Anton C. Nelessen
Nelessen Associates, Inc.
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People need and crave accessibility to open spaces. In a range of +10 to -10, most tree lined streets, manicured urban parks, and views of landscaped settings receive the highest positive scores based on hundreds of thousands of participants who have taken the Visual Preference Survey (VPS)TM administered by A. Nelessen Associates over the past twelve years. (The Visual Preference Survey and VPS are trademarks of A. Nelessen Associates, Inc. Princeton, New Jersey.) Consistently high values not only indicate a basic love for both the natural unbuilt and urban landscaped settings, but also expresses a fundamental psychological need. Please refer to Visions for an American Dream (Nelessen, 1994; American Planning Association) for detailed examples of some of these concepts, including several hundred photographs and drawings.
Open spaces are desired by private individuals and public entities. As a private property possession, ownership allows individual horticultural expression and enhances economic and visual value. To many people it is of great therapeutic value to work in a yard or garden. "Owning" a view is a visual pleasure of worth. Public open spaces are required to enhance the positive sense of well being and to provide a range of recreational opportunities and civic parks not able to be owned or maintained by most individuals. Young children are fascinated by the natural environment. They are best accommodated as young children in private spaces but some require more public experiences in semi-public, neighborhood, and community open spaces. Growing teens need recreations fields as well as parks and public gathering places. Adults require recreation spaces as well as the physiological need for nature to balance prolonged stress, particularly when they have prolonged exposure to the negative built environment. Older adults are some of the most avid walkers, realizing that it is an excellent cardiovascular exercise. The best possible walking paths for this group are along, and in, the semi public, neighborhood, and community open spaces. All appreciate flowers, water features, and places to sit comfortably.
Larger open spaces are required regionally to create edges to built-up areas and to provide more hardy recreation opportunities. Hunters, mountain bikers, canoeists, bird watchers, and others love the natural environment; they relish being in it and the physical conquest is part of the challenge and the delight.
Visual and physical access to the basic types of open space is critical for everyone, but particularly for those growing up in the "urban hardscape." If their experiences of open space and nature are the treeless streets, paved playgrounds, and unkempt parks and back yards, their appreciation of all types of nature is stronger. A recent VPSTM in North Philadelphia and St. Louis revealed that images of small infill parks, tree lined streets, and larger open spaces received high desire and acceptability scores. If their economic conditions allow, many leave the urban setting for a new life in suburbia, planting trees, bushes, flowers, and, perhaps, a vegetable garden in their private lots. What about those who can not leave? Don't they also have the right to positive open spaces?
Individuals raised in places where a range of open spaces were within a rational and reasonable proximity, such as in older villages or small towns, might take it for granted, but generally they will be supporters of local, community, regional, and global open space preservation and maintenance. Many raised on the edge lot suburbia will succumb to the conditioning that portrays American success an ever larger house with large property ownership. Children then raised in this large lot environment, without exposure to a range of appropriate and desirable balance of open spaces, become conditioned and private open space becomes the common realm. The higher density older urban environments clearly have the most pressing need for open spaces. Many of the same standards, such as street trees and neighborhood parks, that can be applied to suburban places should also be applied to urban settings.
Providing the appropriate balance of open space into our continually urbanized existence is one of the great challenges for planners, politicians, and environmental groups. We must rethink the importance of a balanced open space system. All the VPSTM surveys indicate that it is highly valued and critically desired. Every positively perceived open space can also act to maintain sustainability between plants, animals, and people. A proper system of open spaces provides a range of sensory and emotional pleasures; to some it is sacred, to others it is awe, to some it is fear. But whatever the emotion, these open spaces provide the basic connection to ecology, to earth, to a more primitive instinct, and, certainly, to a greater sense of being.
This article will describe the ideal urban open spaces to be incorporated into the street, block, neighborhood, and town, and suggest why these must form a continuous network of greenery accessible and available to all people and animals. It will insist that open space is not only an important internal component of the traditional community, but that it also plays a critical role in the defining community and neighborhood types through the open space treatment of the edges. It will recommend that if there is to be a real sense of street, neighborhood, or town, the inclusion of more than private open space is critical and that there must be a balance between private and public open space. It will suggest various ways that open space can be incorporated into new development or retrofitted into existing developed areas. It will argue the economic and psychological benefits. It will recommend that the balance between private and public open space is crucial to creating more sustainable communities and that incorporating the appropriate open space must be a basic goal of all municipal, state, and national planning.
How perceptually important are open spaces to the average person? Based on the feedback from VPSTM's conducted across North America, tree lined "cathedral" streets and well maintained parks are considered some of the most positive urban open spaces, receiving values ranging as high as +6 to an unprecedented +9. This "value" has been determined by asking participants to rate their perception of an open space image using a +10 to - 10 scale. The positive or negative rating is based on immediate and intuitive responses. It takes an individual no more than 2 - 4 seconds to place a value on an image. Participants are asked to respond to two questions: first, whether the image makes them feel positive or negative, and, second, whether they think the image is appropriate or not for their community. After considering these questions, they then assign a value to the image. Their mind says, "I like it and I think it is appropriate for my town or block and, therefore, I will give it a positive rating." Next they think, "I like it a lot and it would be great here, therefore I will give it a rating of +8." Some individuals have been able to respond with values to the tenths. e.g., +4.5. Ratings are typically marked on special computer forms which are then read by a scanner allowing quick determination of the average value along with mode, maximum, minimum, and standards deviation for each image. The more positive the averaged value and the smaller the deviation, the more important the elements of that image are to the character and feeling of the place. The higher the perceptual value, typically, the greater the economic value of place, based on analysis of assessed and market value. Those spaces which have a negative perceptual value normally have lower economic value, greater feeling of cognitive pain, and should be avoided and certainly not be encouraged in future planning. When asking people on the accompanying questionnaire what emotions they feel when assigning a negative value to an image, the common response is depression followed by stress, anxiety, and fear. Places which have these characteristics, particularly in higher density urban setting must be prioritized for redesign and retrofitting. A more positive value can be achieved in negative or low positive valued places by incorporating the positive features of the positive rated images into the development and redevelopment plans and site design.
