In 2009, the Tri-State Transportation Campaign and members of the One Region funders’ collaborative awarded grants to municipalities in the tri-state area that promised innovative approaches to transit-centered development. Last Tuesday, the recipients showcased the fruits of their work. In what Pat Jenny of the NY Community Trust described as a tour of the region’s railroad cities and towns, attendees heard from Stratford, CT; Mount Vernon, NY; Peekskill, NY; Ronkonkoma, NY; Wyandanch, NY; Newark, NJ; and Trenton, NJ. (Their presentations are available on Tri-State’s website.)

“Neighbor to Neighbor”: Best Practices in Public Participation

The conference showcased some examples of stellar public outreach. In Trenton, city officials knew they had a problem when an early community meeting on redeveloping the area around the train station drew 200 concerned residents. The mayor created an volunteer advisory committee in response — but what made the committee unusual, committee co-chair Taneshia Nash-Laird told conference attendees, was the effort expended to make sure the process went beyond “the usual suspects.”

Committee members walked the train station area to find residents who had spoken up at that early meeting, literally recruiting some off of their front porches. Most fruitful, Nash-Laird said, was to engage with community groups so that they, and not the city, did much of the initial outreach. The result was a process with over 250 participants that has made a major impact on the redevelopment plans.

In Mount Vernon, planners invited residents to serve as volunteer facilitators at community meetings, providing each with 2-3 hours of training. That changed the tone of the public outreach, Planning Commissioner Jeffrey Williams said, replacing a typically bureaucrat- or consultant-driven process with one where participants felt like they were talking “neighbor to neighbor.”

Local Visions

Last Tuesday featured seven very different municipalities, each with a vision tailored to local conditions. “We didn’t realize until [beginning our study] that commuter parking was strangling our downtown,” Stratford Town Planner David Killeen said, unveiling a plan to reorganize the area around Stratford’s Metro-North station. Peekskill is looking to “activate” the corridors between its Metro-North station, downtown, and waterfront, while the Town of Brookhaven is transforming acres of surface parking around Ronkonkoma’s train station into a mixed-use district.

In Wyandanch, one of Long Island’s poorest communities, Town of Babylon planners will redevelop around the train station to connect residents to Long Island and NYC employment centers. Because the area has a high water table and other environmental issues, their efforts will center around “low-impact” strategies incorporating sustainable water management. (A new sewer system will allow for compact development in Wyandanch for the first time.)

Getting TOD Done Right

The presentations also highlighted some common challenges in the region, such as the difficulties of coordinating with neighbors and negotiating with developers. The Town of Brookhaven had detailed plans for the north side of Ronkonkoma station, but it wasn’t clear what the Town of Islip would do on the south side of the station. Newark planners are integrating bus transit into the street at a major parcel, but have had to push hard to convince the developer to make changes to its development.

The conference came to an end with a trio of expert presentations. Sam Zimbabwe of the Center for Transit-Oriented Development provided an overview of tools used around the country to enact TOD. Dara Kovel of the CT Housing Finance Authority commented on the connection between public transit and affordability, and showcased her agency’s projects built near transit and in walkable areas. And Elissa Ward of Vision Long Island pointed out that Long Island had essentially no TOD projects before 1995, and now has thousands of housing units oriented around transit.

Chris Leinberger of the Brookings Institution has cited polls showing that a third of US housing consumers prefer “walkable urbanism,” a third prefer auto-oriented suburbs, and the remaining third is undecided or could live in either. With the supply of walkable urbanism far lower than the demand, transit-oriented development’s time has clearly come. But it still has to be done right. Tuesday’s presentations showcased some of the key qualities — public visioning and buy-in, a deep understanding of local conditions, and leadership at the top — that are needed to make it work.

Image: TSTC. All of the presentations described are available on Tri-State’s website.