a lot of excellent work done on the “rural-urban interface.” I think that description fits this place nicely; we have our farms and wildlife, but the city is very close indeed. Last year’s Snug Cove Master Plan makes the case that we should focus our growth in our village as a way to preserve green open spaces for recreation, ecological health, and carbon sinks.
A commenter on another blog posting on this site drew my attention to the District of Sechelt, her hometown, located on B.C.’s famous Sunshine Coast. She characterizes Sechelt as a prime example of bad community choices:
It used to have a unique character and local products — now it is utterly swamped in big box stores, cineplexes, trinket kiosks and national franchises. I still try to appreciate it but it is so different and less than what it was… People want to enjoy an authentically local experience when they visit. Let’s see how we can achieve that while still providing the convenience of essential and necessary services on-island.
This is absolutely what we need to work toward. Since I haven’t been up that way in a while, out of curiosity I made a few calls to friends in the B.C. planning profession. “Problematic development pattern and terrible town councils made a lot of bad decisions,” explained one. The good news is that the district recently created a comprehensive Community Vision Plan that looks to be the key reference for an upcoming Official Community Plan review.
Here’s one neat bit, describing mixed-use neighborhoods known as the “Rurban Hamlet.” (I haven’t come across the term before — can anyone share its history?) Here’s what the plan says about it:
A rurban hamlet is density neutral and arranges the units in a mixed building type cluster … on only a small portion of the overall site. For example, on a 10 acre site with an allowable density of six units per acre, or 60 units overall, it can locate all 60 units on four to six acres, saving or conserving six to four acres, respectively, in contiguous open space. All with conventional building types using detached, attached and multiplex homes.
The section inclues several sketches to illustrate rurban hamlets, including this one.
Included in the above is “multiplex housing (single-entry with three to five units, a shared front porch and shared garage); single-family detached bungalows, including one with an attached in-law suite; attached cottages; a shared garage; and a studio/potting building. Each unit has a private yard that connects to shared open space.”
For those not still turning up their nose at the idea of four-storey apartments in the cove, perhaps a rurban hamlet like this might be more palatable? Scary thought for the 10-acre brigade: The houses are very close together. Five of them are — shudder — even in the same building!
Hi James, I’m a “she” actually if you want to correct for accuracy.
I’ll comment more once I’ve read your article more thoroughly.
Cheers, Wynn
D-oh! Very sorry, Wynn. I stand corrected!
Nice James…in my long term vision for Bowen Island, I actually see the neighbourhoods becoming villages, with some small commercial activity for example in Tunstall Bay, Cowan Point and other palces perhaps (probably at some point in the future the Cape too). I’ve always had in my mind that we could move from an island of neighbourhoods to an island of villages much like other islands of our size.
Last year as I was travelling through Belgium, I was struck by how close together villages were, only a couple of miles apart, and how focused each village was on it’s own things – a pub and a bakery and some uberlocal gardens and farms producing the villages food. Every few villages there were services like a garage, a building supply store, that sort of thing. The flow of things was not “everyone falling in towards a centre” but rather, lots of things happening around several hubs all with a reagional consciousness. This is what I can see happening to Bowen as a way to preserve mixed forms of housing, a more distributed village centre and large tracts of free land for various types of resource use (recreation, ecologging, non-timber forest products, agriculture, and wild lands).
What if we became an island of villages?
Some excellent discussion and ideas here James. I love the “Rurban Hamlet” approach and it really could create some livable neighbourhoods that address Bowen’s need for diversity and affordability.
And I agree with Wynn that we really don’t want to have Bowen look like the generic tourist destination. Perhaps this is one shortcoming of the Snug Cove Master Plan, in that the renderings of the look of the Cove do not reflect that Bowen individuality and uniqueness that she speaks of, but it could certainly happen within the proposed densities. I think the Gibson’s waterfront and Ganges on Salt Spring Island are good examples.
The Island of Villages concept that Chris contributed also has merit, let’s keep this thread going.
Tim…I like those examples as well. Both towns have a lot of character and are very friendly and lovely. THe advantage of Gibsons of course is that you can build high rises that don’t look like high rises because they are set into the side of the hill. The drawback with Gibson’s is that sprawl that has occured outside of the village centre, strip malls and big box stores, and while I don’t think that there is any danger of that happening on Bowen for a very long while if at all, prudence would suggest that the density in the cove be managed in a way that doesn’t encourage sprawl spillover on the land directly adjacent to the village.
All very interesting fodder for the OCP conversations.
These ideas are very similar to Chris Alexander’s Pattern Language (http://www.patternlanguage.com/). A book written a number of years ago. And one that has influenced many on Bowen Island. As I understand it, pattern language was referenced frequently when the original OCP was written. It may be a good study to investigate if or why the ideas in pattern language have been applied in actual implementation of Bowen Island planning. Bowen seems to have strayed from the idea of villages. It may be good to find out why these ideas were strayed from even though they were “built into” the original OCP. I had the pleasure of knowing one of the co-authors of the book and he used it extensively when the brittania center on commercial drive was designed. Speek to Boris he may also be familiar with pattern language from a software perspective.
What if we could actually execute on becoming an island of villages?
We discussed this concept at length over the past year during our Sustainable Framework Working Group meetings. We concluded in the end that an “island of villages” was not the best approach, but rather, the more sustainable option would be to focus growth in the village — the historic and future transportation hub to the mainland. Many reasons, much discussion, but the feeling was that we’d be able to preserve more of the leafy heart this way, and also realize economies of scale for things like district energy. Plus all the other pluses that go with density — a vital walkable, bikeable village, amenities etc.
In other words, I like the rurban hamlet concept, but I like it in the village. I know, I’m a broken record.
More great comments, and thank you James for continuing these great conversations. At the same time, a word of caution not to limit the options here….. I think the island of villages concept has merit and does not preclude the Cove being the main hub. Planning is great, but we do need to encourage a number of workable options and see what transpires. Too much planning and you end up with what people do not like about Whistler. It is a fine line between nicely planned and contrived, generic and homogeneous lacking character.
Our job, as a community, is to create fertile soil for the improvements we would like to see, and then let the creativity begin.
I would like to have coffee with you Chris.
Tim
Love to have coffee Tim.
James, of course it’s not just the village that is an issue. I’m curious about developing more agrarian and marine based small businesses here. Seems strange for an island that we don’t have a fishing fleet for example. Now I know that the economics of fishing are a mitigating factor, but I have spoken with a few commercial fishers would expressed interest in a CSA type approach to fish, essentially creating a Bowen Island food fishery but within the commercial industry still. These kinds of things are pretty alive for me right now, food, sustainable and diverse land use, generating more economy on the island that actually meets our needs (energy, materials and services) that sort of thing.
I still love the villages idea though. Especially and if the population doubles. I would miss the intimacy we enjoy now.
Most of the time
Chris, given the open and demonstrable animosity by our muni council towards local business, I don’t hold out any hope of any successful new ventures. Investors, as we have clearly seen, do not wish to play that game and take their money elsewhere.