The VPSTM responses of suburban residents indicate less appreciation for large natural public land holdings beyond that which can be seen or experienced from the viewshed (what you see from a point) of the road, highway, or path. The views of the open spaces, for instance, from a bridge which crosses a stream or from a road at the edge of a pond, are always positive. However, these spaces typically rate only +1 to +4 by suburban residents. It is very important in the layout and design of walking paths, roads, and streets to consider the viewshed. Most suburban residents seem apprehensive about the "woods," generating what we call the "Little Red Riding Hood" complex or the fear of the natural landscape, because it is the habitat of ticks, snakes, poison ivy, etc. Perhaps too many people lack the understanding or education regarding ecological balance and sustainability. Too many new suburban residents seldom leave the rear deck, giving the appearance of fencing themselves off from nature as opposed to inviting nature in. Every opportunity must be taken in the layout and design of suburban and urban places to insure the maximum exposure to a full range of open spaces for the health, welfare, and safety of all individuals and communities.
Many urban streets, higher density residential, and commercial areas lack adequate positive open spaces or streetscapes. Too many generate values ranging from 0 to -9. Computer simulations, prepared by A. Nelessen Associates, which portray streets before and after streetscape inclusions such as street trees, textured sidewalks, and pedestrian scaled lighting, consistently generate higher values, suggesting that greater emphasis must be put on landscaped streets to increase the enjoyment of urban places.
Positive places do more than create a positive sense of being. Positive places engender positive emotions and behavior. People want to see those landscapes which give them positive emotions included in where they live, work, and play. They do not want to see landscape images which have received positive reactions altered or destroyed. They crave landscapes which give them a more positive sense of well being. The higher the positive perception, the greater the concern and the higher the long term dividend of presence and preservation. A high positive responses can also mean greater desire for private speculation and acquisition. A beautiful view, rather then remaining in public domain, becomes desired as a single or multiple private viewshed. Much positive open space has been destroyed or eliminated in the name of private suburban development. Design alternatives which include a wider range of open spaces types could enhance and add value to private holdings.
As the appreciation for open spaces grows, demonstrated by more positive scores in the VPSTM, there is greater opportunity and support by the community for preservation or inclusion in plans and codes for future development or redevelopment. When asked if they would be willing to pay higher taxes for the acquisition and preservation of high valued open spaces, the majority of participants have said yes.
Despite this fact, we all know that many municipalities are shying away from requiring a range of open spaces for supposed economic reasons. "Public open spaces are expensive to maintain and people don't use them enough to justify the costs," is the pressing justification. Many municipalities have neither the equipment nor the personnel. It is my feeling that because of the lack of an appropriate range of open spaces available and accessible to most residents in the appropriate locations, people have become conditioned to existing without and therefore it is not a priority nor a sufficient line item in the budget. The irony is that there always seems to be enough money for road improvements and maintenance.
It is not the streets, avenues, and boulevards themselves that create the long term value particularly in residential areas, it is the quality of the edges and the landscaping. This became obvious after the Dutch Elm disease hit many older Midwestern cities. The visual quality of the streets went from a high positive to very negative and the actual value of the houses dropped. The public streets looked devastated and the parks were bleak. Most of these communities went into an immediate tree replanting program and there is now a greater appreciation for "green streets" and an increased concern about quality of the open spaces. Despite this, new auto-oriented subdivisions around these cities have missed the lesson and are still being laid out and landscaped similar to most other suburban sprawl with a totally inadequate range of open spaces. In most subdivisions the car must be used to get to most public open spaces.
A review of most zoning codes clearly indicates a complete indifference to requiring the complete range of open spaces. In this chapter, six basic types of open space will be recommended for inclusion in both urban and suburban codes. These include:
Some open space types are clearly definable, while others exhibit characteristics which overlap the various categories. Because open spaces are organic, the definitions must also be somewhat organic.
Private Open Spaces include yards enclosed by walls or fences which keep and maintain visual privacy.
Semi-Private Open Spaces include open or partially screened and/or enclosed front, side, or rear yards. The semi-private space can be defined by hedges or hard edges but typically there is no demarcation structure on the edge of the lot or yard. The area beyond the edge can been seen and observed. The semi-private viewshed defines the landscape which can be seen from the house windows or the porch. It is the most common of American open spaces.
Semi-Public Open Spaces include the spaces typically in the front of the house lot. They contain the front yard and the land on the public right-of-way on which the sidewalks and the area for street tree planting is located. The semi-public viewshed can be seen from the street or alley, including the space formed by the facades of the buildings.
Neighborhood Open Spaces include small parks, local street parkways, boulevard medians, and garden paths which visually link the private spaces with the neighborhood parks and the larger community open spaces. It includes all the open spaces which link to all other types. Neighborhood parks are typically small (less than one acre) and must be located within a maximum of five minute walk from any resident. Size and facilities of these neighborhood parks are dependent on the number of units and should be designed to response to the changing demographics of most neighborhoods.
Community Open Spaces include larger neighborhood parks, public greens, parkways along larger streets (most fronted by houses), medians on larger boulevards, bicycles paths, greenways, jogging paths, stream corridors, cemeteries, and field sport recreational facilities. They essentially enhance the experience beyond the private, semi-public, and semi-public domain. Community open spaces are within a five to fifteen minute walk or a quick bicycle ride from any resident's home. Some of these types of open spaces will be located on the edges neighborhoods. These must also be sized to match the population within the service area and be flexible to accommodating a range of demographics.
Regional Open Spaces include municipal, state, and national parks, ecological preserves, and woodlands. Stream corridors, seashores, mountain ranges, bays, and large natural holdings such as the New Jersey Pinelands and Great Swamp, are examples of public regional open space. Most agricultural lands and many woodlands are considered regional, but they are privately held. This open space type should be located on the edges of larger towns and cities and be accessible by private vehicles, bicycles, and local transit, and be accessible to those who live and work on their edges. Through new GIS technology, combined with satellite observations and advanced field reconnaissance techniques, it has become easier and more obvious which areas and land qualities should be preserved, placed in private stewardship, or used as public regional open spaces. It is the appropriate incorporation into local regional and national plans that is difficult.
