LONG TERM VISION VERSUS SHORT TERM GAIN

2012 National APA Conference

Monday, April 16

Presenters:

Robin McCaffrey, AICP, AIA - MESA

Jose de Jesus Legaspi - The Legaspi Company

Carissa Cox, AICP - MOSAIC Planning and Development Services

PART ONE: VISION AS VALUE AND GAIN AS TRANSACTION

Robin H. McCaffrey, AICP, AIA

Principal, MESA

Long Term Vision versus Short Term Gain

Two components: 1. Long Term Vision: what we want to have happen 2. Short Term Gain: what happens How and why are they different

All paradises, all utopias are designed

by who is not there, by the people who

are not allowed in. TONI MORRISON, Online News Hour interview, Mar. 9, 1998

The Attributes of Vision

• Vision looks into the future

• Vision seeks a state of completion

• Vision transforms the present

Vision in History

• Equality

• Morality

• Technology

• Order

• Divinity

These are the movements associated with Vision

y

Equality

• Indian Pueblos

• Shakers

• New Harmony

• Oneida

• Utopian Experiments of

the 19th century

Individuality is given over to a collective

Morality

• Picturesque Suburbs

• Garden City Movement

• City Beautiful Movement

Moral Civic Virtue

Technology • Futurists, Sant’Elia

• Fascists, Mussolini’s Rome Universal Exposition

• Hugh Ferris

Scientific Achievement determines Social order and Form

Order

• Beaux Arts

• New Urbanism

• Transit Oriented Development

Powerful Public Domain

Divinity • New Jerusalem

• Jannah

• Plat of Zion

State of bliss

The Common Elements of Vision

• Symmetry

• Axiality

• Towering height

• Clear form

• Hierarchy

• Classicism

• Repetitive components

• Monumentality

• Organic union

• Beauty

An appropriation of the concept

of CENTER

Our Notion of Vision and Short Term Gain are Fundamentally Different

Vision is principally about aggregation • Vision is built on systems of aggregation

– Ports – Islands – Rail heads and other points of convergence – Within defined limits that separate the sublime from the profane

Short Term Gain is about dispersion • Built on systems of dispersion

– Freeways – Arterials – Suburban land – A unitized component of a ubiquitous landscape

Vision is a High State of Potential Energy

• Centralized Control

• Mature state of value

• Fulfillment

• Completion

Short Term Gain

• Equality is replaced by Uniformity

• Morality is replaced by Superficiality

• Technology is replaced by Functionality

• Order is replaced by Repetition

• Divinity is replaced by Secularity

• Endurance is replaced by Disposability

Short Term Gain relies upon speculation

The Forms of Long Term Vision and Short Term Gain

Long Term Vision Short Term Gain

Views the land and what is built on it: • In aggregate terms • Moving toward cooperative experience • Subordination of individuality to Life Style experience

Views the land and what is built on it: • Marginal/ Autonomous Terms • Moving toward commoditization • Subordination of experience to individual consumption

The Forms of Long Term Vision and Short Term Gain

Long Term Vision Short Term Gain

• Center • Village • Park • Town Center • Galleria • Mall • Etc.

• Strip • Sprawl • Pad Site • Box • Grid • Big Box • Etc.

Therefore, Vision is built on Proximity

• Place: Value derived from

location relative to more

distant centers of activity

• Adjacency: Value derived

from connection to corridors

or other features that benefit

market potential.

• Purpose: Value derived from

significance as a center, focus

or other confluence or power

spatial appropriation of

resources.

Proximity: Place

• Rural • Exurban • Suburban • Urban • Core

Proximity Defined

Proximity: Adjacency

• Access • Exposure • Association

Proximity Defined

Proximity: Purpose

• Harbor • River • Rail Head • Freeway Crossroads • Intermodal • Airport

Proximity Defined

Economic Meaning of Urbanism

The Space between Now and Then

• The Foreground to the future cannot lay fallow

• There is a sequential reality that the vision

often overlooks

• The vision is a trajectory not simply a

hoped for outcome

The Sequential Reality

The Development Imbrication

The Space between Vision and Short Term Gain

• Vision speaks in image terms

• Short term gain speaks in transactional terms

• Transactional terms = prioritization of opportunities

• Capture opportunity or portion of opportunity

• Value and risk relative to capture

• Tolerable risk, capacity and return

• Vision (as we practice it) = not risk /capacity, only fulfillment

This says that our vision is of the wrong thing and that implementing that vision through land use and/ or zoning creates conflict not progress

