Planners wage war on Garages

This fascinating article came through the wire over the weekend. This is a direct response to the issue of massive visual blight casued by the overwhelming prevalence of garages taking over the street frontage of our communities, and the impermeable surfaces (read: driveways) that are associated with them. Hopefully this kind of thinking can make its way into other areas as well.

Door closing on 'dull' design

Melissa Leong, National Post
Published: Thursday, August 31, 2006

Last week, Carl Zehr drove through a new subdivision in Kitchener and saw a wall of garages.

He looked at the rows of semi-detached homes with double-car garages in front, separated by swatches of concrete and small tufts of grass.

"When you looked at these in multiples, side by side if you were looking [down the street], you saw nothing but garage doors," said Mr. Zehr, Kitchener's Mayor.

"There has to be a better way."

On Monday, the city's municipal council voted unanimously to ban two-car garages in front of semi-detached homes, beginning in 2007. Mr. Zehr said the new zoning bylaw is not simply about ridding communities of what urban planners and architects call "snout houses."

"It's about quality of life, eyes on the street and making sure that people could interact in their front yards," Mr. Zehr said.

Kitchener is the latest example of Canadian municipalities launching attacks on the garage in an effort to create more livable, sustainable communities.

Avi Friedman, an architect, planner and professor at McGill University, said more towns and cities are taking their inspiration from places such as Bois-Franc in Montreal, Garrison Woods in Calgary and Cornell in Markham. They have attractive streetscapes with trees and porches, and few front-facing garages.

"When you build garages, what you get is not only an unpleasing building that looks at times like a car wash, you also create a situation by which a large segment of the sidewalk is paved -- not leaving room for trees," Mr. Friedman said.

"The street is, therefore, very dull. Developing something like this is an anti-social statement."

Valerie Shuttleworth, director of planning and urban design in Markham said the town was one of the first in Greater Toronto to wage war on the garage.

In the mid-'90s, the town set limits on the size of garages and began developing communities with lanes to access detached garages behind houses.

She said she didn't get to know her neighbours until she moved to an area without front-facing garages.

Going back to suburban development in the 1920s, garages or sheds were found at the back of the home, planning experts say.

As society increased its reliance on cars, the garage began to creep around to the front of the home.

As more households required multiple vehicles, the garage grew to two, three and four-doors. And as land values rose, people wanted to maximize space by building on top of and around the garage.

"What consumers wanted was the convenience of having a garage attached. They wanted to increase the size of the outdoor space at the back of the house for their enjoyment," Douglas Stewart, president of the Waterloo Region Home Builders' Association, said.

"It's convenient, it's efficient and it improves the overall urban design," he said of front-facing garages.

With increasing restrictions on garages, some builders and real estate agents lament the reduction of choice for the consumer.

"If builders are coming forward with houses and designs, it's because they've got a demand out there that they're trying to meet," said John Kenward of the Canadian Home Builders' Association.

"It's all very well for somebody to stand back and say, 'Frankly, I don't like the look of it,' but ... I think the customer has to have a say in this at the end of the day."

Eastforest Homes Ltd. built 52 semi-detached homes with double garages in a Kitchener subdivision, which was the cause of concern for the city.

But Dave Steinbach, a real estate agent with Peak Realty in Kitchener, said the houses sold "like crazy."

They cost about $217,000 each. A single detached home with a two-car garage in the same neighbourhood starts at $295,000, he said.

"Today everybody's a two-car family," he said. "The city tends to think you use your driveway for a car and the garage for a car. But unless you build a shed in your backyard, where do you put the lawnmower and the kids' bikes?"

Kitchener tightened garage rules for single-family homes in 2000 (the width of a garage is limited to 70% of the home's frontage) but did not include semi-detached homes until now.

As municipalities become stricter on what can be built, the building industry has had to modify how it designs homes.

Garages are being pushed back into the house; municipal planning departments need to be consulted on colour schemes for homes.

"They've turned the construction market upside down," Mr. Steinbach said. "All these restrictions add to the final cost of the house."

Restrictions are the result of municipalities learning to manage the pressures of growth and urbanization or communities being proactive in their planning, design experts say.

"If the Mayor of the community doesn't think of himself as the chief urban designer of the city then no improvement is possible. It has to be led by the top echelons," said Toronto-based architect Peter A. Gabor.

"You would be astonished at the range of measures that are controlling development all across the region. Council gets very inventive."

But planning experts argue that if the goal is to create a better public realm, kicking massive, front-facing garages to the curb is a timid first step.

To reduce the focus on the car, local officials need to develop more compact communities, better public transit and live-work-play areas, Ms. Shuttleworth said. She added that Markham is planning a major employment centre near its Cornell community.