How do all these open spaces work together to form a visual and ecological unity? All open spaces, if properly designed, should form a continuous ecological network or use pattern encompassing the private open spaces as well as neighborhood, community, and regional open spaces. They must be linked, forming a "continuous green" that includes private yards, street parkways, small neighborhood parks, civic parks and plazas, boulevards, community recreational parks, green lanes, community greens, ecologically preserved areas, and regional reserves. This continuous and contiguous network of open space must be apparent in the plan. It should be a plan unto itself in the Master Plan of all communities. If all these areas are colored green, no breaks in the pattern should occur. This green-ness must be perceptually available from all viewpoints as one moves through the planned area. I think of places like the Olmstead urban park systems of Boston, historic Savannah, or the tree-lined street character of Princeton. Each component of the open space network must contribute to the totality. Each component of the "continuous green" network must be perceived as positive to create a truly great place. Without immediate and local provision for all types of open space the overall perception and livability of any place is diminished and will not achieve the highest possible value.
While the debates, legislation, and litigation over personal property rights and environmental protection of land continue, more and more land is transformed to standard subdivisions, large and smaller lot developments, strip commercial areas, and office parks, all approved and sanctioned by conventional zoning. Most subdivisions are laid out without even considering the need for more than private and semi-private open spaces. Most road standards for rights-of-ways and pavement in subdivisions inadequately address the visual, spatial, emotional, and functional characteristics needed to create the most basic of public open spaces -- a proper street. Most commercial subdivisions, their right-of-ways and the parking lots which serve them, are even more poorly designed. Most suburban site plans lack the fundamental understanding of proportion, lighting, and edge treatment.
Many older urban residential areas, and non-residential areas alike, have inadequately maintained or, worse, have removed critical open space features, such as street trees and parkways, for wider roads. Street trees have grown old and have not been adequately maintained. New tree have not been planted. Sidewalks have deteriorated. Parks are unkempt.
As the perceptual value has decreased, too many streets and parks are perceived as havens for crime and drugs, and as unsafe. Some urban areas, like New Brunswick, New Jersey, have even paved over portions of old cemeteries. Our design workshops with inner city communities have clearly indicated that the provision of the complete range of open spaces is high priority. Small parks visible at critical locations, street trees, and playing fields are desperately desired. If given a priority, one of the first elements of a livable community, based on the Visual Preferences of eight Los Angeles neighborhoods, was to plant trees.
Lacking a complete network of open spaces certainly limits the opportunities for the individual to interact with them. The less exposure to positive open spaces, the more neutral or negative will be the individual's response and corresponding sense of well being. Places perceived as negative tend to generate negative behavior. The most common emotional response to negative places is depression. Seeking this positive sense of well being should be a fundamental goal of all planning. Local, state, and national policy goals must be to reintroduce all the basic open space which increase the perceptual value of place. So little investment is required to significantly increase value and improve the quality of life. Reconnecting the open space network and insuring that new and redevelopment places have a complete range of open spaces and an improved quality of life must become the fundamental goal of all urban and suburban places. The environmental price tag of not building it is too high in the long run.
It is clear is that both urban and suburban communities are getting short changed. More and more open space in new development, whether urban infill or greenfields suburban, is only in the form of private yards. Let's look first at suburbia. The suburban subdivisions of cul-de-sac pods and equally sized single family lots with homes of equal square footage with two, three, or four exposed garage doors are burgeoning. There are no street trees and, typically, no sidewalks. Worse, there's no place to walk to. In very low density zones, 3 - 15 acres per dwelling unit, if the design standards of roads and country lanes are winding and narrow, the perceived values of landscaped streets are high. In low density areas, ½ to 3 acres per unit, the roads are still too wide (24 - 36 feet) with cul-de-sacs designed to some inappropriate fire truck standard (80 - 100 feet in diameter.) This typical system of roads does not incorporate the features which would contribute to a positive, complete open space network. Sidewalks, if they are provided, are incorrectly sized. They are located on one side of the road and, in too many cases, are immediately adjacent to the roads employing a integrated curb-sidewalk, eliminating the possibility of the parkway.
I recently led a tour of Dutch planners around central New Jersey. They were appalled by the conditions and character of our older cities and residential areas, but they were most appalled by the large lot subdivisions. "Where are the community parks and walking paths?," they asked. They also commented negatively on the number of garage doors. After thinking about these comments, I managed to explain that the size of the house, the size of the lot, and particularly the number of garage doors are measures of success in America. Americans have been programmed and, in too many cases, are required to drive to everywhere and everyplace. The nouveau-rich suburban American programming response is "the larger the lot and the greater the number of exposed garage doors, the greater the image of success." As far as open space is concerned, each home owner appears to be only concerned with the size on their own lot. The Dutch found the treeless green fields outside each suburban home laughable. With due diligence, I told them, each home owner will plant trees and shrubs and after fifteen to thirty years they will mature and the visual impact will not be as negative. "But there will never be any community parks or walking paths and it will always be isolated and auto dominated," they retorted. "Is that what people really want or it is all they can have?" This comment made me think of an early VPSTM in which we showed a typical large lot subdivision called "Williamsburg" estates and then the real thing. The real Williamsburg got extremely high values, the typical large lot got low negative values. The original one created a great street and incorporated wonderful open space, the new one only created private open space. There's a powerful lesson here.
Many of these large lot configurations originate from recent zoning laws. When combined with the media and marketing hype, or what I call the "J. R. Ewing factor," many have never experienced anything else. The suburban lot configuration, common in this country since the mid-1920s, is programmed into much of the American psyche. However, with many of the pre-baby boomers, and in ever increasing numbers of baby boomers turning 50 (approximately 10,000 per day), there is hope. Many of this generational cohort are finding these large lots have negative appeal. After all, who wants to spend all that time cutting grass? Who wants to live isolated lives neatly settled among the rows of dull lots and, perhaps, even duller people? Also, there are fewer younger home buyers and many find the price of the old American dream house and large lot with three car garages too expensive. Thus alternatives, like neo-traditionalism, are being generated which not only respond to this market but also provide the opportunity for inclusion of all the basic open spaces. But many people still find the home on the large lot appealing. They have not yet proved that they can achieve the "American Dream." Others, with enough money, use this desire to become land stewards, owning and maintaining tracts of land.
