NEIGHBORHOOD PLANNING

INTRODUCTION

Eighty percent of everything ever built in America has been built in the last fifty years and most of it is depressing, brutal, ugly, unhealthy, and spiritually degrading: the jive plastic commuter tract wastelands, the Potemkin village shopping plazas with their vast parking lagoons, the Lego-block hotel complexes, the "gourmet mansardic" junk food joints, the Orwellian office "parks" featuring buildings sheathed in the same reflective glass as the sunglasses worn by chain gang guards, the particle board garden apartments rising up in every meadow and cornfield, the freeway loops around every big and little city with their clusters of discount merchandise marts, the whole destructive, wasteful, toxic, agoraphobia inducing spectacle that politicians proudly call "growth".

James Howard Kunsler, The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America's Man-made Landscape

The passage cited above is certainly a damning indictment of the quality of planning in this country over the last fifty years. In that it refers to "America" as a whole, obviously there are some parts of this observation that do not apply to a given community. Easton is not guilty of all of the sins espoused in this passage. However, much of that which is described as being wrong with growth in "America" is very much a part of Easton. We have monotonous housing and generic-looking, "could be plopped down in Anywhere USA" shopping centers and franchises of all sorts.

What happened to allow this to occur? Actually, the answer is that numerous factors happened at just the right time and over time to produce this particularly unflattering type of growth. Perhaps the most basic factor though is the abandonment of the concept of neighborhoods.

This chapter begins to rectify this error in Easton. It examines neighborhood-specific issues and recommends a series of Neighborhood-specific Plans to be prepared over the course of the next several years. These plans will include site-specific recommendations and will be tailored to the given neighborhood, aspects which understandably cannot be achieved in a general Comprehensive Plan for the Town as a whole.

 EASTON'S NEIGHBORHOODS

The obvious place to begin a Chapter entitled Neighborhood Planning would be with a description of the community's neighborhoods. First, though, it is necessary to determine just what is meant by the term neighborhood.

A neighborhood is essentially a miniature community. At least that is what successful neighborhoods are. They have geographic boundaries such as streams, fields, or streets. They are primarily places to live and they have enough mixture of uses so that it is not absolutely necessary to leave the neighborhood for such basic items as bread, milk, or sodas. Other conveniences such as restaurants and gasoline, or services like churches, schools, or day care, are either within, or very near the neighborhood. Most of these uses or services can be visited simply by walking if one so chooses.

Unfortunately it is becoming increasingly difficult to identify a true neighborhood in this classic sense of the word. Instead, today the term is often used simply to refer to geographic subregions of a larger community. Thus, for example, in Easton people will refer to Stoney Ridge as a neighborhood. Actually, Stoney Ridge, and many other so-called neighborhoods are simply developments. With over 300 homes and absolutely no stores, churches, or parks within a mile, this is clearly not a neighborhood by the classic definition of such.

The composition of present-day Easton is a collection of a few of the classic neighborhoods, all of which are located within the confines of two major highway corridors (U.S. Route 50 and MD Route 322 a.k.a. the Parkway or the Bypass) and a series of quasi-neighborhoods. These quasi-neighborhoods are similar to classic neighborhoods in that they occupy a definable geographic area, but all are missing some key ingredient.

Easton's neighborhoods include:

o Downtown

o East End

o North Easton

o West End

o South Easton

o Chapel East

o Chapel Farms

o Golton

o Route 50 Corridor

o Elliott Road Commercial

o Marlboro Avenue Commercial

o Stoney Ridge

o South Beechwood

o Cooke's Hope

o Easton Club

o Easton Parkway Industrial

What is most interesting is that the list of quasi-neighborhoods consists almost entirely of independent, stand-alone developments. The classic neighborhoods include similar developments, but they are somehow knit together to form a neighborhood. Older developments such as Mecklenburg, Carroll's Addition, St. Aubin's, and Calvert Terrace are clearly part of a larger, definable neighborhood unit.

SMALL AREA PLANS

As a part of the Visioning exercise, a number of neighborhoods in and around Easton were singled out for more detailed study than can be given in a general Comprehensive Plan for the Town as a whole. The areas selected for these Small Area Plans are briefly described below.

In 1994, the consulting firm of LDR International completed a report on the downtown area, entitled Easton Town Center Revitalization Strategy. This report includes a number of recommendations in the areas of marketing, organization, design, and new construction, intended to enhance the role of the downtown, or Town Center, as a governmental, retail, and entertainment center. As this report is only two years old, it is endorsed in this Plan as the first of the Small-Area Plans and will be the first to be revisited after all such Plans are completed.