"This issue of the garage is really a symbol or a sign of a much deeper underlying problem," said Ken Greenberg, a Toronto-based urban designer.

"At the rate Southern Ontario is growing, we have to find new paradigms of handling that.... I think there's a huge pent-up desire in the public for alternatives to the conventional form of low-density sprawl." © National Post 2006

Reinventing the Alley - Key Elements for Great (and useful!) Alley Design

kamloops alley
Originally uploaded by Spatial Mongrel.

Alleys are wonderful places for social dynamics. The hidden nature of the alley can create ideal conditions for an ad hoc playground among neighbourhood children. Residents hanging laundry out to dry, doing minor house repairs or other activities can meet and chat, watch children play, and get to know one another in a less-formal setting. The alley becomes shared neighbourhood space, a courtyard for the neighbourhood, and is self-maintained by the residents living alongside. An alley achieving this type of attention is visually distinguished by certain characteristics including the condition of the alley maintenance-wise, the permeability of its boundaries, and the high level of visual oversight found within.

It is the rare alley that is able to achieve this type of social role. Many factors must come together for an alley to develop into a community courtyard. Many of these enabling factors have to do with the physical characteristics of the adjoining properties, additionally complicated by the scarcity of rules and regulations governing physical behaviour. The alley that is able to overcome the inherent limitations of its parts and become more than a functional space does so not because of structured rules to make it so. Rather, it emerges from the urban fabric, dependent on a series of small decisions made by residents to bring it into being, and preserved likewise through the ability of residents to maintain the enhanced level of attention. In rare circumstances it is possible to manufacture the conditions that allow an alley to transcend its functional role, but to create a sustainable system requires area residents to buy into the program and take ownership over the alley.

Ownership
The lack of ownership of the alley is by far the greatest threat to its viability as more than functional space, or even to its efficiency at facilitating service delivery. An unsupervised alley collects litter and debris, and provides a potential home for marginal activity. The alley can be an exceedingly good hiding place, full of nooks and crannies, poorly lit, and rarely visited. It is frequently a place for prostitution in urban areas. Drug use is likewise highly common, and some of the worst of human behaviour flourishes there. A visit to an unsupervised inner-city alley can be a wretched and disgusting experience in the daytime. At night, it can be a positively terrifying prospect. It is no surprise that the alley is rarely built in newly planned subdivisions and is frequently eliminated in infill redevelopment situations. On the other hand, a visit to a supervised alley, a "community courtyard," can be an incredibly restful and relaxing experience, and can fill a visitor with a profound sense of satisfaction.

The chance of a resident becoming involved in the care of an alley depends, not surprisingly, on the level of stake they have in the alley. Residents who have rear lot parking or whose children actively play in the alley are far more likely to care about the alley as a resource and work with neighbours to maintain its condition. This returns us to defensible space and the issue of ownership and sense of responsibility over a space, underlining again the importance of ensuring that an alley maintains a reasonably useful and functional role for the residents of a community, aside from its social function as a neutral meeting ground. To reconnect alleys back into the lives of residents, we must consider physical factors that restrict or ease the ability of residents to take ownership. A successful intervention strategy must take into consideration the physical environment of the alley, the properties alongside, and the residents.
The first step is to look at the alley on a block by block basis and develop a definition of what it is, and what the community wishes it to be. Is it a commercial alley, oriented towards service activities? Is it a residential alley, providing green space and community atmosphere to the block? Perhaps it is a functional alley, with vehicle movements and utility maintenance as the primary activity. It may be a purely recreational alley, with activities such as community gardening, walking, conversation and the like occurring within. On a wider context, the alley needs to be looked at as to how it fits into the alley network. Is it part of a linear green corridor, with plenty of dog walkers, pedestrians and bicyclists?

Indicators of Alley Vitality
When looking at the alley to measure how it fits within the block, three elements are important indicators of alley vitality. These are:

• Does the alley provide access by pedestrians into offices, residences or shops? What type of access has emphasis?
• Does the alley provide for service delivery, trash and recycling, utilities and maintenance? How prominent are these services?
• Does the alley function as a connecting walkway to other city streets and alleys? How well is it used?

Other points to consider are future opportunities. Are there parks or gardens nearby that the alley links to? Is the area slated to undergo any kind of redevelopment? Are there opportunities for altering the definition of the alley into something different? An alley is never going to fit cleanly into one mould, but is rather a heterogeneous mix of character from one section to the next, and it relies on the judgement of the planner with input from the local community to determine how best to meet the challenge.

Building Community Support - the Bottom-Up Approach
An alley intervention scheme with a top-down approach will rarely be effective in the long term. If there are no users and no one to assume ownership, if the underlying reasons behind its neglect are not treated, the space will inevitably decline and the initial investment will have been wasted. Many revitalization schemes for alleys, streets, parks and other projects have failed for just this reason. Therefore it becomes imperative to involve stakeholders in the alley right from the start and to determine, based upon local input, the measures that will be taken to enhance the alley and ensure that it remains a cared-for spot.