Most suburban edge growth is currently zoned according to large lots standards. Large lot residential land use zoning typically means ½ to greater than 3 acre lots, built on old farm fields or existing woodlands. Much of this zoning was justified by saying that the "rural" character will be preserved. Some municipalities went as far as to call large lots "rural" zoning. Other municipalities justified larger residential lots as a way of ensuring protection from potential ground water pollution caused by septic leaching. Larger lot sprawl may be one of the largest tragedies of modern American planning; the visual impact of these "pimples on the landscape," as my younger son calls them, denigrate the natural character of the land and stifle the opportunity for balancing open spaces which contribute immeasurable to creating a sense of community. Even with "envelope zoning," which allows flexibility in situating the house, the positive visual open space characters are seldom enhanced; the houses lack an organic relationship with the natural features of the land and no public open space is provided. Development based on this type of zoning is occurring every day all over the country. Most suburban land is master planned, zoned, or approved for future subdivisions of similar lot layouts, all of which exclude four of the basic open space types. What is more, most residential subdivisions are scattered or "leapfrogged" and seldom linked to other subdivisions, except on overloaded collectors or arterials. They are planned to keep the American people auto-dependant. They are designed to clearly separate social economic groups from one another. Large lots in one place, medium sized lots in another, and smaller ones in a third. Rarely are neighborhoods or community open spaces incorporated to help bring the diverse neighborhoods together.
In most newer residential subdivisions, one must drive to access any local open spaces, as well as shops, jobs, and entertainment. The road layout is the first consideration of the plan. What becomes apparent is the lack of consideration for community open spaces. There is, additionally, no sense of civic place or public realms in most suburban plans. Many municipalities complain about providing any type of open space while they continue to build and maintain more and more roads and highways. If they designed subdivisions correctly, they could reduce the number and length of trips and, thereby, the impact on the roads. Then they might actually be able to support several of the basic open space types and elements of basic civic realms. It is an extremely short-sighted investment strategy not to develop a higher quality of life and a sense of pride and fellowship by providing their fundamental open spaces.
Most suburban commercial standards are even more appalling. Seldom located within walking distance of housing, usually set too far back from the rights-of-way, and fronted by parking lots, they fail to relate to the street in a positive manner. Often pedestrian linkages and access are neglected. Most landscaping is quite pitiful and is rated neutral to negative by most VPSTM participants. How many parking lots have you seen with little or no landscaping, or that which exists is insignificant? Again, the VPSTM has indicated that you can "put the park back into the parking lot by requiring one tree for every four parking spaces. This should be a requirement, not an option, because all landscaped parking lots receive more positive ratings. Signing is designed for the car, not the pedestrian. Open space, if it exists, is in the detention facility, and, in too many cases, it is placed in the wrong location between the road and the parking lot. The most negative ratings in commercial zones occur in the area where the residential areas (typically higher density) and the shopping strip mall interface. Lined with a stockade fence or, worse, with chain link fence and barbed wire, the pedestrian connection is prohibited. How may times have you seen what I call "cow paths" created by people walking next to roads leading from new multi-family complexes to the strip mall because they cannot access it from the project? They are prevented by plan! Planners and developers obviously do not understand the relationship between the walking pedestrian and one of the primary features of the open space network. Perhaps they never walk.
Both residential and commercial zoning does not respond to the obvious and historically proven relationship between residential, commercial, civic, and recreational uses. VPSTM community questionnaires reveal that most people would walk to any and all of these if they were within a pleasant and safe five minute walk along a positive pedestrian realm. The most positive pedestrian realms are contained within semi-public, neighborhood, and community open spaces.
The combination of pro-sprawl programming and low density residential and strip mall zoning makes public open space a lower planning priority. More open space is being privatized. Larger yards are fee simple. Certain suburban municipalities do not even allow street trees in the public right-of-way. Trees are allowed only in the private front yards to avoid the cost of maintenance.
An expensive house on a large lot is encouraged in order to balance the fiscal impacts of sprawl. Large lots with expensive houses and a small number of public school children minimize the need for other non-residential ratables. The more expensive the house and the fewer the children, the greater the possibility that there will be a positive fiscal impact and that they will "pay" their own way. But the greater the number of larger lots, the greater the need for more land and more roads, thus creating even more sprawl costing even more to the municipality.
Many comprehensive plans do not have any open space elements, thus diminishing the importance of, or eliminating completely, the range of open spaces; recommending expensive large lot housing ratables with only private open space. It clearly reflects the lack of appreciation of the positive benefits of community open space design, or the positive fiscal, ecological, and psychological impacts of good open space planning.
Most PUD's, it can be said, incorporate limited neighborhood and community open spaces, but lack adequate private, public, and semi-public open spaces in and around most multi-family units. They do a good job of providing open space facilities like the basic swimming pool and tennis courts. They also preserve most woodlands and stream corridors. PUD's typically set aside up to 20 percent of the land for open space. The majority of this land usually is undevelopable woodlands or stream corridors. Some planned communities include golf courses. These are the exceptions. In most PUD's the swimming pools and tennis courts are accessible by walking, yet many residents still use their cars. Most residents in new planned developments, I suspect, still drive to go to a health club where they can walk, run, or ride a bicycle for exercise. People will take a car if the facility is beyond a reasonable walking distance of 1,500 feet. They have no choice but to drive if there are no sidewalks or paths to walk on or where the open spaces are not accessible by foot. A complete range of open space facilities accessible at the appropriate location must be mandated in all types of suburban developments including PUD's. Provision of these standards are equally critical in urban redevelopment areas to achieve a reasonable level of livability.
The lack of tax base provides a stated reason why many public open spaces lack adequate maintenance. Grants and private support programs are required for the maintenance of parks and parkways. You see signs all over the country indicating the names of the clubs and companies that are maintaining existing parks and roadway edges. This is a poignant indication of how important people think these locations are. It is therefore ironic that trees are not allowed on many state roads which are improved (widened) as they pass through municipalities; they are considered "obstacles." It is not just municipalities which discourage greenery. Many State Highway Departments are notorious for their lack of sensitivity to the important component of livability. Here would be a way of using our gas taxes to provide the opportunity for appropriate semi-public open space so critical to the creation of great streets and public realms.
