In Search of a City: A Vermont State of Mind
Ohio could learn some land-use lessons from Vermont, where I recently returned from vacation. Ohio’s laissez-faire policies lead to so much waste and sprawl. For example, development along Rt. 256 cannibalized Brice Road and Hamilton Road. Polaris Fashion Mall cannibalized Northland and City Center Malls.
Vermont has state-mandated land-use controls that encourage reuse of existing buildings, prevent over-development, and serve the public good. The results are breathtaking.
Rutland, Vermont, population 17,292, has a thriving independent retail scene in its downtown, which is anchored by an in-line WalMart. I kid you not. WalMart is actually part of the downtown fabric. Vermont had the audacity to establish statewide development rules for big box stores that help downtown areas.
Montpelier, population 7,495, has a downtown with five bookstores, 13 clothing stores, two hardware stores, five music stores, two cinemas, and scores of other well-stocked retail stores. Tourism certainly helps support these downtown stores. But without state land-use controls, Vermont would probably look like Tennessee.
Tags: City Center, Retail
August 25th, 2009 at 8:32 am
I do agree with you Cleve, land use and development guidelines are criticial to a sustainable community, and more specifically, Columbus has failed at this.
The entire population, however, of Vermont in 2008 was 621,270, not even the size of Columbus. One would think the ability to manage such a smaller area would be a bit easier than a state like Ohio with 11,485,910 residents. So, let’s focus on fixing Columbus policies, not Ohio’s.
Funny you should mention Montpelier, the State capitol (again, barely over 7,000 people), and home of former Columbus resident and anti-arena tax and streetcar tax advocate Richard Sheir. Hmmm, I wonder if you had dinner at his home…if so, I would have loved to been the fly on the wall.
Columbus sorely misses Richard…if he was still here, maybe our Columbus income taxes would not have have been raised 25%!
August 25th, 2009 at 8:57 am
Driving down Polaris Blvd the other day, my wife said “the growth here has been amazing”. I said “too bad they don’t give developers incentives to reuse old buildings, so they don’t constantly build new ones, which will probably be more or less worthless in 20 years or less”. I wonder if most American developers will ever ‘get it’…
September 5th, 2009 at 9:38 am
While Columbus could certainly use an overhaul for zoning, especially in sprawling areas of the city, the Rutland Walmart is not ideal. Instead of having Walmart follow urban guidelines requiring it to be X stories tall with the building up against the street and parking in the rear, it’s the same sprawling model just plopped directly across from an attractive, urban street. Atrocious. Take a look:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=100+Merchants+Row,+Rutland,+VT&sll=43.606383,-72.97985&sspn=0.0023,0.007993&gl=us&ie=UTF8&ll=43.612124,-72.979903&spn=0.009197,0.031972&t=h&z=15&iwloc=A
As far as developers getting it, well, it’s the average American that needs to “get it”, because they’re the ones eating up what developers are giving them in the form of sprawling development. Until it’s no longer big, easy money, developers have little incentive to change their ways. Stricter zoning laws in Columbus would help, but we need city leaders to get it too.