Walker said:
While, I'm not a planner, I do understand the need for proper planning.
That being said, no plan is foolproof. Eventually you have find some sort of middle ground between what is ideal and what is achievable. And you have to take a gamble based on what you think the future might hold and where trends are headed and take a shot in the dark.
You don't build a single lane road knowing that you'll need a 4 lane road in the future. Especially when if you're going to build build right up against the road so you can't easily expand it in the future.
Walker said:
I understand the situation you've described, and I can tell you that it doesn't apply at all to the situation that we're discussing here.
If Jeffrey Park is built out entirely residential and a demand for office space spikes, there's plenty of room to grow inward into vacant or underutilized space in Downtown before needing to go further out (beyond 270?). Even if new office space were built further out from Jeffrey Place (Weinland Park? Milo-Grogan?) it would still be urban infill and not sprawl.
Again you seem to be going from point a to point b and not realizing that you'll eventually get to point Z. Yes there are additional sites for retail, office, etc. But the problem is that there won't be enough space for an ADEQUATE amount of all these uses to create an urban walkable environment. Meaning people wont able to live, work and shop withing a reasonable distance from their primary residence. Building a suburb near downtown is a lot better than expand the urban boundary to build one, but still not ideal.
Walker said:
And again, planning is great, but sometimes you have to think about this in the context of actually living in a place on a day to day basis and not from the 40,000 foot view that city planning consultants often take. My dentist is in German Village, near where I used to live. I kept using the same dentist even though I moved into a different neighborhood. When I go in for dentist appointments twice a year I either ride the bus or drive my car. And it's not a big deal because it's twice a year and only two miles away from home. If my dentist were located on my street, I wouldn't visit them anymore often than I do now.
The dentist was just an example. It could be your dry cleaner, day care, local hardware store, tax accountant, church, etc...
Sure many of the places we go we only go year or monthly. But if you have to drive to pretty much everything except restaurants and bars then you really don't have a walkable environment. You have a suburb where you can walk to the Bar. This will be no different than Upper Arlington only slightly more dense.
For example if you look at the walkscore you need to have a score of at least 90 to be considered an area where you can live without a car. And the grocery option that is used for Jeffrey place is a UDF. How many people see UDF as a legitimate option to buy groceries?
As planned the development will do great. And the area will continue to get much better. It's just not good foresight in terms of planning.
This is a suburban style development, it will encourage suburban style residents. These residents won't be inclined to use transit, thereby reducing/prolonging the chance for new transit. And will eventually become very expensive homes unattainable for most residents.
I just checked the local zoning. If you look at where Jeffrey place is and you want to add commercial along 4th then you have to go all the way up 4th ave. Pretty much the entire area is zoned R-4 which allows for residential and a couple other uses like a library, school, church or day care. The zoning pretty much doesn't even allow mixed use.
This is a case where since nothing is there now and local people want growth this project looks great from a local perspective but then nationally people are looking at it and it doesn't measure up to what's being built elsewhere.
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