The following are recommended standards for creating more positive landscaped open space settings applicable to new development and redevelopment. They apply to both the most private and the most public and regional spaces.
The standards start with recommendations or regulations for back or rear yards, for low density housing units, or for a small balconies or patios in multiple floor units. The need for private open space, shared by a family or a household, is critical. For most, this is a rear yard. The minimum back yard size should be 400 square feet, or 20 by 20 (Lynch), enough to create a small outdoor room. A deck or porch is typically in these rear yards. It could also contain a small outdoor eating area, flower garden, or decorative pond. Private rear yards are often totally or partially enclosed by fences or landscaping. When the garage is located in the rear yard, particularly off an alley, a more positive outdoor room can be designed with the garage wall providing the wall or walls to this outside room. Attention must be given to provide adequate sun light. A beautiful, well designed garden framed by garden walls can be very positive, psychologically rewarding, and equally inspiring, provoking a sense of positive feelings and natural wholeness.
The minimum size of a balcony or an above ground level patio is 64 square feet per unit. The depth of this space at seven to eight feet is enough to allow comfortable sitting and perhaps a small table. This balcony or patio allows a small portion of the outside to be brought inside. Larger doors, whether sliding or French, are appropriate for light and space transition. Potted plants which can be seen from inside are appropriate here. Another favorite, particularly when a large balcony is not possible, is the French balcony. The door/window extends down to the floor and opens to the inside exposing a small curved or rectangular space defined by a railing, sufficient for standing on or for displaying small plants, thus allowing a visual flow between the inside and the outside environments.
The yard and the open spaces beyond the yard are then incorporated as a viewshed. Nature may be observed and appreciated at a distance. The greater view value is derived from large lawns, parks, bodies of water, or fields adjacent to the buildings with balconies or raised patios. The fact that the VPSTM value increases by having these with open spaces adjacent suggests the great need for sensitive siting of all buildings to maximize the visual access to these community or regional open spaces.
The side yard is typically the least important yard unless the house is side loaded or on a zero lot line. The side yard, in most houses which are front and back oriented, primarily controls privacy. Most subdivision regulations specify the side yard setback, and most houses are set on this line. The side of one house is matched with the side of the adjacent house. Fire regulations now determine how many windows one can have on the adjacent side yard facades depending on how close the side elevations of the house are to the adjacent house. If the house is too close, there can be no windows. In some newer developments of smaller lot single family houses with small side yards, every other house side elevation is blank, thereby allowing adjacent house's windows to "look" onto a blank facade. With greater distances, more windows are possible. When side yards are increased, allowing for more windows, landscaping is required to achieve specified levels of visual capacity. In most houses, the side yard is the most unused of all the open space types. Its function is privacy. Unfortunately, too many lots have larger side yards than are necessary, or appropriate, to achieve the desired results. The wider the lot, the more road frontage and pavement, and the longer the trip distances, etc.
In the more traditional side yard "Charleston type" house, two edges of the house (one side and the front edge of the house) are located on or near the property line. The remaining side yard then functions as both rear yard and front yard. This is a truly exceptional use of the side yard and provides excellent opportunities for innovative designs as witnessed in a new and modern form in Seaside, Florida and Harbortown, Tennessee.
The semi-private or semi-public front yard is the third type of open space and is defined as a space between the front of the house and the street right-of-way. If this space is viewed from the inside, front door, or porch of the house, it is called semi- private. If it is viewed from the street it is called semi-public. It is across this space that the "curb" appeal of the house is created. It is the primary image of the house that sets the tone and the spatial proportions for the design of the street, avenue, and boulevard.
Traditionally this space is occupied by grasses, shrubs and flowers, a porch or stoop, and front door access from the sidewalk. The VPSTM ratings indicate that ideally this space functions best when the ground floor is raised above sidewalk level, and the yard is defined by a low front picket fence, edge, or wall. Raising the ground floor above the level of the sidewalk (2 - 4 feet) is even more critical for multi-family and lower income housing. Additionally, the semi-public realm must be defined with a fence, hedge, or low wall. This dramatically improves the sense of safety and security. Visitors must walk through a fence, through the yard space, up the steps, and across the porch before reaching the living space. Inside the living space, one can better observe the street and anyone arriving, while preserving visual privacy from the sidewalk. The importance of this low fenced semi-public area was particularly noticeable in several low income housing areas. The living units with a fence and a porch were more likely to be in better condition. Flowers were planted in the front yard and pride of ownership was evident. Most units without it were deteriorated with no landscaped features. The treatment of this space is critical to the function and safety of the residents as well as the contribution to the open space character of the community.
Most suburban regulations are still reflecting the Omsteadian/Scott programming which dictates that American suburbs should have a consistent rolling front lawn with no interruption from one yard to the next. It is counter to traditional high density multi-family neighborhoods. It is clearly suburban, and is certainly inappropriate in multi-family and mixed income neighborhoods. Rolling lawns should be confined to very large lot subdivisions where there is sufficient room for large side yards and deep front yards. As lots begin to be larger, the fence begins to appear again, defining one estate, farm, or ranch from each other.
Creating a traditional community requires a range of open spaces, housing types and lots, and more traditional treatment of front yards and streets. The front and rear yards are traditionally smaller, balanced with more neighborhood community open spaces. Houses with front porches and picket fences typically rate higher than those without. Most higher rated streets have relatively narrow front yard widths and depths. Some of the most positive places have smaller front yards for the majority of the houses, larger front yards for civic and institutional uses, along with "big house" fronting on more prestigious avenues or boulevards. These simple dimensions can be standardized but allow flexibility and visual interest by employing the "built to line." This line sets a mandatory line on which all buildings along a certain type of street must be built. This line ensures spatial continuity and proper street proportions. Certain flexibility is recommended. For instance, a build to line of 15 feet is specified with a 2 foot modulation. This means that the builder can create 2 foot modulations in the location of the front facade wall from one building to the next or simply maintain the standard build to line.
