Vienna's Head in the Sand
There is all kinds of talk in Vienna these days about how to fix our business district. The Maple Avenue Vision Committee. 'Form-based zoning' as a solution. However, this all sounds academic and very governmental. To confuse matters, we have long-time Council Member and Mayoral candidate George Lovelace constantly saying that our Maple Avenue business corridor is "vibrant" and that our current zoning needs no change. Lovelace maintains our current zoning is sufficient for the future. Well, if you want Maple Avenue to look as it does now forever, then George is right.
A synopsis:
1. By any definition Maple Avenue in Vienna is not vibrant. Except for 1 or 2 buildings, the downtown has not changed in 25 years. Many buildings are going downhill and many tenants are less than optimal (how many more fast food restaurants, gas stations and nail salons do we need?).
2. Why does Maple Avenue not change? Why do we not have a nice low-rise Hilton Hotel that we can be proud to have family and friends stay at? Why do we not have a Barnes and Noble or movie theater? Almost 80% of all buildings on Maple Avenue are non-conforming. What does this mean? It means the buildings, if rebuilt today, would not fit into our current zoning code. The end result? Property owners on Maple Avenue are actually incentivized by Vienna's current laws to keep everything the same!
3. Form-based zoning is an idea that would help Vienna. This means Vienna could control how the Maple Avenue business corridor will look in the future, but more importantly we could actually incentivize our business owners to redevelop and move toward new pedestrian friendly buildings and stores. But if we don't make the change to our laws, we are stuck with Maple Avenue as is for perpetuity.
4. If we allow our business district to catch up to our residential district, business owners would begin to produce more revenue and hence more taxes. This can help lower our residential taxes.
Other communities know this type of change is mandatory. Consider this report from nearby Montgomery County (PDF). They are moving forward facing today's realities head on. Here are some excerpts:
As Montgomery County makes the transition from auto-oriented suburbs to pedestrian-oriented, transit-friendly, more-urbanized areas, the challenge will be to balance car use, which typically accounts for about 90% of daily trips, with alternative modes of travel such as walking, biking, and the use of transit. Within centers, this could mean:
1. Encouraging mixed-use, mid-density development so that everyday destinations within centers are located closer together and intense enough to stimulate transit use so that improvements in service are justified.
2. Creating more street connections from surrounding neighborhoods, so that people don't use the major arterials and highways for local trips, and more trips are made by bicycle and on foot.
3. Providing pedestrian and bicycle amenities such as bike racks and lockers, special pavement and lighting so that non-motorized people know they are welcome.
4. Ensuring that new buildings are interesting at a pedestrian scale, with facades near the sidewalk and interesting enough to be attractive at walking speed.
5. Encouraging shared parking.
Between centers, this could mean:
1. Redesigning some roads into attractive multi-modal boulevards, with bus lanes, bicycle paths, landscaping, medians and wider sidewalks.
2. Adding transit and road capacity between centers to divert through-traffic off secondary roads and streets and expanding interconnectivity between transit and road networks.
3. Investing in more comfortable and informative bus stops.
4. Connecting the street grid to give local traffic alternatives to the major highway.
5. Implementing traffic calming measures to slow down traffic at critical points, especially at pedestrian crossings.
6. Returning segments of major roads to their traditional design with wide landscaped sidewalks, and local/parking/bicycle/transit lanes separated from through lanes by landscaped medians.