Community support does not necessarily imply that planners must wait for the community to come to the City for help in repairing an alley. Part of the task of an urban planner is to serve as an advisor to the community and point out possibilities or suggest options that may not have been considered. However, it is also true that in some areas the situation is so severe that residents give up on the alley and consign it to its fate. In that case, the City may need to take the initiative and take the first steps to repair the alley, in order to stimulate interests by local residents in the lane. Again, without community support and an ongoing monitoring program, the investment will be wasted unless followed on by strong local participation and a vigorous monitoring program by City staff.

Assessment and Maintenance
The primary complaint about alleys is that they are dirty. Household debris piles up, neighbourhood dogs rip open garbage bags and strew waste about, and leaves and vegetation collect in the corners. While the City is likely unable to pursue a regular maintenance strategy for the alley in addition to its work with parks, sidewalks and city streets, it is possible to use both proactive and reactive measures to respond to the problem. An example of a partially proactive approach to alley maintenance is to put in place a “needs assessment” site survey program. The survey conducted in this report is an example of such a needs assessment. This data can be collected in a geographic information system and updated either through local surveys or by residents phoning in reports. This can allow for directed maintenance action by sanitation crews for alleys that need extra assistance beyond the capabilities of the neighbourhood. This system is not fully proactive because, though it may identify areas with serious deficiencies, it responds only to the ensuing results of those deficiencies.

A wholly reactive maintenance strategy calls for programs such as the “spring clean-up,” where City crews intervene in alleys with especially severe maintenance problems and conduct a full clean-up. The program can be extended to include regular visits by maintenance crews throughout the year. This can be an effective stop-gap measure in an area with limited economic and social prospects, but is essentially a way to keep an alley in a holding pattern and stop it from getting any worse. This type of action is quite costly and does not address the underlying problem of why the alley is in such poor shape in the first place.

Grant Programs
A different strategy the City can use is to offer assistance to residents by supplying equipment or grants for maintenance, and committing a crew to assist with removing collected material once residents have conducted the initial clean-up. This approach relies on the impetus of residents to participate and be active in the care and upkeep of the alley, while the City provides the heavy lifting capacity to haul away undesired items.

Grant programs such as the “Une Place au Soleil” program in Montreal are effective because of the requirement for full community support from all residents on the alley and the local action that it represents. Grants can be given by the City to residents in support of various community-driven alley projects, including a local clean-up effort, mural painting, flower planting, landscaping, fence repair and so on. Grants can be of any dollar value, from a few hundred dollars to tens of thousands, depending on the initiative of the local community and how much they are willing to invest of their own time in the program. A small grant can help the community buy some cans of paint to touch-up fences and paint over graffiti, while a large grant can pay for more extensive landscaping projects.

Gifts-In-Kind
Gifts in kind represent another powerful tool from the City to promote local activity and care for the alley. Gifts in kind are donations by the city of material or services that have an ascribed dollar value attached to them and are offered in lieu of a cash payment. Services such as providing a maintenance crew with a truck can be used as a gift in kind. Other services are only limited by imagination. The following list offers a few suggestions:

• plants and flowers;
• concrete bollards and planters;
• new or improved street and pedestrian lighting;
• street paving or paving bricks and stones; and
• technical advice from a planner and/or landscape architect.

These can be offered as an incentive with the understanding that the primary work and maintenance will be undertaken by residents. The City can agree to provide ongoing maintenance for some features, such as pedestrian and alley lighting. A good alley intervention program combines both grants and gifts in kind as motivational incentives to get residents involved in the state of their alley.

Grants and gifts in kind can be offered as a special program that can be applied for through the city planning department or community services department. Another alternative is to provide funds as a seed program to neighbourhood community associations who will then act to distribute the funds as they see fit. This may be an advantage in cases where a decentralized structure exists that is able to handle such a program.

The primary benefit to these programs is that the City is removed from the alley intervention and takes a role as a supporting partner, not as the initiator. While the City may have approached the community with the idea of providing the resources and the program, it is the residents themselves who must move ahead with the project and do the work. With increasing residential involvement comes the greater likelihood of residents feeling they have a stake in the alley. This increases the possibilities for regular upkeep and enhances neighbourhood surveillance. Observations throughout the course of the author’s research indicate that alleys that have undergone community revitalization work have more proactive residents who are likely to challenge visitors to the alley, report misbehaviour to local authorities, or deal with problems themselves.