Current subdivision regulations engender building "products" that are on equal sized lots with consistent and uniform large setbacks. Larger expensive lots are next to each other with equal sized houses that have decks and three or four car garages. To create a traditional neighborhood, village, or hamlet the yards and sizes of the houses must vary. In over 600 "hands-on" model building workshops I have conducted, where participants are asked to design an ideal neighborhood with 1" equals 20' scaled models, analysis of the final site plans reveals that seldom are two adjacent lots similar in width and, further, that the front yards are small (5 to 20 feet), typically forming a continuous edge of the street or boulevard. Most define the front yard with a low fence or hedge next to a sidewalk. With the inclusion of the picket fence or hedge, the front yard becomes more urbane and pedestrian friendly.
Once you leave the private lot, the next open space hierarchy is the semi-public open space, critical because it extends the park-like presence to every house and business. The semi-public space in front of your house, combined with the location and character of the facade of the buildings, is one of the most important public spaces and a primary determinant of the image of a place. Streets are our most important public spaces. The character of the street edge can have an enormous impact on the visual and spatial quality and economic value. This semi-public space contains the front yards, the sidewalk, the parkway with street trees, pedestrian scaled lighting, and, possibly, parallel parking. People use these semi-public open space to walk, jog, and ride their bikes. They use it because it is pleasant and because it is functional. It is a connector between houses and various non-residential uses including retail, civic, and recreational. It enhances the structure of a place while providing a balance between the built and natural environment. The community park network starts on the parkway in front of your house.
The pedestrian realm is the specific name given to a portion of the semi-public realm formed by the edge of the front yards, the sidewalk, and the line of trees separating the sidewalk from the moving vehicular path. The pedestrian realm should connect each home to the web of smaller parks, green lanes, school sites, and larger municipal parks. Street trees act as a visual "line of posts," protecting the pedestrian against moving traffic. Parallel or "head-in" parked cars further help define the pedestrian realm. Sidewalks inside the pedestrian realm must connect all neighborhood and community open spaces/parks. These must be close and convenient (within a 5 - 15 minute walk) to insure that residents will use them. The importance, or the function, of this semi-public space cannot be overrated.
The parkway as a type of open space must be a required standard in all subdivisions and redevelopment projects. This can be a local municipal requirement. It requires the planner to see the edges of the street as a component in the web of functional open spaces.
The parkway in residential areas ranges in width from 3 to 4 feet, expanding to 12 to 20 feet depending on the desired character of the street and the amount of exposed earth required to grow the trees. Parkways have to be larger in areas with less rain. Denver is a good example. Here the parkways must be a minimum of seven feet wide.
A tree lined grassed parkway is appropriate for most residential land uses. Trees should be closely spaced and planted at a minimum three to four inch caliper. The recommended spacing is between 18 to 25 feet in residential areas. The ground level of the parkway is typically maintained privately although it is within the public right- of-way. Most residents cut the grass and rake the leaves, while some plant flowers. Location and tree types must be more flexible in commercial areas. Plant one tree for every 30 feet, but avoid planting trees in locations where they will obstruct the views into store windows. In commercial areas and high density residential areas, there is no ground parkway, parking is continuous, and the trees are planted in holes cut into the pavement. Merchants normally clean the sidewalk in front of their stores. If this becomes a problem and lack of maintenance is visible, a service organization must be initiated to insure maintenance and repair. In most cases, the municipality is responsible for removing the leaves, pruning and replanting the trees, and maintaining the pavement.
Eliminating the parkway in residential neighborhoods is only slightly better than providing no sidewalks. This strip of concrete next to the curb is called an "integrated sidewalk." It typically rates negative, or very low positive, in all the VPSTM scoring. It is one of the classic mistakes which diminishes the pedestrian character of a street, and far worse, it makes it impossible to build parkways, a key component of the pedestrian realm in the semi-public open space.
The sidewalk is critical in the semi-public open space. Residential sidewalks should be a minimum of 4 to a maximum of 5 feet wide, separated from the pavement edge by the parkway. Sidewalks in residential areas should be spatially defined on the street side by rows of street trees and on the residential side with a hedge, fence, or landscape feature which forms a clear separation between the front yard and the sidewalk. On some lots, the ground level of the front yard is raised above the sidewalk line by 1 to 2 feet, using the ground cut to create the base for the street.
Too many suburban subdivisions fail to incorporate sidewalks which create adequate functional connections. Even worse, you see roads with sidewalks on one side with a 2 or 3 foot "planting strip" that has no trees planted in it. This is a tremendous loss of potential value. Sidewalks in commercial or multi-family areas should be 9 to 12 feet wide. These should maximize the amount of texture and interest.
Streets generally serve residential areas. They are narrow and can be one or two way, with parking on one side. Parkways are also narrow. Avenues are wider, typically two way, with parking on both sides, with wider parkways. Boulevards are two way with traffic lanes separated by a tree planted median or medians. Avenues and boulevards must have pedestrian movements along both sides with the provision of street trees planted along the pedestrian realm and the median. They are major contributors to the web of open spaces. There are many types of residential and commercial boulevards depending on the number of lanes and the peripheral uses. Denver, Boston, Minneapolis, Buffalo, Santa Anna, Washington, Chico, and Portland have fantastic boulevards. The boulevards act as the spines of open space, connecting larger parks with the parkways of smaller residential streets. It is clear from the view above, and it is a delight on the ground.
The combination of the facade wall of the buildings and the street trees determine the proportions of the street. The proportion of the street space, combined with the correct provision of street trees, can "make or break it." The width of the space should be in proportion to the height of the facade. The VPSTM indicates that the ideal proportion of a streets is 1 to 1, that is, one measure high to one equal measure wide between facades. This proportion remains positive provided it does not exceed 1 high to 4 wide. Higher buildings should be located next to wider streets to maintain or achieve these proportions. If proportions must be wider, then extensive tall street planting must be considered to frame the street back to the 1 to 4 or smaller proportion. Wider than this 1 to 4 portion will lead to loss of visual and economic value.
