Building Better

Washington Area Projects
In the Metro DC area, Sierra Club has have long supported good planning for transit oriented developments, particularly in the District. As the region grows, good projects are also turning up near suburban transit hubs, including the proposed MetroWest Project at the Vienna Metro Station and the plan for new “Town Center” development at the Shady Grove Metro stop.

• Read about Vienna MetroWest - Fairfax County, Virginia.
• Read about the Shady Grove Town Center, Montgomery County, Virginia 

NEWS RELEASE
December 1, 2005
CONTACT:     Chris Carney, 202-237-0754

SIERRA CLUB NAMES AMERICA'S BEST NEW DEVELOPMENT
National Report Lists Top 12 Projects; Local Chapters Endorse DC Area Projects

The Sierra Club, America's oldest and largest environmental organization, today released its first-ever Guide to America's Best New Development, which names a dozen cutting-edge projects that have positively transformed neighborhoods.  Better known for its efforts to combat sprawling construction, the group is making the point that there is a better way to build and produce healthy and livable communities.

"Too often local governments accept poorly planned development, and the traffic that goes with it, because they believe they have no other choice," said the Sierra Club's Executive Director Carl Pope.  "Our hope is that Americans will look at these winning projects and demand better projects in their own communities."

The Sierra Club applauded a diverse set of projects, from cities large and small, to suburbs, to small towns in each corner of the nation. They involve economically challenged areas like Fruitvale in Oakland and Highland Park in Milwaukee, as well as well-off areas like Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts. They also included massive projects like Atlantic Station in Atlanta, which encompasses 138 acres and includes 12 million square feet of retail, office, residential and hotel, and by contrast, smaller scale projects like 66 residential homes and an industrial building in Hopkins, Minnesota.

To merit consideration for the Sierra Club's top development honors, projects had to:

• Offer a range of transportation choices, including walking, biking, and public transportation;
• Redevelop existing areas, rather than developing natural areas, working farmland, or wetlands;
• Locate homes, retail shops, and offices close to each other;
• Preserve existing community assets, by re-using older buildings and protecting rivers, woodlands, and farms;
• Minimize stormwater pollution and handle runoff in an environmentally responsible manner; and,
• Be the product of meaningful input by local citizens and reflect a broad set of local values.

The Sierra Club also considered the use of "green building" design and housing affordability in compiling its list of the best new development.

"The single, most important factor in all of these projects is that neighborhood residents actually had a say in how they were built," explained Pope.  "And when you ask people what they want, they ask for ways to get to and from work without sitting in traffic, and they want walkable neighborhoods, clean water, and green space."

Much of the development in the United States today is sprawling, low density, car-dependent "bigbox" or "strip-mall" construction, which produces more and more traffic and harms our land, air, and water. While the Sierra Club opposes poorly planned, sprawling development, built on natural areas and farmland, it actively supports quality investment in areas that already have a history of development to enhance communities and the environment. By reinvesting in existing neighborhoods and creating more walkable, transit accessible places to live and work, a select subset of the nation’s development leaders are raising the bar for neighborhood design.

The Sierra Club also noted that these models for new development could inform the massive rebuilding effort in the Gulf following Hurricane Katrina.  In fact, just a few weeks ago, the Sierra Club applauded both Mississippi and Louisiana for recruiting the nation's top architects, designers, and planners to explore with local officials and citizens options for rebuilding ravaged towns.

Washington Area Projects
In the metropolitan Washington, DC area, Sierra Club has stepped up action in support of good local development. Not surprisingly, the Club’s local groups and chapters in the Washington, DC area have long supported good planning for transit oriented developments, particularly in the District. As the region grows, good projects are also turning up near suburban transit hubs, including the proposed MetroWest Project at the Vienna Metro Station and the plan for new “Town Center” development at the Shady Grove Metro stop.

The MetroWest development proposal has a mixture of uses and is designed to be walkable, attractive, and well-connected to surrounding neighborhoods.  The current number of planned residential units is needed to build a critical mass for retail establishments.  It also triggers a commitment from the developer to make up to $10 million worth of improvements for pedestrian and bicycle access, as well as upgrades for the bus terminal and parking at the Vienna Station. 

“Sierra Club has been advocating to keep the number of units high,” said Douglas Stewart, a Fairfax resident and volunteer Sierra Club leader. “Without these pieces of the puzzle, our community would once again face the negative consequences of development without reaping the benefits of good design.”

Montgomery County is similarly poised to become a model for large suburban counties making the transition from sprawl development to an urban pattern focused on mixed use nodes along the transit backbone. “Shady Grove and other transit centers are the right places to grow if we’re going to address the pressures on the Agricultural Reserve,” said Pam Lindstrom, a Montgomery County resident and Sierra Club member.

The projects which made the Sierra Club's national list of America's Best New Development Projects are:

TACOMA, WA - University of Washington, Tacoma; Charles Moore, LMN Architects PORTLAND, OR - The Pearl District; Hoyt Street Developers and Gerdling Edlen Development Co.
WINDSOR, CA - Town Green Village Project; Orrin Thiessen and Town Green Enterprises OAKLAND, CA - Fruitvale Transit Village Project; The Unity Council
SAN MATEO, CA - Bay Meadows; Peter Calthorpe, Architect
SALT LAKE CITY, UT - Central Business District Extension Project and Gateway Area; Salt Lake City Redevelopment Agency
ALBUQUERQUE, NM - East Downtown Redevelopment Project; Rob Dickson, Paradigm and Co.
HOPKINS, MN - Excelsior Tech Center Redevelopment and Regency Project; Bill Beard, The Beard Group, Inc.
MILWAUKEE, WI - Highland Park: Highland Gardens and Highland Homes; Housing Authority, City of Milwaukee
MANCHESTER-BY-THE-SEA, MA - 10 and 12 Summer Street; Manchester Housing Authority
GREENSBORO, NC - Southside Neighborhood; Robert "Nate" Bowman, Bowman Development Group
ATLANTA, GA - Atlantic Station; Jacoby Development

To access the full report, visit:http://www.sierraclub.org/sprawl/report05/