Tag: walnut hills

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Business Development News

CNU22: Cincinnati Wins National Planning Award for Form-Based Code

College Hill FBC Vision [Provided]

The City of Cincinnati’s Department of Planning & Buildings has been on a roll lately. This past weekend in Buffalo, at the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) national conference, the city won its third national award of the year for its new form-based code.

CNU’s grand prize for the Best Planning Tool or Process was actually a tie and thus jointly awarded to Cincinnati for its form-based code (FBC) and Station Center, a transit-oriented development in Union City, California.

As first reported by UrbanCincy, the Department of Planning & Buildings was honored with the Daniel Burnham Award for a Comprehensive Plan at the American Planning Association’s (APA) national conference in Atlanta.  Additionally, in late 2013, the Department won the Ohio APA’s award for Comprehensive Planning for a Large Jurisdiction.

In 2012, city leaders were also awarded with the Frank F. Ferris II Community Planning Award from the Hamilton County Regional Planning Commission.

In addition to city staff and thousands of Cincinnatians, those involved in developing Cincinnati’s award-winning FBC included Opticos Design, Hall Planning & Engineering, Urban Design Associates, glaserworks, Wise Economy Workshop, and Urban Fast Forward.

“It is an honor for us to have our code recognized by an organization that is on the cutting edge of best practices with regard to planning tools and good urbanism,” said Alex Peppers, senior city planner for Cincinnati. “We put a lot of work into developing a code that would fit our context and assets.”

What makes Cincinnati’s FBC unique is that it is a voluntary tool for neighborhoods who seek to preserve the character of their centers of activity and historic business districts. Thus far, it has been adopted in College Hill, Madisonville, Walnut Hills and Westwood.

Jurors noted that they were particularly impressed by the code’s extensive photo documentation and mapping analysis that calibrated the code’s application, and reinforced the unique characteristics of Cincinnati’s urban neighborhoods.

“The Cincinnati code is an excellent example of that advancement in the deployment of SmartCode, with particular attention paid to public process, neighborhood structure and graphic presentation,” explained Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, one of CNU’s award jurors. “It reinforces Cincinnati’s historic urban patterns with guidance for appropriate infill and predictable redevelopment building.”

The final draft of Cincinnati’s form-based code is available online and can be accessed here.

On the twelfth official episode of The UrbanCincy Podcast, we were joined by Roxanne Qualls to discuss Cincinnati’s development and implementation of form-based codes. You can subscribe to The UrbanCincy Podcast on iTunes for free.

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Arts & Entertainment News

Inaugural We Are Walnut Hills Festival to Take Place This Saturday at Firehouse Row

Those engaged in what is happening in the city are undoubtedly familiar with the positive energy that abounds at the numerous Walnut Hills community events. Community Council meetings are packed with a diverse, engaged group of residents on a regular basis.

This is exactly what the upcoming We Are Walnut Hills Festival on May 17 will celebrate. Event organizers say it will be an opportunity to harness the energy of anyone who lives, works or worships in Walnut Hills for a celebration of community.

Recent events there have drawn attendees from the entire city, including, most notably, the Walnut Hills Street Food Festival, which is now planning for its third year. Last year it was estimated to have attracted more than 5,000 people.

Walnut Hills Redevelopment Foundation (WHRF) community engagement specialist, DJ Greene, says that the We Are Walnut Hills Festival will seek to look inward toward the neighborhood’s roughly 6,500 Walnut Hills residents.

“The festival is really an opportunity for neighborhood people to learn about each other and engage each other,” Greene explained.

The event will take place this Saturday at Firehouse Row, the open green space in the 700 block of McMillan Street, and Five Points Alley, where there will be special activities for kids, art, games and a grill out. And Greene says that local businesses and organizations will be allowed to set up booths for free.

The festival’s location will help show off Five Points Alley’s remarkable transformation. Through the efforts of volunteers, the junction of urban alleyways was turned from a derelict, litter-strewn area into a community gathering space and home to the popular Five Points Pop-Up Biergarten. Building on last year’s inaugural success, beer garden socials will become weekend-long events on the third weekend of every month.