All streets, avenues, and boulevards must connect to the next public community open space hierarchy--the neighborhood parks These small parks should be within 500 to 1,000 feet of most homes, or approximately a 3-minute walk. Sometimes they are called pocket parks, and can be as small as 1/4 acre. These parks, accessible by sidewalk, serve as places for smaller children to play collectively during the day, older teens at night, and adults during the evenings or weekends. Small parks are important because children can progress from playing within the back yard confinement to the first level of community play space. These can also be places for older or retired adults to sit, meet, or supervise. The location of this park type should be clearly visible from the street. In new traditional neighborhoods such as Mud Island in Memphis, these parks are surrounded by streets with homes fronting on them. These parks then function as the collective front yard; the actual front yards on the living units are quite small, ranging from 6 to 15 feet from the edge of the sidewalk. Both children and adults use them, and when they are not being used, they are wonderful alone as a visually accessible open spaces.
Community open spaces are the next level in the open space hierarchy. Before prescribing the types of community open spaces, I will introduce the five basic types of communities
The hamlet is the smallest community, located in a rural setting, surrounded on all sides by open space. The village is a larger community in a rural or developing community, which is also surrounded by open space. A neighborhood is a community in a town which has defined edges of parkways, boulevards, developed parks, campuses, or other natural features. The town or city is a series of neighborhoods (from 2 to 20) ideally defined at its borders by a natural feature on regional open spaces or major roads, freeways, and parkways. Each of these community types contains a core of activities with civic park space, defined edges, and interconnections for pedestrians on semi-public pedestrian realms, and greenways. Specific community open space types are required for each of the various community types.
The primary community open space is the neighborhood and village green, which is ideally surrounded by the mixed-use buildings of the commercial and civic community core. Community greens, parks, and commons are required more to meet the civic and social needs of residents than to be used as recreational facilities. They can be used as locations for a community garden, a gazebo, small performances, the May fairs, or a Christmas tree. These open spaces serve as formal and informal gathering places, and as places for civic and social functions. It is additionally used for display, for neighborhood events, picnics, and parties. It can have decorative elements such as benches, a gazebo, fountain, small pond, and colorful flower displays. This is where the neighborhood block parties take place. It should be located within a maximum of a 5-minute walking range of all residents of the neighborhood or village. No person should be required to drive to get to the community open space. It is important to note here that this space is the most common feature to appear in any model workshop. Next to the parkway on streets, it is the most common and desired public open space. The need for this central plaza, common, or park in the center of a community is an intuitive desire. I say this after observing "hands-on" model community building workshops all over the country. A commons, plaza, park, or square is desired for every small community and it functions as the focus of the community. This has become such a typical feature of these designs that I consider it basic to the structure of any community plan. It has a minimum size of about ½ acre, but can be as large as 4 acres, depending on the number of living units within a 5-minute walk. It is typically surrounded by one or more civic, institutional, or commercial buildings, along with residential units in hamlets, villages, and neighborhoods. It should be surrounded by tree-lined streets on at least three sides. It is more "green" in small communities and has more hard surface in urban settings. A portion of this space should be paved and be edged with trees, keeping the center efficiently open to allow sun exposure. Smaller civic or commercial buildings should be allowed in this space when it is the center of a town. These may include a coffee shop and a small branch library. Because this space is located in the center of the community, it should also be the site of the neighborhood minibus transit stop. Introducing on-demand neighborhood minibus transit would be a major incentive to creating walkable streets with sidewalks and parkways, thereby reinforcing the need for a more intensive pedestrian-friendly open space network.
Beyond the neighborhood scaled or civic open spaces, there is a need for major recreational fields within a 5- to 10-minute walk for most residents. This space is ideally a small neighborhood school site which provides community playing fields for softball, soccer, and baseball. Unfortunately, there are conflicting schedules and insurance requirements, thereby requiring additional community wide open space facilities. It would be ideal if these open space facilities could be adjacent. They should be accessible by foot and by bicycle. It is sad to have to transport a child in a car to play a game of soccer or baseball.
The character of the playing fields is larger and more open. It is more beautiful if it is edged with trees. The size is dependent on the number of potential resident users in the neighborhood or town. It should be adjacent to continuous green ways of open space. In some neighborhoods, a golf course may be available in addition to other playing fields. Golf courses can be designed as good open space with sensitivity to the environment. I personally prefer golf courses that act as a buffer, edging the neighborhood or town, rather than the "golf course community" where the internal focus of the subdivision is on the golf course.
All the community open spaces should be sized to fit the population of the community. The larger the size of the community the greater the areas desired and required.
Natural greenways through a community are also highly valued. These spaces are "environmentally constrained" areas that typically cannot, or should not, be built upon. They contain mature trees, flood plains, or water bodies. Greenways are ideal for jogging, walking, and bicycle paths. Paths encourage people to use this open space. If paths are not provided, only the occasional hunter or prankster will use it. Greenways can act as natural corridors for animals as well as providing an alternate path to the existing streets for people. They bring people closer to nature. Schools can lead species identification and critter observation walks, and habitat can be maintained. In addition, a greenway can provide edges between neighborhoods. These corridors should be kept, to the extent possible, in a natural state. Many of these greenways are natural drainage areas next to creeks, streams, or wetlands, providing seasonal interest and variety. Care must be taken to preserve and protect the sensitive ecostructure, while not ignoring its potential as a public open space.
Open spaces are required on the periphery of every hamlet, village, neighborhood, town, and city. It has been very effectively demonstrated, particularly in Oregon, and, on a smaller scale, in Boulder, Colorado, that it is absolutely required to define regional growth boundary lines. Every type of community requires a green edge which is community or regional in scale. Neighborhoods require the narrowest open space edge, while regions require the largest. These regional scaled open spaces can be owned privately or by a township, county, state, or the federal government. They may serve the open space needs of several municipalities. Larger regional open spaces serve the recreational and ecological needs of a larger regional population. Much of this regional open space is sensitive ecostructure. The swamps, estuaries, bays, wetlands, and prime farmlands must be protected and preserved as regional open space resources. This can be done through public ownership or through private stewardship. Many of you are probably asking, "What is private land stewardship?" It is large tracts of regional open space held by individuals. The historic natural resource analysis and development suitability models illustrated originally in Design with Nature (McHarg), have been updated continuously and enhanced by the use of satellite imagery, GIS mapping techniques, and more intensive field work supplemented with high tech monitoring and recording devices. This new technology allows continuous monitoring and enhancement of ground based data; as data accumulates and technology advances, monitoring becomes easier and more cost effective. It should be at the heart of open space management in the future.