 East End

In 1995, Town Planning staff in conjunction with the East End Neighborhood Association, began preparing the East End Housing and Neighborhood Revitalization Plan. This Plan is being developed for a number of reasons but primarily from the Town's point of view it will serve as a basis from which to generate plans for the future development of the Graham's Alley Project. This Plan, when completed, should be adopted by the Planning Commission and will serve as the second in the series of Small-Area Plans.

The future development of Easton Point was seen by the Visioning Committee as essential for producing a more vital and well-rounded community. A wide-variety of ideas as to how this unique piece of waterfront might be developed were discussed. The general consensus was that it should be a "working waterfront" accommodating many different uses such as water-dependent industry, parks, marina and associated commercial uses, and water-front residential.

The area surrounding the Easton Airport was identified by the Visioning Committee as worthy of a Small-Area plan for several reasons. First, as this area is largely undeveloped, yet is located in very close proximity to a growing and high quality airport, much of the land surrounding this airport would seem to be appropriate for industrial development. Yet this land's relative remoteness or distance from the Town and existing services, such as water and sewer present financial burdens on potential developers. Another aspect of this area to be studied is what can be done to better protect existing residential neighborhoods to insure that they are not unfairly adversely impacted by the growth of the airport and the resulting nuisance of ever-increasing noise.

U.S. Route 50 influences the lives of Eastonians in so many ways. It is a primary transportation route around and into and out of Town. It contains establishments to which many of Easton's workers and residents go to dine or buy gasoline. And, frankly, it is the one physical feature about our Town that drives many people absolutely nuts. Accidents are all too frequent an occurrence on this road and travel across or upon Route 50 during summer weekends is nothing short of a nerve-racking experience. For this and many other reasons, a Route 50 Corridor Plan was identified by the Visioning Committee as one of the needed Small-Area Plans.

The final Small-Area Plan to be recommended by the Visioning Committee was for the Easton Parkway or MD Route 322 Corridor. The primary concerns for this important transportation corridor were design-related. However, there was also a great deal of concern that this route is headed down the same path as Route 50 before it. There was also a concern that some day soon the State may attempt to make what was designed to be an access road for residents of the western part of Town and Talbot County into "Route 50 - Alternate".

NEIGHBORHOOD ISSUES

Shelter is the elementary need of every community. When a community begins to lose sight of this fact, a slow process of decay will result in dilapidated and inadequate living units and vacant businesses. Furthermore, a cumulative feeling of despair can be brought on by the poor physical appearance of the community and its housing stock.

The quality of Easton's neighborhoods is determined by the cumulative impact of the Town's housing supply and living environment. Since major community goals are to improve the quality of life and to promote the availability and affordability of decent, safe, and sanitary housing for all Town residents, housing ranks as an important local concern.

Housing in Easton encompasses a wide spectrum of types. It includes the grand homes built in the nineteenth century near the Downtown and the newest additions to the stock in places like Thread Haven and Chapel East. It includes units designed to cater to the elderly such as William Hill Manor and Londonderry as well as those targeted to the first time home buyer in subdivisions like Stoney Ridge and Charlestown Village. And it includes not only owner occupied housing, but also a number of rental apartments.

Table 9 summarizes Easton's housing stock by type and by tenure (i.e. rental vs. owner occupied). This table indicates, among other things, that the dominate housing type in Town is the single-family detached home and that there are slightly more renters than homeowners in Easton.

SOURCE: 1990 U.S. CENSUS OF POPULATION AND HOUSING

SOURCE: 1990 U.S. Census of Population and Housing

This table indicates that a lot of Easton's Housing stock is fairly old. One out of every five units are at least fifty years old. On the other hand, a seemingly disproportionate share of the housing is very new. A striking 5% of the housing stock was built within the previous 15 months of the 1990 Census. Since that time (April 1990), Easton has issued building permits for an additional 583 residential units (through 12/31/95). This means that as of the first day of 1996, there were an estimated 4,891 residential housing units in Easton and 16.3% of them have been constructed in the last seven years. That is approximately one out of every six housing units.

Another striking feature is the age of rental units in Easton. Almost 40% of the rental units were constructed prior to 1960, including 22.2% before 1940. This represents a potential problem since old rental units are the most likely to be in dilapidated or substandard condition.

