Wall Street Journal, December 8, 1995, p. B10
Cities Remodel to Lure Upscale Buyers
"Most inner cities don't need more affordable housing,"
says Andres Duany. "Why not just think of it as this
neighborhood was not built to be poor?" Mr. Duany asks.
"We're simply restoring it to its original intention."
By Stefan Fatsis
On a spit of land on the Chesapeake Bay, city officials
envision an elegant mix of luxury homes, townhouses and
apartments. They see residents strolling along boulevards
lined with oak trees, relaxing by a beachfront salt-water
pool and shopping at a farmer's market.
The way the place looks today, it's not easy to imagine.
The 30-block neighborhood, known as East Ocean View, is one
of the city's bleakest. Run-down cottages and cheap,
two-story brick apartments, many with windows boarded,
dominate the landscape. Garbage spills from dumpsters.
Yards appear overgrown, streets rutted. Crime and drugs are
rampant.
Against all odds, Norfolk believes it can attract
upper-income residents to a revamped East Ocean View. It
isn't alone. In contrast to the proponents of urban-renewal
schemes in the 1950s and '60s who concentrated on upgrading
low-income housing, a new school of architects and planners
are designing for the more affluent. They believe that the
right kind of developments -- combining the best features
of cities and suburbs -- will lure homeowners back to the
inner city neighborhoods abandoned by their parents and
grandparents.
"Most inner cities don't need more affordable housing,"
says Andres Duany, the pioneering Miami-based architect and
city planner who designed the Norfolk project and the noted
planned communities of Seaside, Fla., and the Kentlands in
the Maryland suburbs of Washington. "They need the middle-
to upper-middle classes to move in, because they pay
taxes."
East Ocean View isn't a typical inner-city neighborhood.
Part of a seven-mile strip of beach flanked by Navy
operations, East Ocean View is 20 minutes from downtown.
There are no office buildings or apartment towers in sight.
Houses are spread out and separated by yards and driveways.
The planned neighborhood, with properties priced from
$100,000 to $500,000, would change that. Architectural
drawings show homes built close to one another and the
street; garages are hidden in the rear and accessed via
alleys. A "mansion district" would cluster some of the
ritziest homes, but there also would be rental apartments.
A rigid design code would require features such as porches,
towers and dark-wood shingles on the New England
coastal-style homes.
Such real-estate developments aren't new. In fact, they
form the core of a decade-old movement known as New
Urbanism that offers an antidote to the cookie-cutter
sprawl of post-war suburbia. New Urbanists design "neo-
traditional" communities that seek to mix income groups,
curb the car culture, abide by a grid layout and encourage
the use of public spaces.
Sound a lot like city life? It is. New Urbanism is based on
old-fashioned principles of friendly, neighborhood-
dominated cities. The meticulously planned "garden suburbs"
of the early 20th century, such as Mariemont outside
Cincinnati, Philadelphia's Chestnut Hill and Shaker Heights
in Cleveland, Ohio, are another important influence.
But nearly all of the scores of New Urbanist projects built
so far lie beyond city limits, because that's where the
bulk of construction occurs. Now, though, more and more
cities are appropriating these design and building concepts
to redevelop or, in Norfolk's case, rebuild troubled
neighborhoods. "These manufactured communities attract
people in the suburbs," says Witold Rybczynski, a
University of Pennsylvania urbanism professor and author of
"City Life: Urban Expectations in a New World." "There's no
reason it shouldn't work in a more inner-city situation."
Pittsburgh has redeveloped one of its bad neighborhoods,
the Lower Hill District, from the ground up with a mix of
quaint homes, town houses and apartments; more than 400
units are built and occupied in the public-private
development partnership. The city wants to erect another
new community on what is now a slag heap.
Milwaukee has opened the first model homes of a planned
working-class urban village in a formerly German
neighborhood. Orlando, Fla., has approved plans to restore
and rebuild a 900-acre web of minority neighborhoods near
downtown. Charlotte, N.C.; Chicago, Cleveland; Cincinnati;
St. Louis; Kansas City, Mo.; and other places have built or
are planning similar projects.
"For a long time we thought we could build suburbs without
damaging the inner cities," says Peter Katz, author of "The
New Urbanism: Toward an Architecture of Community." "Now we
look up and see the inner cities are dead."
