A Collaborative Approach to Planning
William Miller, Ray Quay, and Frederick Steiner
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A Collaborative Approach to Planning |
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Ward Brady, James Burke, Joseph Ewan, Rebecca Fish Ewan, William Miller, Ray Quay, and Frederick Steiner |
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An interdisciplinary group of Phoenix city staff, and Arizona State University faculty, State of Arizona staff, and people form other local private organizations and government agencies are collaborating on a variety of planning activities. The focus of the collaboration is the northern, largely undeveloped portion of the city of Phoenix, Arizona. This group now called North Sonoran Collaborative has pursued three principles: desert ecosystems should be protected, a diversity of development should be pursued, and a sense of community should be created in new developments. The collaborative's work has influenced city plans and policy. This paper discusses this unique approach to planning and how it has proven effective in responding to the local communities needs quickly.
Today one often hears from professionals and lay people a lament for the loss of the "Grand Plan." Such plans often charted the collective hopes of communities and created the great "places" we turn to when seeking examples of what we are not building today (Neuman 1998a, 1998b). Paul Niebanck (1993) suggested that the culprit behind this loss was a growing divide between "place making" and "rule making." In today's world where urban places are becoming increasingly complex technological and social places, professional specialization in "place making" or "rule making" has become a necessity. Such specialization seems to widen Neibanck's gap. Yet, some communities are still successfully creating and implementing "Grand Plans." Such plans may not be of the same mold as past plans, but they are nevertheless "Grand Plans." Such communities have discovered that "Grand Plans" result from merging "rule making" with "place making." Such is happening in North Phoenix, Arizona.
Since 1994, a diverse team of planners, designers, and environmental scientists has collaborated on a variety of studies, plans, and charrettes for the northern 130-square-mile portion of the City of Phoenix (see, for example, McCarthy et al. 1995; Ewan and Fish Ewan 1996; City of Phoenix 1996, 1997a, 1997b, 1998a, 1998b, 1998c, 1998d; Brady et al. 1998; Burke and Ewan 1998a, 1998b; Ewan et al. 1996, 1998; Steiner et al. 1999). The configuration and activities of the team have evolved over time. The North Sonoran Collaborative, as the group has dubbed itself, is an informal, loosely organized group. The collaborative is marked by a high level of commitment to an overarching goal as well as a great deal of mutual respect for each other's work. The penultimate goal is to create better communities for northern Phoenix. "Better" is defined as respecting the natural environment, creating opportunities for social interaction and economic prosperity, and designing a diversity of density unlike other, more uniform portions of the Phoenix metropolitan area.
The collaborative is a unique undertaking between a city and a university and involves several academic disciplines and city departments. In addition, individuals from state agencies, private companies, community organizations, and neighborhood planning committees are involved. Design charrettes and research projects have been undertaken while plans have been adopted and implementation measures proposed. Through the efforts of the collaborative, a new vision for Phoenix is emerging: one based on both the "rule-making" and the "place-making" perspectives.
The collaborative indeed agrees with Neuman's recent advocacy for plan-making (see his two 1998 articles). Charting collective hope is certainly a value shared by participants in the collaborative. Neither Neuman nor Neibanck suggested how to plan in this time. We are pragmatists, who believe we are living in an "ecological" or "information" age or an information age where ecology mediates the message, and perhaps ecology, that is, interaction with each other and our environments, is the message. An ecological view suggests culturally responsible, but environmentally conservative, change. And so, we will suggest a plan-making process based on that view and our experience. We have transformed Patrick Geddes' survey --> plan --> action to the more cyclical survey --> action --> plan -> action -> survey.
Such a cyclical, iterative process has occurred in the Desert View Tri-Villages Area of Arizona. A continuous cycle of incremental steps together build a grand plan for a magnificent landscape.
The Tri-Villages area is located in the Sonoran Desert region, which covers much of Arizona, the Mexican states of Sonora, Baja Nord, and Baja Sur plus a small area in California. The developed portions of the Phoenix metropolitan area are in the lower Colorado River Valley subdivision of the Sonoran Desert, the most arid part of the Sonoran Desert region. In contrast, the Desert View Tri-Villages Area is located in the transition to the Arizona upland subdivision, the highest and most picturesque portion of the region. The first general plan for the Tri-Villages area was adopted in 1987 when it was called Peripheral Areas C and D by City of Phoenix planners. The Phoenix metropolitan region is one of the most rapidly growing parts of the United States. New development is progressing at a pace of over an acre an hour.