A step toward alleviating this problem is being taken at the present time through the Town's Graham's Alley Revitalization effort. Part of this project involves the Town purchase of 49 dilapidated rental units which were constructed in the 1950's. These units have, in fact, been purchased and demolished. They are planned to be replaced with a mix of rental and owner-occupied units. The first phase of this project is Asbury Place, a 26 unit low-income, elderly housing apartment complex which was completed and opened in 1995.

Still despite this positive step, the condition of rental units remains a problem. Because of this, the Mayor and Council have recently instituted a Rental Housing Inspection Program. Under this program, rental units have to be registered and inspected annually for compliance with a minimum housing or livability code.

Another problem with the quality of housing in Easton is not so much the physical or structural quality but the aesthetic quality. The problem is that there is a trade-off between the number of aesthetic touches a developer can put into a development and the affordability of the houses. Thus a subdivision like Stoney Ridge, while providing sorely needed starter housing, is rather monotonous in appearance and lacking in amenities.

Part of this problem can and has been addressed through requirements for sidewalks, landscaping, and usable park space in subdivisions. Thus Chapel East, which is being constructed by the same developer as Stoney Ridge, is able to target the same entry-level housing market, but in what is generally a more aesthetically pleasing neighborhood.

The affordability of housing in Easton remains a concern. There are, however, a number of implementation alternatives available to the Town for the provision of affordable housing. Some of these alternatives are already being used in Easton to varying degrees. Several of these techniques will be discussed below as to their possible use in Easton to alleviate the problem of the lack of affordable housing.

(1) Assisted Housing

The primary approach to the housing problem over the last 40+ years has been to build housing for low income groups with the assistance of federal and/or state funds. While the form of these programs has varied widely, the net result is that the housing problem has not disappeared. Furthermore, many of these programs have been phased out in recent years meaning that the funds for this type of housing are becoming increasingly difficult to obtain. Easton has been quite fortunate in its ability to obtain such funding in recent years. There are, however, no guarantees that the Town will remain as fortunate in the future.

Exacerbating this problem in Easton is the fact that Talbot County has no Housing Authority or similar agency to provide assisted housing. Thus the incorporated Towns, primarily Easton, have assumed the role of providing all of the County's assisted housing.

(2) Density Bonuses

One approach used to encourage the provision of more affordable housing is the use of a bonus incentive to increase a project's density in exchange for the provision of affordable housing. These programs may be mandatory in the sense that a portion of each development must meet certain pricing requirements. In other cases the bonus can be used at the developer's discretion. Whether this bonus is optional or mandatory, it provides an economic incentive and a soft subsidy (i.e. increased density) to the developer.

Density bonuses for affordable housing were considered in Easton during the drafting of the 1993 Zoning Ordinance. At one point, increased density was possible in PUD and PR projects. However, this option was later removed from the Draft document due to a concern that it would be impossible to monitor and control the resale of affordable units. This can be a problem unless there is a well-staffed and well-educated Housing Department or an organization such as Habitat for Humanity, either of whom could hold a second mortgage on the affordable units to insure that they remain restricted to occupancy by lower-income individuals or families.

(3) Resident Exemption

One method of addressing the affordable housing problem has been developed by a number of resort or rural communities. One example is provided by the New Jersey Pinelands. To cope with normal metropolitan growth pressures, which were negatively impacting native populations and industries, the Pinelands Commission was formed to develop the New Jersey Pinelands Comprehensive Management Plan. This Plan set standards which were designed to deflect growth away from environmentally sensitive and agriculturally significant areas and direct it towards more suitable lands. Consequently, large portions of the Pines were limited to agricultural and forestry uses or extremely low density residential development. These limitations, along with normal growth pressures, created market rates for housing which were well out of reach of lower income households and traditional Pine Barren residents who lived and worked in Pinelands' industries. Recognizing this, the Pinelands Commission provided for an exemption, known as the "Piney Exemption," from the low density restrictions of the Plan for qualified individuals with a cultural and economic tie to the Pinelands. This exemption substantially increased the density of development in otherwise very low density areas for families that had historically lived and worked in the Pinelands. While a newcomer would have to acquire thirty-nine acres to build a home, the "native Pinelands residents" might need as little as 3.2 acres.

