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| Planner Scrutinizes
County Task is to squeeze in 225,000 more people John King |
Thursday, March 22, 2001
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Pleasant Hill -- The critic in Peter Calthorpe, the globe-trotting planner, can survey the stage-setlike storefronts of downtown Pleasant Hill and see a million flaws. But the realist in Peter Calthorpe, the dogged crusader trying to nudge America out of its land-chewing habits, looks at curved Crescent Drive and the snug row of nearby houses and sees a welcome step in the right direction. "For the time it was conceived, it's a heroic effort," Calthorpe said last week exploring this new center of an old suburb. "I can't believe I haven't been out here before this." I can't either -- not just because Calthorpe's office is a mere 15 miles away in Berkeley but also because his excellent new book, "The Regional City," nails dead-on the dilemma in suburbs like Pleasant Hill. They grew first, grew fast, and now are scrambling backward to shoehorn a "there" into the flat blur of subdivisions and strip malls. Calthorpe's unfamiliarity with his neighbors to the east is about to change. On Monday, he and partner John Fregonese were chosen to help Contra Costa find a way to insert 225,000 more people into the county without paving over what's left of farmland and open space. Excessive as the number sounds, that's how many residents government studies say Contra Costa will add during the next 20 years to its current population of 930,000. But how? Through endless fights over every new development proposal? Or by countywide consensus on finding elegant ways to add extra homes in neighborhoods close to shopping and buses or BART? Calthorpe has argued the second approach for more than a decade. He's one of the founders of what now is known as "new urbanism," the notion that growth should be at a scale similar to the communities of old, where all facets of life were within shouting distance of each other. The planning process, expected to take two years and cost upward of $750, 000, is the brainchild of a collaboration between county government and the Contra Costa County Mayors Conference. It's ambitious. But Calthorpe -- who has done large-scale plans for the regions around Portland and Salt Lake City - - says Contra Costa's effort to map its future could become a model for the rest of the Bay Area. "You can't do regional planning with 7 million people," Calthorpe said, an opinion born out by decades of failed attempts to bring our nine counties closer. "You have to break it down. . . . Besides, Contra Costa's practically a region in terms of its scale and population." It's also very much a work in progress. That's why I invited Calthorpe to lunch in Pleasant Hill last week -- because it is precisely the type of place he describes in his new book. Despite patches of thick prose, "The Regional City" does a great job analyzing the different planning obstacles faced by different types of urban communities. "These towns literally have no center or history" is how Calthorpe and co- author Bill Fulton (publisher of the California Planning and Development Report) describe suburbs like Pleasant Hill built after World War II. There are nice houses, nice blocks, but little common ground: "A town without a thriving center lacks the economic and cultural crossroads of its community." That was the case in Pleasant Hill and that's what city leaders in the late '80s set out to change. They hired renowned architect Charles Moore to design City Hall and crafted a plan to replace the smudged blocks around it with something that lives up the word "downtown." There were plenty of compromises between the plan's approval in 1992 and the start of construction in 1998, but at least, it happened. Now there's a shop-lined street, a cinema going up -- and 31 of the 36 houses along the edge already have sold. The last five go on the market Saturday, $400,000 or so a pop. Walking around, Calthorpe regretted the lack of apartments or offices above the shops on Crescent Drive (the 1992 plan had them, but the developer threw them out). He's disappointed that a small building designed for a flower shop blocks the view of City Hall from downtown's snug plaza. But again, a decade of lobbying has made Calthorpe a pragmatist: "It's a really good job," he said after finishing the rounds. "When the cinema gets built, it should really snap into focus." The challenge faced by Pleasant Hill is the challenge faced by Contra Costa: to add new layers in a way that makes the community more livable. The challenge faced by Calthorpe is to apply his theories in a way that works and that appeals to skeptics. The future is up for grabs. You can reach John King at (925) 974-8354; by writing The Chronicle at 2737 N. Main St., Suite 100, Walnut Creek, CA 94596; or by e-mail at jking@sfchronicle.com. |
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