The We Are Walnut Hills Festival will take place from 12pm to 4pm on Saturday, May 17. Anyone interested in volunteering should contact Sarah Dotter at SarahDotter@walnuthillsrf.org. And, of course, you can track all things happening in the neighborhood on social media at #WeAreWalnutHills.

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Business Development News

Western & Southern Aiming to Alter Lytle Park Historic District Boundaries

Proposed Lytle Park Historic District Boundary (City of Cincinnati)

The construction of Interstate 71 spelled the permanent division of several east side neighborhoods in Cincinnati including Evanston and Walnut Hills. But in the early 1960’s, an effort arose from downtown land owners around historic Lytle Park to preserve one of the oldest areas in the city.

Enacted in 1964, the Lytle Park Historic District has protected this area of the city which I-71 now passes under. Now, per city regulations, the city’s oldest historic district is up for renewal. A city staff report to the Cincinnati Planning Commission, however, reveals that several changes may be afoot.

The district has historically been split into two types of regulated areas. Area A properties were those that had to meet the strictest requirements of the historic district’s guidelines; while Area B properties were granted special allowances to accommodate some changes.

Over the last few decades Western & Southern Financial Group has slowly acquired many of the properties that make up the district. Most recently, the company acquired the 105-year-old building the Anna Louise Inn had long called its home.

The proposed district changes would remove some properties from the historic district altogether, and would also eliminate the distinction between properties. Specifically the Woodford Building along Fourth Street, a building along Fifth Street, a parking garage, and several historic buildings along Third and Arch Streets would be removed under the proposal.

In the letter to Planning Commission legal counsel Western & Southern attorney Fran Barrett stated:

“Our client’s desires to be able to provide for keeping its home office headquarters in the area which will ensure the ever-increasing high number of wage earners who add significantly to the city’s tax base, support a number of businesses and commercial activities in the downtown area, and continue to promote a major financial services company in the Central Business District.

There is a concern that an added layer of government reviews could deter positive economic growth at this location. Western & Southern’s track record demonstrates that all concerned should have nothing but the greatest of confidence in any future development undertaken by Western & Southern.”

The removal of these areas from the historic district would essentially clear the way for the financial services giant to demolish and redevelop the properties in a way that would not have to conform to the district’s guidance on new infill development.

Such information only fuels intense speculation that Western & Southern is actively eyeing a location to build a new high-rise office tower to consolidate its headquarters, and possibly even a second high-rise tower accommodating either a hotel or residences.

While the staff report offers no comment on the removal of the buildings from the district, the three buildings along Arch Street are some of the oldest buildings in the city.

The proposed changes will go before Cincinnati Planning Commission on Friday, May 2. The meeting is scheduled to take place at 9am on the seventh floor inside the  J. Martin Griesel Conference Room at Centennial Plaza Two (map).

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Development News Transportation

APA14: Tactical Urbanism Laying the Groundwork for Safer, More Livable Cities

A common theme running throughout the APA’s 2014 National Planning Conference is how many of our planning tools, from parking policy to zoning, can accommodate a renewed thirst for urban living driven largely by Millennials and Baby Boomers.

Fifty years of auto-oriented city building is what planners largely have to work with in all but the historic neighborhoods developed before the ubiquitous spread of the private automobile. This situation has created a need to adopt innovative techniques to create people-oriented spaces where vehicle flow was previously the objective.

One concept derived from this movement is Tactical Urbanism, as explained by Valerie Watson from the Los Angeles Department of Transportation in a session called Creatively Transforming Streets for People.

The idea behind Tactical Urbanism is to implement small, realistic community-oriented projects that cumulatively, over time, can improve livability. For example, Watson said, one could shut down a street for a day and open it up to pedestrians, cyclists, food trucks and even set up a pop-up cafés.

Beyond the livability improvements, such activities also benefit from the power of demonstration from normal residents transforming a place to be more community-oriented. As has been seen throughout North America, these activities can often set the stage for more permanent fixes like parklets, bicycle corrals, extension of cafe spaces into parking spots and the creation of small plazas.