Most urban efforts focus on lower- and middle-income
residents. But Norfolk is targeting buyers who can afford
properties priced as much as seven times the median home
value in the city. That has led to criticism that the city
is kicking out a predominantly black, transient poor
population in favor of people who can afford luxury homes.
"Housing for higher-income people isn't the greatest social
reason for depriving people of their housing by force,"
says Oscar Newman, an architect and critic of New Urbanism.
That was a common attack on both gentrification and
1960s-style urban renewal, in which ghettos were razed.
Norfolk officials insist East Ocean View is different.
"This was supposed to be a sort of bedroom community for
the military," the mayor, Paul Fraim, says. "It may have
worked 25 years ago. It wasn't working now. What we want to
do is stabilize portions of our city with neighborhoods
that are middle-income or higher."
Since World War II, Norfolk has been one of the nation's
most aggressive redevelopers. East Ocean View will be the
20th neighborhood to be rehabilitated since bulldozers
razed Diggs Park in 1951 to build the first public-housing
project under the U.S. Housing Act of 1949.
Luring the rich, however, is a tough sell. One small step
will be renaming East Ocean View. Completing a full block
of homes that will offer buyers a 360-degree image of the
full neighborhood is essential, marketers say. A booklet by
Mr. Duany detailing site plans was released Dec. 1.
Norfolk has found reasons to believe. A study by
Zimmerman/Volk Associates, a Clinton, N.J., market-research
firm, identified a sizable target market in Norfolk and
nearby Virginia Beach and. Chesapeake. It concluded that
Norfolk residents who like the city and want to upgrade
their housing don't have many options, and that young
professionals and empty-nesters who move to the region
typically sidestep Norfolk.
Norfolk sees its precedent a couple of miles down the road
from East Ocean View in Pinewell-by-the-Bay, a development
of several dozen tall, pastel-colored beach homes planned
by the local housing agency. After two years Pinewell
includes a half-million-dollar home. Most houses there sell
for $200,000 to $400,000. Closer to downtown, Ghent Square
was built by razing a slum and building single-family homes
in the 1970s and '80s. Today, condominiums there sell for
about $450,000 and houses for $625,000; one home recently
fetched $1.5 million.
The city is applying a similar philosophy to East Ocean
View. "The only way we think it can improve is if we clear
the land and start all over again," says R. Patrick Gomez
of the Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority, the
project's developer, which has spent or committed to spend
$6.7 million to demolish the first 300 of the
neighborhood's 1,500 homes and apartments. "We never would
have proposed tearing it down if a community existed."
Not everyone is convinced. Opposition to the project --
which will cost an estimated $70 million for land
acquisition, demolition, public improvements and marketing
-- ran high when it was unveiled last year but has since
calmed, largely because the neighborhood has only a handful
of owner-occupied homes.
One of the dissidents is Barbara Caffee, who moved to East
Ocean View in 1962, when it was a quiet beach community.
Now, Mrs. Caffee won't go out at night. But she won't sell.
"We stayed through all the bad times," Mrs. Caffee says.
"We thought eventually it would turn back around again. We
didn't know that those who stayed would be out the door."
As she finishes talking, down the block Norfolk police pull
over a car that officers say was speeding. The driver turns
out to be a paroled felon with a suspended license. Officer
Jerry Carr says crime is epidemic in East Ocean View: "You
name it, it's here." But asked whether clearing a
neighborhood reduces crime, Officer Carr replies, "It moves
it."
Mr. Duany, the project designer, considers that a non-
issue. He defends the notion that if crime in East Ocean
View has tainted the entire bayfront, the best strategy is
to eliminate East Ocean View.
"Why not just think of it as this neighborhood was not
built to be poor?" Mr. Duany asks. "We're simply restoring
it to its original intention."
_________________________________________________________
[Box]
What Is New Urbanism?
In 1991, a group of New Urbanist architects and planners
developed a set of community-design guidelines known as the
Ahwhanee Principles, named for the historic lodge at
Yosemite National Park, where they were presented. Here is
a sampling:
+ Communities should be planned to integrate housing shops,
offices, schools, parks and civic facilities.
+ Housing, jobs and daily needs should be within walking
distance of each other and transit.
+ Housing should be available for citizens ot diverse ages
and economic backgrounds.
+ Ample open space -- squares, greens and parks -- should
be placed so as to encourage use.
+ A well-defined edge of agricultural greenbelts or
wildlife corridors should be protected from development.
+ Pedestrian and bike paths should connect to all
destinations and be protected.
