What’s Old

C
ondominium managers, boards and residents have
long known the benefits of clustered housing. They
know first-hand what it is like to live in a community
with others. They've been able to enjoy the smaller
ecological footprint of higher density living. And
where amenities like parks, grocery stores, and post
offices are nearby, condominium residents have embraced being
able to walk much of the time.
Unknowingly, many condominiums have exhibited some of
the principles of closely-related design movements called “New
Urbanism,” and “Smart Growth.” Both of these movements
began in the 1980s and stress a return to pre-World War II
neighborhoods, where neighbors knew each other and walked to
local businesses instead of driving cars to far-flung malls amidst
suburban sprawl.
Where Smart Growth defines the intelligent design of entire
communities based on guiding ideas about how communities
thrive, New Urbanism applies those same ideas in the “adaptive
reuse of pre-existing structures.”

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NEW ENGLAND CONDOMINIUM
May 2009

is New
Cover Story

Photo courtesy of Mashpee Commons LP

New Urbanism Turns Clock Back

to Old-Style Neighborhoods
By Robert Todd Felton

May 2009
NEW ENGLAND CONDOMINIUM
13

 So, where Smart Growth ideas can
help define a newly-built community
like The Pinehills in Plymouth, Massa-
chusetts, those same ideas can used to
revitalize a downtown neighborhood
in Hartford, Connecticut, or a strip
mall in Southern New Hampshire.

Core Principles
Based on the marriage of how urban
spaces work with the new realities of
our times, New Urbanist principles, as
stated on the New Urbanism website
(see resources sidebar), both take from
the past and look towards the future:
walkability, connectivity, mixed-use
and diversity, mixed housing, quality
architecture and urban design, tradi-
tional neighborhood structure, increased
density, green transportation, sustain-
ability, and quality of life.
While many of these core principles
are interrelated, walkability is clearly an
important place to start. If the commu- The Pinehills, Plymouth, Massachusetts
nity provides basic goods and services
(think stores, banks, and restaurants) as well as million-dollar homes. Apart- more return on dollars per square
within a five-minute walk, then resi- ments can be built over commercial foot of land.
dents are less likely to get in their cars. spaces and garages, and large single- Local businesses thrive as more and
The sidewalks can be wide, the streets family houses can share streets with more people are out on the streets
narrow, and cars relegated to alleys and duplexes and townhouses. A key walking around, and residents get the
hidden garages. Mass transit lines can feature of these housing options are convenience of being able to do more
connect both within the community the porches close to the street, shared things without their car. Municipalities
and to the outside world, again mini- walks and driveways, and nearby green benefit from an increasing and stable
mizing the need for residents to use spaces that promote interaction between tax base, less traffic and congestion,
their cars. This pedestrian-friendly human beings. “People want to be lower crime rates, and more civic pride.

approach is more than just a green
wish (although that is an important
part of the equation); it gets people
out into the streets, where they can
interact with each other and frequent
stores, services and restaurants.
Integral to that sense of a vibrant
community is a mix of housing options
that promote and welcome the racial
and economic diversity necessary for a
successful community. Neighborhoods
can include one-bedroom apartments
around people; people want access to
stuff,” says Ken Olson, president and
CEO of the Port Chester, New York-
based POKO Partners.
These core principles lead to sustain-
able development, ideally making use
of sustainable building practices and
design, connected by low-impact
methods of transportation. The devel-
opers profit because of the higher
density mixed-use projects bring in.
Higher density, of course, means
Adaptive Reuse
New England, with its a large supply
of industrial spaces waiting to be
transformed into mixed-use spaces, is
particularly suited to the specific type
of New Urbanism that stresses adaptive
reuse. From Maine to Connecticut,
there are former mills and factories
that have been converted to condo-
miniums, townhouses, and apart-
ments. The best of these utilize New

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NEW ENGLAND CONDOMINIUM
May 2009