An example from Santa Monica combined this approach with public engagement was explained by Jason Kligier, of the City of Santa Monica. The event was called Pop-Up MANGo, which stands for Michigan Ave Neighborhood Greenway (MANGo).

The Greenway, Kligier said, would connect new and proposed bike lanes via Michigan Avenue in the city’s Pico neighborhood – a residential area through which cars tend to pass through over the posted speed limit. The new pedestrian and cyclist orientation would mean creating an inviting streetscape of sidewalks, calm roadways, increased trees and landscape.

The pop-up event in Santa Monica included the addition impermanent features like curb extensions, enhanced landscaping, places for impromptu neighborhood interactions, wayfinding signage and various traffic calming measures. Food trucks, music and interactive activities created a festival-like atmosphere for the more than 400 attendees.

When asked about how they felt about the installations, a majority of neighbors were in favor of the traffic calming measures.

Another way in which planners are working to make cities more livable was discussed in a session on Monday, where attendees learned about techniques in implementation of cap parks over highways. Not only do such efforts create green space in areas where there is little room to accommodate new parks, but they also reconnect neighborhoods that had been torn apart by multiple lanes of speeding traffic.

This movement toward reorienting roadways into more hospitable environments for other users was echoed further in sessions like Building the New American Streetscape, Transforming Streets and Reclaiming the Suburban Corridor, among others.

There are some hints of this movement in Cincinnati as well, including the city’s various on-street bike corrals, Walnut Hills Streetfood Festival, two-way street conversions, Second Sunday on Main, road diets and Cincy Summer Streets which will have its inaugural season this year.

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Business News Transportation

Metro Has Begun Installing New 24-Hour Ticketing Kiosks Throughout City

Government Square Ticketing Kiosk [Travis Estell]

The Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority (SORTA) has made a new push to expand ticket and stored-value cards by adding new locations and options for riders to make their purchases.

The first announcement was that Metro would begin selling passes at Cincinnati City Hall, starting April 1, inside the city’s Treasury Department in Room 202. The sales office is open Monday through Friday from 8:30am to 4:30pm, and will offer Zone 1 and 2 Metro 30-day rolling passes, $20 stored-value cards and Metro/TANK passes.

The new location marks the twelfth sales office for Metro including three others Downtown and locations in Walnut Hills, Tri-County, Western Hills, North College Hill, Over-the-Rhine, Roselawn, College Hill and Avondale.

The region’s largest transit agency also installed its first ticket vending machine. The new kiosk is located at Government Square and is available for use 24 hours a day. The machine only accepts cash and credit cards, and offers Metro 30-day rolling passes including Metro/TANK passes, and $10, $20 and $30 stored-value cards.

According to Metro officials, this is the first of more ticketing machines to come with the stations in the Uptown Transit District to be the next locations to get them. Future additions, officials say, will be chosen based on the amount of ridership at given transit hubs throughout the system.

The new sales options come after Metro introduced a new electronic fare payment system in 2011. The new modern options of payment and ticketing proved so popular that after just one year, Metro officials cited the updated technology as one of the primary drivers for its ridership growth.

While the new initiatives show progress for the 41-year-old transit agency, they also show just how far behind the times it is.

The best fare payment systems in the world are tap and go systems that allow riders to charge their cards with whatever value they would like, thus eliminating any confusion of needing specific cards for certain time periods or values. Such cards also allow for perfect interoperability between various modes of transport including bus, rail, ferry, bikeshare and taxi.

In other instances, like Seoul’s T-Money Card and London’s Oyster Card, the systems even allow for the tap and go payment systems to accept credit cards and bank cards enabled with the technology – totally eliminating any barrier for potential riders wary of signing up for a new card they may not use all that often.

Similar to the fare payment cards, the new ticketing machines are outdated on arrival. Transit agencies throughout the United States that have had ticketing machines for years, like Chicago and New York, are currently in the process of transitioning to touch screen kiosks that are more user-friendly.