Stepping Out

When was the last time you went a whole day without getting into your car? How about a week? How could that even be possible? Well, one of the hottest trends in residential development these days is a part of the New Urbanist concept of walkable communities  — neighborhoods that are designed with the pedestrian in mind, with not only an extensive network of wide sidewalks and walking trails, but also somewhere to walk to.

What if the drugstore, the bank, your dentist and your favorite coffee shop were just a few minutes stroll down winding tree-lined walkways? More and more New Urbanist communities are cropping up around the Triangle, giving residents a whole new lifestyle option that includes helping to preserve the environment by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, conserving natural resources, saving money (more and more as gas prices soar ever higher), getting healthy exercise, reducing stress and even fostering a greater sense of connectedness, of community — it’s hard to stop and chat with a neighbor when you are merely two cars meeting at an intersection.

Traditional zoning laws, originally designed to protect residential areas from heavy industry, have largely had the unintended consequence of creating a society enslaved by the automobile. The compartmentalized modes of development prevalent for the past 50 years have served to segregate homes from retail and commercial establishments — restaurants, shops, banks, medical and professional offices. And form has indeed followed function when it comes to the way cities and towns have developed; since the places that people live have been so long isolated from the places they conduct their daily business, and the only way to get between the two is to drive, the automobile is king of the landscape in cities and towns across this country.

But that is starting to change. Right here in the Triangle we are seeing the kind of mixed-use development that integrates residential space with retail and commercial. Village centers are seamlessly woven into the fabric of the community — in close proximity to homes and interconnected with a network of pedestrian boulevards. When was the last time you thought of a sidewalk as more than decorative, as an avenue for actually getting somewhere? And this fairly urban concept is spreading far beyond the city limits, into every corner of this region.

In downtown Cary, Sheila and Carroll Ogle, in partnership with Tetra Companies, are developing land adjacent to the Greek Revival mansion they have restored, Matthews House, with upscale condominiums, carriage homes and retail space. The Residences and Shoppes at Matthews Place will feature 10,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space, 24 one- and two-bedroom luxury condominiums ranging in size from 975 to 1,700 square feet and six 1,700-square-foot Carriage Houses — all right in the heart of Cary and within easy walking distance of the train station. “My husband and I live and work in Cary,” says Sheila Ogle. “We walk to work, to the bank, to the drug store, and we really wanted to offer that kind of lifestyle, and especially to take advantage of Cary’s amazing downtown revitalization.”

North of Raleigh, in Wake Forest, Bob Polanco, owner of Prominence Homes, is building a 105-unit maintenance-free community just off Franklin Street downtown. With 13 restaurants within walking distance, a pool, parks, post office and library, residents at Avondale have little need to get behind the wheel. “It’s rare that you have a community where you can walk to a farmer’s market every Saturday and buy free-range eggs and fresh locally grown garlic, vegetables and fruit,” says Polanco. Avondale is offering seven different plans ranging in size from 1,219 to 1,866 square feet and is uniquely positioned to reap the benefits of the town’s Renaissance Plan for the Heart of Wake Forest. This 2004 initiative calls for nearly $20 million in spending toward revitalizing the historic downtown core.

And walkable communities aren’t just being developed adjacent to the Triangle’s downtown centers; East West Partners, developers of one of the Triangle’s flagship and most successful New Urbanist communities, Meadowmont Village, will soon break ground on the first community of its kind within Research Triangle Park. Davis Park, off Davis Drive in Durham, will be a mixed-use community of townhomes, condos, lofts, apartment homes, and commercial and retail space. Set in the very heart of this vast employment center, Davis Park will offer a very urban sensibility in this suburban corner of the Triangle. “We have plans for a grocer and a fitness center,” says East West Partners project manager, Bryson Powell. “This concept of living, working, shopping, recreating all in the same place is being very well-received in this area.”

On an even larger scale, East West Partners is also well into construction of another New Urbanist, walkable community, Powell Place, north of Pittsboro, at the junction of highways 64 and 15-501. This 150-acre community has plans for 250 detached homes, 100 townhomes, 360 apartment homes and a 35-acre Village Center (being developed in partnership with Grubb & Ellis) with 100,000 square feet of office space and almost three times that much retail space. East West Partners is taking special pains to lease retail space to essential services like banks, grocers, drugstores and dining venues, and the design of the Village Center, from the ground up, is pedestrian-friendly — a departure from traditional, automobile-centered shopping centers. A 10-acre park rounds out this truly mixed-use neighborhood. “We are seeing buyers from a broad demographic for this kind of lifestyle,” says Powell. “Young professionals who want to live near where they work and play, Baby Boomers whose kids have grown up and retirees who really just want less dependence on an automobile.”

This emerging trend of interconnected communities that encourage working, playing, shopping and dining closer to home is not such a new idea after all. The New Urbanist movement draws many of its defining principles from the neighborhoods of pre-World War I America — the Main Streets, and courthouse squares and corner drugstores and mom-and-pop restaurants, with folks living above and just down the street and right around the corner.

“It’s a quality of life issue,” says John Felton, director of community design at Cline Design & Associates and project designer for Meadowmont Village. “This kind of planning creates a sense of place, of belonging and ownership of the community.”

While the New Urbanism’s ideas aren’t for everyone — the mall is surely here to stay — there is clearly a place for this new, old-fashioned way of building neighborhoods, where those car keys might just have time to gather a little dust.

Marjorie Lee is a freelancce writer