_________________________________________________________
[End]
Cities Remodel to Lure Upscale Buyers
"Most inner cities don't need more affordable housing,"
says Andres Duany. "Why not just think of it as this
neighborhood was not built to be poor?" Mr. Duany asks.
"We're simply restoring it to its original intention."
By Stefan Fatsis
On a spit of land on the Chesapeake Bay, city officials
envision an elegant mix of luxury homes, townhouses and
apartments. They see residents strolling along boulevards
lined with oak trees, relaxing by a beachfront salt-water
pool and shopping at a farmer's market.
The way the place looks today, it's not easy to imagine.
The 30-block neighborhood, known as East Ocean View, is one
of the city's bleakest. Run-down cottages and cheap,
two-story brick apartments, many with windows boarded,
dominate the landscape. Garbage spills from dumpsters.
Yards appear overgrown, streets rutted. Crime and drugs are
rampant.
Against all odds, Norfolk believes it can attract
upper-income residents to a revamped East Ocean View. It
isn't alone. In contrast to the proponents of urban-renewal
schemes in the 1950s and '60s who concentrated on upgrading
low-income housing, a new school of architects and planners
are designing for the more affluent. They believe that the
right kind of developments -- combining the best features
of cities and suburbs -- will lure homeowners back to the
inner city neighborhoods abandoned by their parents and
grandparents.
"Most inner cities don't need more affordable housing,"
says Andres Duany, the pioneering Miami-based architect and
city planner who designed the Norfolk project and the noted
planned communities of Seaside, Fla., and the Kentlands in
the Maryland suburbs of Washington. "They need the middle-
to upper-middle classes to move in, because they pay
taxes."
East Ocean View isn't a typical inner-city neighborhood.
Part of a seven-mile strip of beach flanked by Navy
operations, East Ocean View is 20 minutes from downtown.
There are no office buildings or apartment towers in sight.
Houses are spread out and separated by yards and driveways.
The planned neighborhood, with properties priced from
$100,000 to $500,000, would change that. Architectural
drawings show homes built close to one another and the
street; garages are hidden in the rear and accessed via
alleys. A "mansion district" would cluster some of the
ritziest homes, but there also would be rental apartments.
A rigid design code would require features such as porches,
towers and dark-wood shingles on the New England
coastal-style homes.
Such real-estate developments aren't new. In fact, they
form the core of a decade-old movement known as New
Urbanism that offers an antidote to the cookie-cutter
sprawl of post-war suburbia. New Urbanists design "neo-
traditional" communities that seek to mix income groups,
curb the car culture, abide by a grid layout and encourage
the use of public spaces.
Sound a lot like city life? It is. New Urbanism is based on
old-fashioned principles of friendly, neighborhood-
dominated cities. The meticulously planned "garden suburbs"
of the early 20th century, such as Mariemont outside
Cincinnati, Philadelphia's Chestnut Hill and Shaker Heights
in Cleveland, Ohio, are another important influence.
But nearly all of the scores of New Urbanist projects built
so far lie beyond city limits, because that's where the
bulk of construction occurs. Now, though, more and more
cities are appropriating these design and building concepts
to redevelop or, in Norfolk's case, rebuild troubled
neighborhoods. "These manufactured communities attract
people in the suburbs," says Witold Rybczynski, a
University of Pennsylvania urbanism professor and author of
"City Life: Urban Expectations in a New World." "There's no
reason it shouldn't work in a more inner-city situation."
Pittsburgh has redeveloped one of its bad neighborhoods,
the Lower Hill District, from the ground up with a mix of
quaint homes, town houses and apartments; more than 400
units are built and occupied in the public-private
development partnership. The city wants to erect another
new community on what is now a slag heap.
Milwaukee has opened the first model homes of a planned
working-class urban village in a formerly German
neighborhood. Orlando, Fla., has approved plans to restore
and rebuild a 900-acre web of minority neighborhoods near
downtown. Charlotte, N.C.; Chicago, Cleveland; Cincinnati;
St. Louis; Kansas City, Mo.; and other places have built or
are planning similar projects.
"For a long time we thought we could build suburbs without
damaging the inner cities," says Peter Katz, author of "The
New Urbanism: Toward an Architecture of Community." "Now we
look up and see the inner cities are dead."
Most urban efforts focus on lower- and middle-income
residents. But Norfolk is targeting buyers who can afford
properties priced as much as seven times the median home
value in the city. That has led to criticism that the city
is kicking out a predominantly black, transient poor
population in favor of people who can afford luxury homes.
