Tag Archives for " urban planning "

A client of mine wrote to me recently about her concerns with her current urban planner. She is trying to get a complex real estate project out of the ground and needs somebody who is prepared to go to battle with endless municipal and upper tier government land use regulations. Here’s what I wrote back: […]

(This article first appeared in OBJ,  https://obj.ca/article/opinion-coach-houses-open-door-better-urban-planning-ottawa.) As OBJ readers may already know, the city of Ottawa recently changed its bylaws to permit construction of coach houses on many existing residential lots. This is part of a worldwide effort to densify and intensify existing urban areas to make them more interesting, more diverse, and more […]

Jan Gehl explains why architects, urban planners, developers, community associations, BIAs, politicians, traffic engineers and NIMBYs need to unlearn 50 years of schooling and practice… [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lid9ELzzT8Y?feature=oembed&enablejsapi=1&origin=https://safe.txmblr.com&wmode=opaque&w=540&h=304] Make cities human scale and walkable so people don’t take the escalator to the fitness club… Make every street 2-way with bike lanes, organized street tree planting, a […]

It seems that every time an entrepreneur/developer/contractor/renovator/investor/homeowner/business person goes to talk to a city, town, county or village these days to discuss a new project, planners respond this way, “Ah, we have some concerns.” STOP SAYING THAT. It’s a huge turn off.  What do entrepreneurs et al really want? Why do they locate in one city […]