These large tracts of land receive their greatest visual value by most people from their image at the edges. It is at the periphery where these open spaces meet or cross major roads or highways that the public response is the highest. Viewsheds which enhance that positive image should be specified in the master plans.
Ownership of large land holdings is becoming known as "land stewardship." Land stewardship is where one or more individuals live on large tracts of land, between 15 to 2,000 or more acres, keeping the land in pristine natural conditions, depending on capacity. Many people "need" to live on very large tracts of land. These tracts, held in private trust (stewardship), can contribute positively to regional open spaces. Land stewards purchase or lease these large tracts of land, and then build only a small number of houses (1 to 4) while deed restricting and preserving the remainder. The goal is to minimize of ecological damage. This is to be applauded if very large tracts are thereby preserved and kept in a natural ecological equilibrium. Some economic studies indicate that land held in this manner appreciates significantly (Lynberger). The more progressive environmentalists are suggesting that all land, even environmentally sensitive land, is developable provided that minimum levels or zero levels, of ecological damage occur. The right of stewardship means that land must be continually monitored using advanced surveillance technology and specific ecological standards must be set to limit the negative impacts (Breedlove). This new privately held regional community-type open space is complex and intriguing. It has great potential for creating new types of open spaces, particularly in regional green edges to higher density communities.
There are many other techniques that can be incorporated into existing and future designs to ensure a better balance of open space. Transfer of Development Rights (TDR) and Transfer of Development Credits (TDC) are opportunities to achieve the zoning capacity of the land while preserving a vast percentage of the sites for open spaces. This technique provides the opportunity to design traditional communities with green edges. There are real success stories where it has been done correctly. If land is preserved, and the development rights are transferred to somewhere else, the types of communities to be planned and built will be better than sprawl, but there must be a strict set of guidelines which will require a balance between public and private open spaces and recognize the need for definitive edges. There must also be a balance between the smaller and tighter lots with peripheral large lots and land stewardship. Most rural and emerging suburban municipalities have "rural zoning," ranging from 1 to 3 acres. Some have 5, 6, or larger acreage requirements. All of these gross densities can be converted to create small communities, hamlets, or villages; they would develop within a rural setting, while large estates are retained on the periphery. Current legislation passed in New Jersey will now allow transfer of credits from noncontiguous parcels. This should help both the preservation of regional open space and spur the development of more traditional communities.
The New Jersey State Development and Redevelopment Plan calls for redevelopment of existing underdeveloped areas and the channeling of new developments into hamlets, villages, and neighborhoods as districts of towns or cities. The first priority is the redevelopment of the existing urbanized areas. Development is recommended to be contained within "centers." The "center" designations assume a greater balance of integrally designed private and community open spaces. The State Plan also calls for the protection of several large regional open spaces, including the Pinelands and the Great Swamp, and designates agricultural and environmentally sensitive lands for minimum development. This is a tremendous first step in the preservation of appropriate regional and community open spaces. The leading underdeveloped open spaces in New Jersey are under development pressure and are considered cheap because we have subsidized the infrastructure. If developers had to pay the total cost, it is apparent that this land is the most expensive to develop. Specific standards and guidelines are required for any and all future development on these spaces to assure the public that it is receiving back, for this subsidy, the precious commodity of regional open space.
The public health and welfare requires that all the forms of open space be incorporated into our quality of life pattern. They are typically evaluated in the VPSTM as positive and appropriate. Every survey in which we asked about the preservation of important scenic and sensitive land, the response has been that this land should be preserved and protected. What then is necessary in order to insure that adequate and appropriate open spaces are included in future master plans for emerging suburban and rural areas? How do we insure that this same hierarchy of open space is incorporated into the neighborhood redevelopment plans?
The approach is very different for new development and redevelopment. The emerging suburban or rural municipality will start with a complete ecological/natural resource analysis on a GIS overlay system. This analysis will help to determine where development can occur with the minimum and maximum impact on the ecostructure. The areas of greatest sensitivity must be protected first. These can be designated as greenways, or very low density stewardship areas, which act as peripheral open spaces for hamlets, villages, or towns. In some instances, the open space could be the separator between various neighborhoods. The remaining lands can then be designated for growth and development. The planning and zoning regulations, along with the adopted municipal street standards, need to be reviewed to insure that they have the appropriate semi-public spaces, parkways, tree planting regulations, sidewalks, and the standards for the front hedge or fence. Does the municipal master plan and development regulations allow or encourage tree-lined streets and boulevards? Do these streets have the appropriate parkways, medians, planting programs, and sidewalk size and locations? Does the master plan have a circulation element which lay out all the future streets and boulevards? Is there an open space element as part of the master plan? Does the master plan clearly specify the need and the dimensions for residential parks? Does it clearly specify the need and the dimensions of the neighborhood parks, the walking distances, the types of facilities? Is there a specified need for recreational fields or natural open space linkages? If the answer to any of these questions is "no," or "I don't know," then either the master plan is incomplete, or it is the intention of the municipality not to provide these important open space components.
Most of the same questions can be asked in urban settings. In most urban neighborhoods, there are insufficient neighborhood parks, community parks, and recreational field facilities. In too many, the street trees are planted haphazardly, have deteriorated, or have been removed to expand the streets into arterials or highways. Streams and creeks are piped, or, if they remain, are dirty and littered with old shopping carts, tires, or other debris. In the urban setting it is important to take an inventory of all natural features, trees, underused open spaces, and old streams or creek beds. Both the quantity and the quality of the resources must be inventoried. Then the task of determining the open space needs must be completed. Asking the existing residents what types of recreational facilities and parks they would like could go a long way in determining the needs and desires. Street tree planting and maintenance programs need to be started. A municipal tree nursery may be a good idea. To generate a sense of ownership, I am recommending that a tree be planted and tagged for every person born in the town, or in honor of people who have lived in the town, or for every child who graduated from the high school.
These basic open spaces, the rear and side yards, the semi-public front yards, the parkway on the street, the boulevard, the residential park, the neighborhood park-green, the community commons, the active recreational fields, and the natural greenway are all basic features of a good open space planning. They are the fundamental elements of good community planning. They generate a sense of spiritual and ecological renewal.
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