| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |

WHY WALKABLE STREETS ARE MORE ECONOMICALLY PRODUCTIVE

ByRoy

Oxnard Boulevard looks like a wasteland because of us. Oxnard’s poor old run down Oxnard Boulevard looks like a wasteland because we do not stand up for our main street. Demonstrate your care for Oxnard Boulevard, by coming to city council meetings week after week, to demand that Oxnard Boulevard become a successful walking and shopping street…

| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |

Why tiny ADUs may be a big answer to the urban housing crisis

ByRoy

How accessory dwelling units, set to expand on the West Coast, present a small but mighty solution to affordability By Patrick Sisson  Jan 16, 2018, 12:34pm EST An ADU designed by Lanefab Design/Build, a Vancouver, Canada-based firm that specializes in designing these smaller homes. Courtesy Lanefab For cities starved of new housing, staring down an affordability crisis, and desperate for…

| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |

Why We Code

ByRoy

Oxnard needs Form Based Zoning Codes for the Successor Agency (Redevelopment) properties. Form based codes will give developers proper guidance – they will know precisely what is wanted by Oxnard Planning before they submit a project. Without Form Based codes developers will not have proper direction and may build anything that meets current 50-year-old development standards and design…

| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |

Renovating a Multipurpose Main Street

ByRoy

Greenville Avenue’s new streetscape (Source: City of Dallas)    Streetscape improvements have helped bring back an 18-hour-a-day character to the corridor. Crime has dropped and property values have risen.    Note: This case study was written for the Institute for Transportation Engineers new bookImplementing Context Sensitive Design on Multimodal Thoroughfares, funded by the Federal Highway Administration….

| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |

Potential of Downtown Oxnard

ByRoy

Recently stated by others: “…Downtown Oxnard will never be the thriving hub of county commerce again, because 101 is now the main artery and other parts of the county, mostly near major thoroughfares, are now more developed.” Oxnard Renaissance: The 101 will not be king forever. Private cars, except for the very wealthy, will be a…

| | | | |

How Zoning Restrictions Make Segregation Worse

ByRoy

A new study identifies the precise ways that stricter land use regulations lead to greater divides. kropic1 / Shutterstock.com   We’ve long known two things about land use regulations. One is that elements of them—in the form of large lot requirements and other aspects of “exclusionary zoning”—have led to the racial and economic segregation. The…

| | | |

YES, YOU CAN BUILD YOUR WAY TO AFFORDABLE HOUSING

ByRoy

Lessons from unexpected places. Author: Alan Durning September 21, 2017 “You can’t build your way out of a housing affordability problem.” That’s conventional wisdom. I hear it all the time: Prosperous, growing, tech-rich cities from Seattle to the Bay Area and from Austin to Boston are all gripped by soaring rents and home prices. But what…

| | | |

IMPACT FEES: AN URBAN PLANNING ZOMBIE IN NEED OF SLAYING

ByRoy

Eight reasons why impact fees thwart the creation of equitable, sustainable cities. Author: Dan Bertolet September 28, 2017 When people make a mess we expect them to clean it up. If a private business harms others, we demand it pay the damages. These norms stoke the allure of impact fees—charges levied on homebuilders to compensate for the…

| | | | |

No More Sprawl

ByRoy

NO more sprawl. When our urban core and corridor areas and nodes – are suburbanized and underutilized, why would Oxnard decision makers consider areas protected by SOAR for suburban expansion? It was suggested that some future Oxnard expand into the area east of Rice and south of PCH and wrapping around to Pleasant Valley Road…