Urbanism ideas, mixing commercial
and a range of residential options with
nearby amenities and mass transit
opportunities.
One such example is the Eastworks
Building in Easthampton, Massa-
chusetts. An old household products
factory (think mops and cleaning
supplies), Eastworks now houses
forty-seven live/work apartments for
artists (each is about 600 square feet)
and over 500,000 square feet of retail
shops, offices, and a hip restaurant
called the Apollo Grill.
In addition to industrial building There’s no place
retrofits, there are other exciting places
to look. One such place was the park-
ing lot of an old mall in the center
like an energy-efficient
of the Cape Cod town of Mashpee.
Begun in 1986, Mashpee Commons
home.
(www.mashpeecommons.com) has
completely transformed the former
mall into a vibrant and working
mixed-use center laid out in a design
created by urban planners Duany Energy efficiency saves money and improves the
Plater-Zyberk and Company. environment by lowering emissions that contribute to
The “downtown” (they constructed climate change. Plus, efficiency upgrades can improve
buildings along one side of a created the comfort and value of your home.
street facing the mall) features forty
one-bedroom and studio apartments Take advantage of these offers from National Grid:
in three mixed-use buildings. The
apartments range from 600 to 1,400 ENERGY STAR® thermostat rebates up to $50
square feet and start at $725 per High-efficiency heating rebates up to $1,000
month (excluding utilities).
There is also 365,000 square feet of High-efficiency water heating rebates up to $300
commercial space with both locally- Save when you weatherize your home
owned and chain shops, restaurants, a
movie theater, a library, post office, Visit www.thinksmartthinkgreen.com or
and a boys and girls club. Plans and call 1-800-292-2032 today.
permits have been filed to develop the RI customers interested in weatherization,
surrounding area with up to 400 single- please call EnergyWise at 1-888-633-7947.
family homes, townhouses, and condo-
miniums along the New Urbanist
Efficiency offers vary by state and
principles. In addition, there are are available to National Grid
natural gas heat and/or electric
adjoining neighborhoods to be devel- customers. Restrictions apply.
oped with a balance of commercial
© 2009 National Grid
and residential offerings.

May 2009
NEW ENGLAND CONDOMINIUM
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 In Natick, Massachusetts. Nouvelle
at the Natick Collection is a high-end,
high-rise condominium built adjacent
to a large mall, The Natick Collection.
The Nouvelle has received a great
deal of press about the downtown
lifestyle and convenience of the 215
new luxury condominiums alongside
the mall. The condos start at $369,000
for a one bedroom, 800-square-foot
unit and go up from there. Among its
most unusual amenities is the ability
to exit a unit, and take a short indoor
walk to shopping at the mall’s hundred
plus upscale stories.
Starting From Scratch
Although New England is already
heavily developed, there are tracts of
land left that lend themselves to the
type of Smart Growth design that
starts from the ground up.
Tony Green, managing partner of
The Pinehills in Plymouth, Massa-
chusetts, is clear about what they’ve
Unknowingly, many condominiums have exhibited
“New Urbanism,”
some of the principles of closely-related design
and “Smart Growth.”
movements called
managed to accomplish there. Using
ten different builders and 3,200 acres
of previously-untouched land (two-
thirds of which is still open land and
highly regarded golf courses), they’ve
built over a thousand homes, with
nearly 2,000 lots left. Home choices
range from one-of-a-kind custom
homes to single-family homes to
townhomes, to condominiums, to two
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NEW ENGLAND CONDOMINIUM
May 2009
55-plus neighborhoods to apartments
for rent, nearly all with wooded or
golf course views.
The Pinehills also boasts 150,000
square feet of commercial space with
everything from a U.S. Post Office to
grocery store and dry cleaners. To get
to these amenities, residents have ten
miles of walking trails and paths.
But chief among the things Green
speaks of with pride is the careful and
meticulous planning to preserve as
much of the original landscape as
possible, what he describes as “using the
land to its best advantage rather than
changing the land for convenience.”
This meant walking the land over
and over again before creating plans,
placing the houses first and then
the roads connecting them second.
Although this does not conform to
New Urbanism’s call for grid networks,
the winding and twisting slows cars
down, while providing a more natural
experience for the walker and biker.
Zoning Laws, SmartCode, and the Transect
In “Smart Growth Advances
Nationally,” a special report on the
New Urbanism website, author Jessica
Tirado notes that “in most cases it is
easier and cheaper to build on virgin
land than to reuse urban areas.” (See
resource sidebar.)
In fact, across New England it can
actually be against zoning regulations
to incorporate the type of mixed-use
residential and commercial buildings
called for by Smart Growth in many
downtown districts. Instead, the
traditional government approach is
to subsidize road and sewer lines out to
suburbs so far removed that transporta-
tion by car is the only viable option.
This leads to a situation where the
majority of the spending, on both the
macro and micro levels, is on building
roads and very little is left to spend on
mass transit systems like state-of-the-art
train lines. Therefore, developers lean
towards open tracts of land, creating
suburban sprawl, and away from revi-
talizing already built urban centers.
One way for communities to
rethink their local zoning regulations
is something called SmartCode.
According to the SmartCode website
(www.smartcodecentral.com), “the
SmartCode is an integrated land
development ordinance. It folds zon-
ing, subdivision regulations, urban
design, public works standards, and
basic architectural controls into one
compact document.”
Available in PDF form, SmartCode
is an open-source document – meaning
you can use it without charges or
licensing fees. Planners and developers
can use this code to map out the ways
zoning regulations should be written.
The SmartCode is also “transect-
based.” The transect is a planning tool
which maps out seven different zones
ranging from natural zone through
the urban core zone and the special
district. According to the SmartCode
website, it “allows the integration of
the design protocols of traffic engi-
neering, public works, town planning,
architecture, landscape architecture, and
ecology.” In other words, it provides a
macro-level scheme for regional plan-
ners to weave a number of smaller
Placeholder for
Verizon. Janell
sending new ad.

