In all the discussion about the Camerons farm I haven't heard anyone mention
the fact that Randall Arendt designed the plat as an open space
subdivision. Randall Arendt is a planner who wrote Rural By Design and works
for a land trust in Pennsylvania. He is one of the biggest advocates out
these for more sustainable development strategies. He was our keynote
speaker at the Symposium, The Rural Town: Designing for Growth and
Sustainability and Linda Pall had him lead a workshop in Moscow for the city
and county last spring.
Moscow P&Z gave their preliminary approval for the open space sudivision in
December because it conserves 50 acres of the 80 instead of carving the
whole piece into 3 acre ranchettes and streets. I was quite skeptical myself
until I saw faxes of the preliminary sketches. If Moscow is to accommodate
growth this open space model has much more positive potential for our
community than the standard subdivision approach. In 30 years we could have
an entire network of open space systems within the area of impact for
recreationsal use, wildlife corridors, forests etc. instead of a bunch of
mini ranches sprawling around our city.
The developer doesn't have to be the bad guy, especially if they are trying
a nonconventional approach. Our zoning is set up to create Moser additions
not open space planned unit developments. If someone is willing to try a
more sensible approach in an area that has been designated by community
government for growth and mixed use activities why try to stop them? If we
shut the door on better approaches growth pressures will continue to
pertptuate the type of development what we have seen in the past few years.
We certainly need to study the play out of open space planning within the
area of impact and compare it with our current models and see if this is the
preferred choice. It seemed to be at the City's workshop last spring for a
diverse group of folks. We began a study this past fall in architecture and
landscape architecture studios of develpment alternatives fro the area of
impact and presented it to both P&Z's. The work is available to look at for
discussion purposes.
Thanks wendy