After 1987, there were several events in the city that caused local officials to revise and update its general plan for the area. Most of the concern was focused on the growth and the impact of that growth on beautiful desert lands. As a result, by the early 1990s the Desert View Tri-Villages area was faced with several growth-related problems and opportunities. The problems included how to protect environmentally sensitive areas and where to locate new development. Every five years, there is a demand for 5,000 new homes in the Tri-Villages that will consume 2,000 acres of land with current development patterns. Already sparsely settled, the current residents sought to maintain their rural way of life.
An overriding issue was the rising concern about the very nature of suburban development in the Phoenix metropolitan region. The Phoenix, Arizona, metropolitan area is a late 20th century place, largely suburban in character. Its development is a result of improved automobile and air transportation as well as the invention of air conditioning technology. Large national government subsidies for water, highway, and housing development plus significant national military investments in the region stimulated much growth, especially after the Second World War. As the seventh largest city in the United States, with a population of over 1.2 million, present-day Phoenix has increased its 1940 population of 65,000 18-fold, making it one of the nation's fastest growing cities (Barker 1995; City of Phoenix 1995). Meanwhile the metropolitan area grew from just over 186,000 people in 1940 to over 2.4 million people by 1995. According to City of Phoenix Planning Department data, the region is adding about 63,000 residents per year, who require about 23,000 new housing units (Tempe Daily News Tribune 1995, A9). The region's population is expected to double by 2020.
The region is a challenging place to inhabit. Frank Lloyd Wright defined the Sonoran desert as "where plants exist between hell and high water." Although challenging to inhabit, it is also a fragile landscape with relatively few barriers to development. It has been simple to ignore the landscape and develop freely with few constraints, making this an attractive place for developers. People are moving to this challenging place because they like it. They like their backyard swimming pools and barbecues. They like the perceived safety and access to open space. They like the climate. The price of homes is reasonable for lower and middle income residents. Phoenix has one of the highest percentages of home ownership of any major city in the nation. If widespread property ownership is a route to both personal freedom and democratic government, as John Locke and Thomas Jefferson believed, then the Phoenix region is the embodiment of the American dream (or perhaps the American nightmare). As Herbert Gans illustrated in his classic 1967 study of Levittown, Americans like suburban life. But suburban development poses many challenges for landscape planning, such as the loss of environmentally sensitive areas, prime farmlands, and wonderful views as well as rising fiscal and energy costs and worsening air quality.
As a result of these problems and opportunities, Phoenix city planners decided to revise the general plan for the area and with the village planning committee set some preliminary goals.
Adopted in 1987 as the Area C&D Plan, a variety of goals were proposed including:
Unfortunately, little local detailed ecological information about the north Sonoran Desert was available, so it was not clear how such goals could be met.
The city planners turned to the ASU School of Planning and Landscape Architecture (SPLA) for help with understanding the ecology of the area. In addition to environmental planners and landscape architects, an environmental resource program had been recently added to the school. This program included faculty and students with expertise in plant and wildlife ecology, soils science, geographic information systems (GIS), and remote sensing. An informal technical working group was formed in 1994. The North Sonoran Collaborative consisted of environmental scientists, planners, landscape architects, and architects from ASU, the city of Phoenix, consulting companies, and the state of Arizona. Initially, the collaborative met monthly to discuss the environment of the Desert View Tri-Villages Area and to explore development options.
As a result of the working group, several ASU student projects were undertaken that studied the landscape ecology of the area and possible environmental impacts of its development.
These studies provided much of the groundwork for subsequent planning. However, planning is seldom as neat and linear as chapters in a book. The process is, and was in this case, more iterative. Initial, large-scale ecological inventories and suitability analyses were conducted but these raised more questions and demonstrated gaps in the knowledge about the ecology of the Desert View Tri-Villages Area and the Sonoran Desert in general.
Very early in the process, strong political support developed for protecting large areas of desert in the Tri-Villages. In December of 1994 the Phoenix Parks, Recreation, and Library Department (PRLD) and a citizens advisory committee developed a preliminary plan to help save a portion of the remaining desert in the city. But it was still not clear what areas need to be protected? The PRLD funded a detailed study of the Cave Creek Wash, headed by ASU landscape architecture professors Rebecca Fish Ewan and Joe Ewan (Ewan et al. 1996), to answer this question. Their research contributed to the proposed protection of a significant portion of the Cave Creek Wash drainage way. The work was so compelling that the PRLD decided to fund additional studies of other major washes in the area, also headed by Fish Ewan and Ewan (Ewan et al. 1998). These studies indicated a paucity of knowledge about wildlife along the washes. As a result, the PRLD funded research directed by ASU environmental resource professor Bill Miller to study wildlife habitats.