Locally, similar preferential treatment can be found in the subdivision provisions of the Chesapeake Bay Critical Areas Law and the Forest Conservation Law. Both of these laws have provisions, although limited, for subdivision activity which would not otherwise be permitted, provided the lots are transferred to family members.

The legality of these types of resident exemptions has been upheld in a case involving the resort community of Chilmark, Massachusetts (See Sturges v. Town of Chilmark, 402 N. E. 2^nd 1346, Mass. 1980). In that case an exemption known as "young lot bylaw" was adopted in connection with amendments to the zoning ordinance in 1979. The purpose of the bylaw is to help

"young people who have grown up in Chilmark and lived here for a substantial portion of their lives and who, because of rising land prices, have been unable to obtain suitable land for their permanent homes at a reasonable price, and who decline to continue to live in Chilmark."

These types of regulations require an identifiable group as a target for housing. Where the target population already owns the land, as was the case in the Pinelands, the exemption for normal lot sizes will be sufficient to permit the construction of modest cost housing. The effectiveness of this measure and its viability over time is more uncertain when the population group must acquire land for their homes. To be successful, the exemption must be applied in low density areas or environmentally restricted areas where the lower density or lot size sufficiently lowers the land costs so that residents can afford the housing. Balancing the impact of this type of housing provision must be clearly articulated so that the purpose of the compromise is clearly understood.

Furthermore, there is no guarantee that individuals of modest incomes will be able to afford housing constructed under these programs in the future. Restrictions on the sale of the units under an exemption-type of control are needed to ensure that the stock of the units for the target community remains available over time. Regulations that provide some form of rent or price control for units constructed under this scheme should also be established.

(4) Commercial Apartments

Commercial apartments, multi-family dwelling units built above commercial uses, represent a viable alternative for the provision of affordable housing. Although this type of housing went out of style with the mass production of affordable single family housing in the 1950's, it represents a lower cost option for builders since there is no land value associated with the dwelling units. Given the relatively high densities that can be achieved, these types of units tend to be more affordable than new housing in other locations within a community. In addition, locating residential uses in commercial areas also provides for a more efficient use of existing infrastructure, government services, and greater accessibility to jobs. In can also help create a sense of vitality in commercial areas which otherwise might be perceived as "dead" during certain hours.

Commercial (or accessory) apartments are already permitted outright in Easton in the CG and CR Districts. No expansion of this use is anticipated although some simple publicity might lead to further implementation, especially in the Town Center area.

(5) Granny Flats

Another option for providing more affordable housing is the granny flat. A granny flat is defined by the Easton Zoning Ordinance as "a second dwelling contained within or on the same lot of the principal dwelling on a single residential lot." In other words it is a garage or a second or third floor of a home which would otherwise no longer be used by the owner, which has been converted into an apartment. Currently this use is prohibited in the Town of Easton.

The removal of this prohibition might be appropriate as a way to provide more affordable housing. Granny-flats actually help to make two units more affordable. First, given their relatively small size, the apartments are fairly reasonably priced. Second, the added rental income can help the owner of the principal residence. This option is particularly attractive for older home-owners (hence the name granny flat) who may nearly simultaneously find themselves with added space due the death of a spouse or from children moving out and reduced income due to retirement.

These are just a few options available to the Town to promote the provision of more affordable housing. Recommendations as to which should be implemented are provided in the final section of this chapter.

Public Safety is a topic which has rarely been considered by a Comprehensive Plan. The feeling among Planners has been that such matters are a police concern and that there is little that could be done by planners to improve the situation. However, as crime rates grow and the concern over crime becomes paramount among citizens’ worries, planners are beginning to realize that they should address the issue. The police and judicial system will still be the primary agencies responsible for addressing this issue, but there are things that planners can do to help. Furthermore, planners would be remiss to ignore this problem as crime, whether actual or perceived, can have a very real and significant impact on other things that planners have traditionally been concerned with, such as housing and economic development. All other factors being equal, the owner of a potential new business is going to locate in the community where his or her family and employees are going to be the safest.

The Visioning Committee felt so strongly about this issue that they devoted an entire Station to the topic at the Town Planning Workshops. A summary of the input received at this station includes the following observations:

NEIGHBORHOOD PLANNING GOALS, OBJECTIVES, AND IMPLEMENTATION STRATEGIES

GOAL

To promote the general safety and welfare of Easton's residents by using the Town's development review system to enhance and, where possible, correct deficiencies in, community safety.

OBJECTIVES

IMPLEMENTATION STRATEGIES