That would be NH State Rep Ivy Vann (D-Peterborough) – whose heart seemingly aches for the times of city or town life that many left many decades ago – but has no problem in using Government to impose her notion of “town Utopia”. No kidding – she tells us this in a self-contradictory “puff piece” in Pravda by the Merrimack (emphasis mine, reformatted):
Planning event eyes ways to make towns easier to walk, live and shop in
In many small towns, a new business development often means yet another strip mall or a chain store set along an unwalkable highway, said Ivy Vann, a state representative and member of Peterborough’s planning board. What’s worse, she said, is when those new developments come despite empty storefronts downtown. And antiquated zoning regulations that create arbitrarily and detrimentally large minimum lot sizes add to the push away from town centers.
Right – because she doesn’t like the idea that ordinary folks try to put businesses where, you know, people would like to GO and shop, let’s FORCE people back to the areas they’ve already abandoned – and use zoning laws to make them obey!
Vann is among those working to bring business back to the heart of towns across the Granite State. Those town centers – when they’re walkable, full of shops and green – are where people want to be, Vann said.
Really! Umm, if you have to “work” to get people to go to places that you want them to be, is that really “where they want to be“? If they really wanted to be “downtown”, wouldn’t they already be there? And wouldn’t the commerce that you want to come back – have never left in the first place? I keep hearing this all the time for Laconia that has made such a hash of its downtown that they’re already on what, their third or fourth generation of “renewal” – even as people go to the “strip malls” because that is where they’d prefer to shop.
“How do we build places that are more lovable? That’s the key to making a place vital, economically stable. . . . (Shoppers) don’t love strip malls. They don’t love six-lane highways.
They may SAY they don’t – but this is like when people tell pollsters what they THINK they should say but the actual results (e.g., shopping dollars and traffic patterns) say otherwise. Look, most downtowns are shells of what they were back in the 20’s, 30s, or 40s. Heck, they aren’t what they were while I was growing up in the 60s or 70s. I get told all the time by those on the Left when I grouse about our coarsening culture that “times have changed – get over it” and on the other hand, commerce times have changed but those on the Left, just like with their choo-choo train fetishes, want people to go back to an older time that can happen again – just not the way they think it can. And they don’t even “get it”.
Especially in her next paragraph – I just had to shake my head in disbelief that someone that believes in a more centrally planned environment would actually state the obvious – and then not “get it”:
“Most of the places we love best were built before they had zoning rules,” she said. “They had sidewalks, they had streets that were probably relatively narrow . . . and you had little pieces of storefront (directly on the sidewalk) that could be used for a variety of purposes,” often with mixed uses, including living spaces upstairs.
So, people, without the helping hand of Government, actually got it……wait for it…..right? All by their lonesome? what is now pushed as EPA/DOT/HUD’s “Sustainable Communities Initiative” – a regression back to times long ago? Curious, though, she won’t mention what I think it the meme unstated:
If it was all that great, why did people leave? Do ya think it had something to do with “self-interest”, that changing their personal environments was better for them and their families? That leaving the downtown was better for their “quality of life”?
And this next part was a bit over the top and again, brings back the past as the Better Way to Live:
At a planning and development conference she has organized for this Saturday in Peterborough, Vann hopes the national voices she has brought in will help locals think about how they could make their towns more “lovable,” with robust centers. Vann frets at the trend she sees toward communities defined by sprawl, especially here in the Granite State where our pre-automobile history forced town centers to be walkable.
Sprawl – the bogeyman of planners everywhere. Evil personified by each and every home set off by itself. The sense of “community” they wish to enforce on people that simply want to be left alone and really don’t want neighbors on the other side of the wall (how DARE they be so “separatists”!). A plot of land to call their own – these people must be CRAZY for not wanting to have to climb one, two, three or more sets of stairs to get to their apartment. After all, lugging grocery bags for the week will build STAMINA in you all! Oh wait, they want you to shop every day – you can spend all your time so they can have their perfect world to watch.
“Pre-automobile” – again, hatred for the freedom that automobiles gave the ordinary man is on full display- both over travel time and living space. Freedom. Freedom? Don’t they know that for “the common good” that their Freedom must be subsumed?
That creates all sorts of problems, she said. What happens to the elderly when they can no longer drive? If you had to walk, how long would it take to get a gallon of milk? What if her teenage son meets a nice girl on the other side of town – could he ride his bike there safely?
