Thanks, Eric, for bringing this to the group and for the great
analysis. You're pretty much dead on. Shoup is a genius! It is good
to see this stuff happening.
I understand, but have no details, that Madison's Urban Design
Commission is already considering quality controls.
Make that, *has been instituting* quality controls. Or at least *had*
been. It's the sort of thing that gets you thrown off of commissions
by "green" mayors. (My old buddies on UDC reassure me they are
continuing to push, as they now call them, "The MB Rules" on parking
and pedestrian connectivity & bike amenities though!)
I'm glad Gruber is doing it. I just hope it isn't his undoing! Tim
has been a very astute learner of all this New Urbanist stuff. His
constituents on this list should thank him for this work.
UDC--as a group--was really doing yeoman work on parking standards.
They were far, far ahead of even the enviro groups around here.
Midwest Environmental Advocates recently put out a Big Box Store
design guide in which they suggested up to 6 parking stalls/1000 sf.!
UDC typically aimed for *no more than* 3 per 1000 even in big box
land; the result was generally right around that. Sometimes less,
sometimes more, but almost never more than 4. And of course, even
those numbers are ultimately quite high when you look at the actual
usage. As I keep saying, Google Earth any area of Madison built after
1960, and note that in any one square block area, no more than 1/3 of
the parking is used (excluding car sales lots). And on street parking
isn't used at all.
The Plan Commission on Monday asked staff to analyze the proposals
and report back in a month.
That is fine, as far as it goes. With a few exceptions, Plan Dept
staff isn't exactly noted for being well-read in anything post,
+/-1970. So it would be good for folks to encourage their respective
alders to be visionary on this, and just go over the heads of staff
in the end.
And then there is this:
This will be a hard sell, probably, because people who hate freedom
will object that relaxing government controls is somehow a
totalitarian scheme to make everyone gay.
BWHAAHAAHAAHAAAH! Exactly!
Thanks, again, Eric.
-Mike
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