May 2009
NEW ENGLAND CONDOMINIUM
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 Resources for Research
Congress for New Urbanism • www.cnu.org
Born from a meeting of a number of like-minded architects
in 1993, the CNU has grown to encompass planners,
economists, government officials, scholars, and developers.
The mission of the CNU is to support, through advocacy
and education, the “restoration of existing urban centers
and towns within coherent metropolitan regions.” The CNU
website presents a wide range of information on New
Urbanism, Smart Growth, sustainable building practices,
and landscape design. The New England chapter of the
CNU has its own website, www.cnunewengland.org.
Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company • www.dpz.com
The leading design firm and voice in New Urbanism, headed
by Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, have designed
built, people decide that living in a
walkable, vibrant community where
there is plenty of interaction and
activity is very attractive.
The more people decide to come, the
more local housing prices rise and soon
a one-bedroom studio apartment may
be priced out of range for many. Unless
local governments are subsidizing the
housing, the local population can
quickly lose its diversity and become
homogenized.

Blueprints for the Future

and consulted on hundreds of Smart Growth projects
around the globe. They are also the co-founders of the
Congress for New Urbanism, and their website is an extensive However, these pitfalls can be
and valuable resource for anyone wanting more information.
avoided either through subsidized
New Urbanism • www.newurbanism.org housing or careful planning, and the
Not as savvy as some of the other sites, it does contain potential upsides of this approach are
an abundance of links to outside sources on subjects as
significant. Already-completed projects
diverse as electric cars to the global climate crisis.
cite rising home values, increased
Photo courtesy of Mashpee Commons LP

The Smart Growth Network • www.smartgrowth.org civic pride, and better quality of life.
This is a partnership between the Federal Government’s
As increased independence from cars
Environmental Protection Agency and a number of non-
profit groups to help “encourage development that serves merges with better and greener build-
the economy, community, and environment.” It offers new ing practices (see “Greenest of the
resources, links to funding opportunities, and event listings. Green,” New England Condominium,
EPA's Smart Growth Site • www.epa.gov/livability September, 2008), the options for those
Hosted on the Environmental Protection Agency’s website, seeking a greener, more satisfying
this website is a clearinghouse on the subject of Smart experience away from single-family
Growth, but it is particularly valuable for the tool kits and
housing will find more and more
technical resources it offers to planners and local officials.
options with more and more amenities
nearby, from retrofitted factories to
communities together in an intelligent development in Florida called
greenfield developments.
and thoughtful way. "Celebration” as an example where
That’s why New Urbanist firms like
Recipes for Disaster
monoculture has run wild.
Duany Plater-Zyberk are extraordi-
Many planners note an additional
narily busy with projects across the
Of course, it’s not always this easy or pitfall that happens when developers
world, and developments like The
straight-forward. After all, the suburban don’t include social services (such as
Pinehills are experiencing increasing
sprawl that New Urbanism fights against job training, education, and health
attention as people look for a simpler,
was the post-war dream of the 1950s. services) among the amenities when
greener, less auto-dependent lifestyles.
Those hulking malls that now dot the designing new communities. The
Now, what condo residents have known
landscape were once prize gems in people who traditionally use these
all along may become apparent to
their communities. Who knows what services then do not move in, and
a wider audience—that old-style
new realities and challenges society the community loses its diversity.
communities can be a template for
will face in the coming years? An additional risk to diversity comes
the future.
New Urbanism planners stress the from the very success of the projects
need for economic and racial diversity themselves. In some cases, as urban Robert Todd Felton is a freelance writer
as indispensable to the life of a com- neighborhoods are revitalized or and a frequent contributor to New
munity, citing the Disney-sponsored attractive Smart Growth developments England Condominium magazine.

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NEW ENGLAND CONDOMINIUM
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