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Bressi Ranch designed to give sense of community

CARLSBAD ---- Smart growth is coming to Carlsbad.

Bressi Ranch, which will go to the Planning Commission sometime this summer, marks a major change in the way master-planned communities are designed in the city, and its developer, Lennar Communities Inc., is gambling on the belief that the public is more than ready for the paradigm shift.

To help design the project, Lennar hired Peter Calthorpe, head of the Berkeley-based Calthorpe Associates design firm. Calthorpe has been an outspoken proponent for "smart growth" ---- the concept touted by the San Diego Association of Governments for the last year that defines a livable community as one in which homes, shopping and workplaces are clustered together so that people spend less time in their cars and more time in their neighborhoods.

Lennar is seeking approval to build the 623-home Bressi Ranch on 585 acres southeast of the intersection of Palomar Airport Road and El Camino Real. Bressi will include a wide range of housing units, including affordable apartments, 130,000 square feet of commercial/retail space and 138,000 square feet of community facilities ---- all within walking distance of one another.

But it isn't the individual pieces of the project that make Bressi Ranch different from other projects ---- it's the way they are integrated into the whole. The philosophy behind the design of Bressi is that people ---- Southern Californians in particular ---- are tired of living in their cars and are beginning to reject the cookie-cutter suburban developments of the last 30 years as housing tracts with no sense of community, no "soul."

"Our original plan for Bressi was pretty typical ---- 929 homes in a pretty conventional design," said Mark Rohrlick, vice president of community development for Lennar. "But with the city beginning to mandate more pedestrian-friendly projects and transit-oriented designs, we went back to the drawing board."

Calthorpe, Rohrlick said, took the developer "back to school." He took a look at Lennar's project and immediately knew Bressi Ranch was a puzzle that needed its pieces rearranged.

"They had all the different things that make up a village," Calthorpe said, including civic centers, housing, commercial/retail space and office space. "But they were all too isolated from each other and more connected by cars than pedestrian walkways."

Calthorpe worked with Lennar and the city to come up with a new Bressi Ranch plan, which is expected to reach the city's Planning Commission for consideration this summer. The new design features shorter, narrower, tree-lined streets with sidewalks separated from curbs by landscaped medians. Homes are proposed in a variety of designs and sizes, from single-family cottages with garages accessed by alleys running behind, to apartments, family homes and estates.

Denser housing such as apartments and small cottages are slated to be placed closer to retail shopping to decrease the amount of traffic on other residential streets.

In short, Rohrlick said Calthorpe proposed a community in which residents in a wide range of tax brackets could live, work and play ---- together.

First, he convinced Lennar officials to eliminate nearly all cul-de-sacs from the project, a move several people in the building industry called "crazy."

Cul-de-sacs are referred to as "premiums" in the building industry ---- usually higher-priced lots that often feature views. Eliminating them from Bressi Ranch was a financial gamble for Lennar.

"Generally, people love cul-de-sacs," Rohrlick said. "They think they are a great place for kids to play with little traffic."

But Calthorpe convinced Lennar that people love cul-de-sacs only because they have been given no other choice. By situating main roads that lead to shopping and office centers away from most homes rather than through the heart of the community, Calthorpe said drivers won't be tempted to use Bressi's residential streets as shortcuts. Several intersections in the project also are designed with traffic circles, an engineering element used to slow traffic.

What Lennar thinks it can achieve at Bressi Ranch is a sense of community many feel has been lost, Rohrlick said.

"All of those tract homes with huge garages facing the street isolate people from their community," he said. "People come home from commuting to work, pull into their garage, and don't come out again till it's time to get back in the car. It's no wonder they don't know their neighbors."

Calthorpe said that the idea of creating communities "with soul" where residents feel a sense of belonging can be an intangible quest, but he said a good design can enhance or hurt the process.

"Streets where you see nothing but garage doors don't enhance a community," he said. "To do that, you have to have diversity, a range of house types. The more diverse the neighborhood, the more diverse the interactions get. You don't mandate a sense of community; you provide choices and allow it to evolve."

For the last 60 years, land at Bressi Ranch has been farmed and much of the native habitat there destroyed. Most of the remaining habitat is confined to the slopes and lower wetland areas of the property. Those areas ---- 33 percent of the master plan ---- are being preserved and will include public hiking trails.

City Planning Director Michael Holzmiller said Lennar has incorporated many of the new community planning elements the city has been working on for two years, including narrower streets and pedestrian-friendly walkways leading to civic and retail facilities.

"Bressi is the first project to go through the approval process in its entirety under our new standards, and Lennar has made a giant attempt to meet the standards wherever possible."

Lennar hopes to begin grading at Bressi Ranch before the end of the year and open the first model homes in the first or second quarter of 2004. Until plans and designs are approved, Rohrlick said home prices won't be announced.

Contact staff writer Pat Storey at (760) 901-4068 or pstorey@nctimes.com.

4/14/02

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