The student inventories, suitability analysis, and other research had provided a good beginning, but a richer database and faster ways to exchange information and incorporate such information into policy efforts was needed. In response to this need, the collaborative initiated a multi-disciplinary GIS initiative which included the City of Phoenix PRLD and Information Technology Department, and faculty and staff from the SPLA and the Information Technology GIS Laboratory at ASU (Brady et al. 1998). The purpose of this initiative was to begin development of a coordinated GIS database.
The scale of the area (a 130-square-mile area) the scale of information needed (high enough resolution to do park and development site planning) and the time frame that information was needed, presented a significant challenge. To insure information would be quickly accessible as it was collected, all GIS data structures and topology were coordinated to insure quick integration into collaborative members' existing GIS systems. Data collection focused on gathering information critical to the ongoing Phoenix policy processes. This included existing geopolitical, infrastructure, cultural, and ecological information.
This database provided a foundation to which new information was added as it became available. This database is also now available to rapidly allow these data to be included in further analysis and to be incorporated into the City of Phoenix planning policy efforts. This use of information technology applications is critical to effectuating public policy. The projects undertaken allowed the city planning department, the city parks and recreation department, and ASU's School of Planning and Landscape Architecture to be accepted as the "experts" in resource planning for the North Phoenix area by the public, community leaders, and local legislators. This respect was achieved because the members of the collaborative were able to deliver needed information quickly and in an easily understood format. It was the use of information technology that allowed the North Sonoran Collaborative to accomplish this recognition.
Meanwhile, the working group had developed four character concepts-desert preservation, rural desert, suburban desert, and growth-that would later serve as the organizational elements for the formation of four teams in a 1995 charrette organized by ASU and the City of Phoenix (McCarthy et al. 1995). This charrette helped refine concepts and visions for the area. The process led to general plan revisions for the eastern portion of the Tri-Villages (adopted in 1996), the Interstate 17 corridor in the west (proposed in 1998), and the Sonoran Preserve concentrated in the center but including sites throughout the area (adopted in 1998).
Throughout the process, public involvement and education were extensive and ongoing. The village planning committee, the Sonoran Preserve Citizens Advisory Committee, and the planning commission, and the parks board were especially active. Many involvement techniques were employed. In addition to the charrette processes already mentioned, workshops, open houses, and hearings were organized, surveys conducted, and information disseminated. Many of these activities received prominent coverage in the local press.
Within the northern part of Phoenix, as well as in the south and southwest, collaborative "place making" and "rule making" efforts continue. ASU has expanded its natural resource and design efforts. The city is developing the detailed zoning design standards for all the character areas, including a desert employment center. Early in 1999 the Phoenix City Council will be reviewing its first "growth management" policy for the North Black Canyon Corridor, based largely on the concepts developed under projects of the North Sonoran Collaborative. All of these activities would not have been possible without the collaboration among "rule makers" and "place makers" in working jointly towards a shared vision of grand plans.
We especially appreciate the support of this work by Dean John Meunier and Associate Dean Mary Kihl of Arizona State University, City of Phoenix Planning Director David Richert, and Parks, Recreation, and Library Director James Colley. Numerous city staff, faculty, and students contributed to this work. The key city staff include Dean Brennan, Lynn Favour, Terry Newton, Jolene Ostler and Tracy Sato. Among the important ASU faculty and staff collaborators, we acknowledge the contributions of John Brock, Jana Fry, and Doug Green. Many graduate students and former graduate students in environmental planning and environmental resources have been involved, notably Jim McCarthy, Michael Collins, Jack Gilcrest, Nancy Osborne, Carlos Licon, Jill Cohen, Matthew Bucchin, and Laura Sychowski. We also want to acknowledge the work of the numerous public committees including the North Gateway and Desert View Village Planning Committees.
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Ward Brady, Joseph Ewan, Rebecca Fish Ewan, William Miller, and Frederick Steiner
School of Planning and Landscape Architecture
Arizona State University
Tempe, Arizona 85287-2005
Ray Quay, Planning Department
James Burke, Parks, Recreation and Libraries Department
City of Phoenix
Phoenix AZ 85004