She must think that we are all nitwits and little children – that we are incapable of changing due to changing conditions in life? That a person cannot make intelligent and specific decisions in their own self-interest to best live their own lives? Well, according to the most esteemed Ivy Vann, this is of no value at all.
And oh, btw, I DID ride by bicycle (without a helmet, gloves, and all kinds of signaling and bright devices, too) across town to see that “nice girl”. Not having a car (at least in the beginning) meant that I had to trade my time to see her – a trade that I was willing to gladly make. I’m quite sure that the “teenage son” (unless he is a total slacker) would make that same time tradeoff as well. And there
And make no mistake – I have lived my life such that I don’t HAVE to walk if I don’t want to. You have a problem with that?
Franchises that propose prefabricated designs on highways at the outskirts of towns cost more to develop, depreciate in taxable value quickly and become obsolete faster if they go out of business than small retail tailored to existing downtown spaces, Vann said, adding that those ad-hoc designs sometimes are proposed with a one-time outlay for road improvements that later become a burden for towns to maintain.
More expensive? The most expensive real estate is generally IN town – why else would development be OUTside of the town proper? Look, biz folks are going to go for the ever present location, location, location – but only if the price is right. Not only in the upfront costs but recurring costs as well. I’ve watch capricious boards and committees chew up time, effort, and money in exactly what they demand from the developers – so if the cost is high, one can blame the same Government that Vann wants to be in charge – go figure! I’d also like to see that stats on her suppositions presented as fact.
Some of the things Vann would like to see municipalities do, and the speakers at her conference will address, include:
- Take a look at your streets and see if they’re too wide. Is a “road diet” in order? Think about pedestrians and bikers first, before cars.
Right. Just like we grouse about on GrokTALK!, already we complain about the inconvenience of going downtown Concord – and they are doing exactly what Vann outlines above. Location, location, location – but if you make it MORE inconvenient for those out of towners, they won’t come downtown. Again, people do want some ambiance in their experience but if the inconvenience cost goes up, they’ll go elsewhere where it is easier. Again, Laconia tried this – big bust. And after looking at the angled parking with expanded sidewalks, the loss of the two lanes each way with a hard barrier between north / south, I know that I would NEVER ride a bike in the narrow “bike lane” they trumpet so as to be “with the times” – sorry, just because there’s a bike logo painted every so often doesn’t mean it is.
- Analyze the average lot size and setbacks of your most desirable neighborhoods, then compare with what’s currently allowed. Alter zoning so the village part of your town can be expanded.
And here comes the “force of Government” – what she’s saying is make anything outside of “town” be less appealing so as to “nudge” (that Cass Sustein phrase that so pleases Obama) people to “behave correctly” and “decide properly”. Translation: you can’t decide for yourself because you won’t do the right thing.
- Make sure your zoning doesn’t prohibit mixed use, with retail or light manufacturing on the ground floor and offices or apartments above. In some cases, prohibitive zoning in town centers has “left us with an inability to build any more of the neighborhoods we like best,” Vann said.
Yeah, like I’d like to live above a “light” manufacturing facility with a high noise grinder or planer. Now, in this she may be right, go ahead and allow it and there may be some that will go “ok, for me”. The problem is that it won’t be a “we’re open!” – it will be only a first step.
- Can village businesses build right on the sidewalk? Prohibit deep parking lots in front, with the business set far back. “No one wants to walk in front of a parking lot,” Vann said.
Again – make it harder to drive in and folks will drive elsewhere. I’m like a lot of guys – I know what I want, I generally already know where to get it, and I only want to drive in, get out, go in, fetch it, pay for it, get back in, and drive home. Being able to drive up to the front door is AWESOME for time savings. Make it harder, I go elsewhere.
And one has to note: you WILL use your own property ONLY in the way I allow. So much for the noticing that things worked better then without zoning regs than now – yet, putting in MORE zoning is exactly what she wants to decree.
No, even though this may stem from “good intentions”, it is another set of “good intentions” we’ve seen from the Left over and over again – but it seems that intentions only matter and not the results obtained from them (they hate being metric’d, don’t they?).
You know, I’d have more respect for her if she was all in and doing it with her own (and other investors) money and doing it herself. Take the risk instead of telling everything else how to take that risk themselves.