"Housing for higher-income people isn't the greatest social
reason for depriving people of their housing by force,"
says Oscar Newman, an architect and critic of New Urbanism.
That was a common attack on both gentrification and
1960s-style urban renewal, in which ghettos were razed.
Norfolk officials insist East Ocean View is different.
"This was supposed to be a sort of bedroom community for
the military," the mayor, Paul Fraim, says. "It may have
worked 25 years ago. It wasn't working now. What we want to
do is stabilize portions of our city with neighborhoods
that are middle-income or higher."
Since World War II, Norfolk has been one of the nation's
most aggressive redevelopers. East Ocean View will be the
20th neighborhood to be rehabilitated since bulldozers
razed Diggs Park in 1951 to build the first public-housing
project under the U.S. Housing Act of 1949.
Luring the rich, however, is a tough sell. One small step
will be renaming East Ocean View. Completing a full block
of homes that will offer buyers a 360-degree image of the
full neighborhood is essential, marketers say. A booklet by
Mr. Duany detailing site plans was released Dec. 1.
Norfolk has found reasons to believe. A study by
Zimmerman/Volk Associates, a Clinton, N.J., market-research
firm, identified a sizable target market in Norfolk and
nearby Virginia Beach and. Chesapeake. It concluded that
Norfolk residents who like the city and want to upgrade
their housing don't have many options, and that young
professionals and empty-nesters who move to the region
typically sidestep Norfolk.
Norfolk sees its precedent a couple of miles down the road
from East Ocean View in Pinewell-by-the-Bay, a development
of several dozen tall, pastel-colored beach homes planned
by the local housing agency. After two years Pinewell
includes a half-million-dollar home. Most houses there sell
for $200,000 to $400,000. Closer to downtown, Ghent Square
was built by razing a slum and building single-family homes
in the 1970s and '80s. Today, condominiums there sell for
about $450,000 and houses for $625,000; one home recently
fetched $1.5 million.
The city is applying a similar philosophy to East Ocean
View. "The only way we think it can improve is if we clear
the land and start all over again," says R. Patrick Gomez
of the Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority, the
project's developer, which has spent or committed to spend
$6.7 million to demolish the first 300 of the
neighborhood's 1,500 homes and apartments. "We never would
have proposed tearing it down if a community existed."
Not everyone is convinced. Opposition to the project --
which will cost an estimated $70 million for land
acquisition, demolition, public improvements and marketing
-- ran high when it was unveiled last year but has since
calmed, largely because the neighborhood has only a handful
of owner-occupied homes.
One of the dissidents is Barbara Caffee, who moved to East
Ocean View in 1962, when it was a quiet beach community.
Now, Mrs. Caffee won't go out at night. But she won't sell.
"We stayed through all the bad times," Mrs. Caffee says.
"We thought eventually it would turn back around again. We
didn't know that those who stayed would be out the door."
As she finishes talking, down the block Norfolk police pull
over a car that officers say was speeding. The driver turns
out to be a paroled felon with a suspended license. Officer
Jerry Carr says crime is epidemic in East Ocean View: "You
name it, it's here." But asked whether clearing a
neighborhood reduces crime, Officer Carr replies, "It moves
it."
Mr. Duany, the project designer, considers that a non-
issue. He defends the notion that if crime in East Ocean
View has tainted the entire bayfront, the best strategy is
to eliminate East Ocean View.
"Why not just think of it as this neighborhood was not
built to be poor?" Mr. Duany asks. "We're simply restoring
it to its original intention."
_________________________________________________________
[Box]
What Is New Urbanism?
In 1991, a group of New Urbanist architects and planners
developed a set of community-design guidelines known as the
Ahwhanee Principles, named for the historic lodge at
Yosemite National Park, where they were presented. Here is
a sampling:
+ Communities should be planned to integrate housing shops,
offices, schools, parks and civic facilities.
+ Housing, jobs and daily needs should be within walking
distance of each other and transit.
+ Housing should be available for citizens ot diverse ages
and economic backgrounds.
+ Ample open space -- squares, greens and parks -- should
be placed so as to encourage use.
+ A well-defined edge of agricultural greenbelts or
wildlife corridors should be protected from development.
+ Pedestrian and bike paths should connect to all
destinations and be protected.
_________________________________________________________
[End]