V = Value is Created

C = Value is Captured

T = Value is Transferred

These three activities are constantly interacting, changing and forming the City

Value, Capture and Transfer (VCT), Important Transactional Concepts for

Vision

Value = Perceived Value of Location

The Transactional Aspect of Vision

Transactional Consideration must be in both Vision and Short Term: A Place for all participants

VCT has both a Spatial and Temporal Component

• What is built today constrains or enhances what can be built tomorrow

• Not to recognize this means that the VISION can only be realized if what exists is gone

• This is not Vision, its Negationism

Tools of Negationism:

• Gentrification

• Condemnation

• Other appropriation

Value added Capture: Town Center Project

Absolute Capture: A typical Big Box

Value Loss Capture: Car Dealership/ Fast Food along freeway

Capture is the built response to value, has physical characteristics that express how value is engaged (Transferred)

Definition of Capture

National APA – New Orleans April 12, 2010

Positive Transfer of Value = Vision Present and Future

Our Popular Notion of Vision has left us Impotent to Deal with the

Sequential Reality • Only the top two components are regulated by conventional zoning and/ or land

use

• We must begin to influence the less physical components

Here is how it Lays Out

• Land Development 10 million ac. • Vertical Development 3 million ac. • New Urbanism Projects 70,000 ac. • Total developed land 108.1 million ac.

Land Use and Zoning are Primarily Enforced Through Building Permits

Therefore • Only applies to the Immediate

• Mired in rights, regulating short term return when the forces that define costs have been active without regulation

• Regulating return is always a weak position in a capitalist culture.

• Regulating the cost at that point of decision is also a weak position

• Regulate what makes value so that values emerge to support envisioned outcome.

Vision Vision

City Form

The Vision

The Transaction Ignorant of Vision

If we • Stand at the threshold of the vision moment, the fulfillment of that vision is a

transactional decision

• Put in place the transactional determinants that make fulfillment of the vision possible, it will never be.

• The roots of the vision start at the base of the imbrication and property must move through the sequence and toward the outcomes we desire.

• Transactional determinants – Place

– Adjacency

– Purpose

We do not have a language for the future (vision) that informs the

decisions of the present

There is always a vision…intentional or unintentional because we (as people) are

archetypal…The question is which vision do we serve or notion of a proper world or the

conditions that allow a better world to emerge.

PART TWO: SHORT TERM VISION ASSURES LONG TERM GAIN

José de Jesús Legaspi

Founder and President, The Legaspi Company

A pictorial approach to a vision:

Case Study of La Gran Plaza de Fort Worth and other Hispanic-oriented Shopping Malls.

The Legaspi Company

A welcomed sign…

Elements:

Mercado

Kiosko

Family Lounge Sh

o

p

p

i

n

g

Works Everywhere…

Key

White

Black

Hispanic

Asian

Am. Indian

Multi-ethnic

THE BROWNING OF AMERICA COINCIDES WITH THE SUNBELT AND COASTAL REGIONS

HISPANICS: AT A GLANCE

TOTAL POPULATION

HISPANIC POPULATION

% OF TOTAL

HISPANIC PURCHASING

POWER IN BILLIONS

% CHANGE IN PURCHASING

POWER’10-’15

US 313,095,256 53,183,325 17% $1,000+ 43.09%

California 37,718,293 14,524,969 38.5% $253 36.89%

Texas 25,897,508 9,986,050 38.6% $175 40.45%

Florida 19,156,005 4,489,763 23.4% $101 47.68%

New York 19,472,874 3,517,174 18.1% $76 33.93%

Illinois 12,901,261 2,116,530 16.4% $43 35.78%

THE HISPANIC CONSUMER

• Brand loyal

• Shopping is a family affair

• Tight-knit unit that stays connected - top consumers

of telecom products

• Young & growing

• Shopping is a daily activity

• Householder spends the most on food at home,

apparel and services than

any other group

• Total Population: 53,183,325

• Median Age: 27.69

• Avg. HH Size: 3.62

• Avg. HH Income: $52,831

Demographics

the statistical data of a population, especially those

showing average age, income, education, etc.

Psychographics

The study and classification of people according to their attitudes, aspirations, and other psychological criteria

“The three main building blocks of culture and patterns of behavior, emotion and knowledge. None of them are created afresh with each new generation. Instead, these patterns have

histories, very lengthy in the case of Latinos.”

