Yesterday the final Seven50 Southeast Florida Prosperity Plan was presented, read it on the website: "[Seven50 is] a framework that provides the seven counties of southeast Florida the ability to focus on major issues that go beyond city limits, county lines, state limits and national borders. These issues include: economic development, transportation, education, food supply, energy, leadership, climate resilience and more." The plan includes Guest Essays including one from Townhouse Center, reproduced below.
"Seven50 is a regional plan, a big plan. The most vibrant urban neighborhoods, like Boston’s North End or New York’s West Village or Miami’s Little Havana, are made of many small buildings. What do big plans and small buildings have to do with each other? Plenty!
"A regional plan can help small buildings by recommending certain policies. For example, to reduce development pressure on natural and agricultural areas, a regional plan might recommend that local governments directly create incentives or remove obstacles to building on small urban vacant lots, which are often plentiful but seen as costly or inefficient.
"Or another example, less direct but equally significant: to make passenger rail more financially sustainable, a regional plan might recommend that local governments stop requiring that new buildings include off-street parking. This policy also helps small buildings because parking requirements disproportionately burden small properties.
"Conversely, small buildings can help a regional plan achieve its goals. Small buildings add up to urban neighborhoods that are dense and mixed-use, which support walking, biking, car sharing, and mass transit. These neighborhoods promote public health and use water and sewer infrastructure more efficiently. Neighborhoods made of many small buildings (as opposed to a few big ones) help spread the wealth created by revitalization.
"In fact, small buildings aren’t just helpful, they are necessary for some of the highest goals of a regional plan. What are your ideas for how Seven50 can help small buildings?"