Regulating the Alleyscape: Bylaws and Regulations
An alley bylaw can have a great deal of say about the shape and setbacks of the rear area of lots, without being overly restrictive. Bylaws with dimensional ranges and guidelines allow for the creation of consistent urban form while still allowing for individuality to find expression. For example, a bylaw could restrict the amount of paved surface in a rear yard to no more than 20%, leaving it up to the lot owner to determine how best to meet that guideline. Another requirement could be to have a rear fence that is between 1 and 2 meters in height, and no more. The type of material, the shape and pattern, and the colour is left entirely in the purview of the resident. Bylaws that attempt to guide individual expression and detailed visual aesthetic go too far and have no place in the chaotic world of the alley.

Alley Housing
Another regulatory mechanism that can have a major impact on life in an alley is allowing alley-housing. This can be accomplished by legalizing existing secondary suites and allowing new granny suites, or even allowing for the subdivision of lots and the creation of new housing facing directly onto the alley. Allowing habitation of an alley necessitates that the City pay much more attention to issues of maintenance and safety and security, and can require extensive physical interventions to bring the alley up to City standards.

Alleys that are purely residential can be assisted by reviewing obstacles and working to alleviate those conditions. Resurfacing an alley can increase access to garages and carports and provide a hard surface for neighbourhood children to play. If the surface is paved with interesting materials such as cobblestones or brick, this can add extra appeal and charm, particularly if this is coupled with an area-wide pedestrian amenity plan. Adding lights can eliminate shadowed areas and encourage night-time use by residents. Physical interventions done directly by the City are inherently tricky and must involve more community support and interaction to succeed.

Guidelines for Alley Design
Existing alleys must deal with the fact that people live in the area, use the alley on occasion and therefore have an opinion in what happens to it, and more importantly, how it will affect their property. New residential areas do not have that concern. Alleys in a new residential neighbourhood do not need to be developed and planned to the same level as streets, nor do they require extensive public consultation. However, it is strongly recommended that certain key physical features be included to maximize the immediate and long-term benefits to the neighbourhood. The optimum alley has the following minimum physical elements:

• 6 Meter Right-of-Way: A low-to-medium density neighbourhood should have a right of way of at least six meters in width to allow for adequate open space, visual surveillance and access to rear lots. The width should not be increased greatly beyond six meters unless the alley is expected to handle excessive vehicle traffic to a high-density residential or commercial property.
• Paved Carriageway: It is recommended that the carriageway be paved to allow for a multiplicity of uses by adjoining residents and to ease maintenance. Side-drainage is encouraged to allow run-off to disperse through permeable edging material in the buffer space, either gravel or paving stones. Speed bumps should be placed at the ends of the carriageway and in the middle, and be well-marked and illuminated. With a six meter right-of-way, the carriageway should be four meters in width and should not extend the full width of the right-of-way.
• Landscaped Buffer: The buffer refers to the transition space between the carriageway and the lot line. In many alleys the buffer is zero, in others the buffer is approximately one meter in width or greater on either side of the carriageway. Lighting, service utilities and vegetation are the main components of the buffer; parking is less common but can occur. It is recommended that a one meter buffer be retained for the purposes of soft landscaping and drainage, and to act as a transition zone between the public carriageway and the private lot.
• Pedestrian Illumination: Preferably, illumination should be designed to provide lighting to the entirety of the right-of-way and be reduced in height to conform to pedestrian lighting standards. It is recommended that full cut-off fixtures be used and placed no higher than 4 meters in height to avoid light intrusion and glare, and to allow for adequate horizontal illumination for facial recognition.
• Utilities & Services in Alley: Services refer to electrical utilities, telephone, cable, and waste disposal. When possible, service utilities should be placed underground, accessed through utility boxes inset into adjoining lots but accessible from the right-of-way. Garbage receptacles should equally be inset within the limits of the adjoining property and be enclosed within a defined area for easy maintenance and access from the right-of-way.
• Allow Vehicle Parking Access: Parking refers to vehicle storage both in private rear-lot stalls and in garages. Parking justifies the alley in terms of transportation linkages, rear lot access and vehicle storage, particularly in fairly dense residential environments such as found within an infill community. Parking should be included in the design of the alley and space made available for turning radiuses into private rear-lot spaces.
• Permeable Fencing: Fencing is a method of delineating the limits of a property, separating uses from each other, providing privacy and maintaining a border between private and public space. Fence heights should be kept low, to less than 1.5 meters, and visual permeability should be retained.
• 8 Meter Alleys for Commercial Activities: Alleys with commercial activity should be widened to handle increased traffic and larger service delivery vehicles, with the increase depending on the degree of activity. Alleys with a moderate level of activity (three or four businesses) should be designed with at least an 8-meter right-of-way.

Each alley has its own character and substance, and will experience a range of uses. Ensuring that the design is permissive of use of all varieties will ensure that the alley remains a successful addition to a neighbourhood.