What Ties It All Together

1. Language 2. Religion 3. Family (extended)

Working with architects and consultants:

• Consider the market and local history

• Identify current design motifs in the center that can be integrated

• Consider what should change in order to reflect the center’s embracing

of local Hispanic shoppers

• MORE IMPORTANTLY: Who is our community and how do we get

accepted as part of the extended family.

How do we make it happen…

PART THREE: STAYING ON COURSE IMPLEMENTING VISION AND EVALUATING GAIN

Carissa Cox, AICP

Principal Planner, MOSAIC Planning and Development Services

Implementing Vision and Evaluating Gain

The very act of planning for tomorrow assumes a desire to IMPROVE community conditions. So …

How do you implement vision?

How will you evaluate gain?

Implementing Vision and Evaluating Gain

Vision: An image of the future based on community values, priorities, characteristics and preferences

Gain: Improved value…improved quality of life

Evaluating Gain

HOW PROPERTY OWNERS EVALUATE GAIN:

Land Value Value of Vertical Improvements

Evaluating Gain

HOW BUSINESSES EVALUATE GAIN:

INCREASE IN NET INCOME

How does a city evaluate gain???

When Implementation Requires Interpretation…

Why could these planning objectives be problematic?

1. “Improve quality of natural environment: trees and other vegetation, soil, water”

2. “Increase confidence in the future of the study area, particularly with regard to investment in real estate”

3. “Ensure that utilities and maintenance services do not detract from neighborhoods.”

4. “Maximize the investment of private developers while minimizing the cost to the public sector.”

5. “Encourage an appropriate level of density to create a series of neighborhoods.”

When Implementation Requires Interpretation…

Why could these planning objectives be problematic?

6. “Pursue funding to create detailed development plans for the Model Sustainable Community sites depicted in the Vision Plan. Funding options could include grants from the … Council of Governments or other organizations/foundations.”

7. “To clarify the City’s expectations of especially sustainable development patterns … and to provide property owners and developers with certainty that the Model Sustainable Communities will be implemented, prepare and adopt a Zoning Ordinance amendment creating a Model Sustainable Community Overlay District or form-based code and apply it by Zoning Map amendment to the locations identified in the Vision Plan.”

Revisiting the Concept of Benchmarks

Benchmarks are “a standard or point of reference against which things may be compared or assessed.”

As a standard, they should be: • Measurable

• Objective

As a point of reference, they should: • Establish a baseline

• Define a target

With respect to Planning, benchmarks are: • Metrics by which the impact of our plans on overall quality of life can be assessed

• Collectively balanced with regard to community concerns and priorities

• Set for quantifiable community attributes

Pitfalls in Creation of Benchmarks

Pitfall #1: Skewed metrics: An over-emphasis on one area of community concern at the expense of other areas of community concern.

Pitfalls in Creation of Benchmarks

Pitfall #2: Subjective metrics: Reliance on interpretation or opinion for assessing plan success.

Example:

“Improve appearance and aesthetic appeal of housing stock and neighborhoods.”

Establishing Benchmarks: Categorical Definition

Economic Development

Employment

Social Services and Community

Health

Natural Resource Management

Quality of Life

Metrics and Indicators

Economic Development

• Property values

• Sales volumes

• Sales tax revenues

Employment

• New businesses

• Jobs created

• Median household income

Social Services and Community

Health

• Crime stats

• Health stats

• Educational stats

Natural Resource

Management

• Rangeland productivity

• Tree cover

• Water quality

• Water consumption

Use Benchmarks…

1. As you develop your plan…

Use Benchmarks…

2. As you map out your implementation strategy

Use Benchmarks

3. As you evaluate your plan

Example: The Brownsville Downtown Revitalization Plan

Objective: Restore downtown as Brownsville’s value reference point, increasing downtown spending by attracting more downtown visits, downtown stays and downtown residents.

Brownsville Downtown Revitalization Plan Benchmarks

The Revitalization Plan had to bring Planning and Economic Development interests together to improve overall quality of life. Benchmarks included:

• Land Value

• Sales Volumes

• Specialized Sales

• Visitorship/Tourism

• Households

• Median Home Values

• Median Household Income

• Employment

SUMMARY:

• Develop plans that acknowledge community preferences WHILE accommodating market preferences.

• Define benchmarks for monitoring quality of life that are quantifiable and balanced.

• Use these benchmarks as you develop your plan, as you map out your implementation strategy and as you evaluate the impact of your plan on overall quality of life.