BusinessTN

Sprawl. It’s not a pretty word. And it’s often not a pretty picture.

“Like many older cities, Memphis is facing sprawl,” says Shelby County Mayor A C Wharton Jr., who is working with other county leaders to rewrite zoning laws and ordinances that rein in sprawl. “Before I took office, as a practicing attorney, I was well aware that our zoning codes were often disregarded,” Wharton says. “The laws were really no more than guidelines that could be disobeyed if it was convenient to certain parties. We had no integrity.” Wharton says one of his first jobs as county mayor was to reclaim that integrity.

“We have to start from scratch with the end in mind,” he says. “In many instances, the codes are outdated. We can’t permit a broad range of uses on one place. We have to preplan.”

Wharton says the end product will be predictability and stability. “If someone purchases a house in a residential area, they shouldn’t wake up one morning to find an excavation crew clearing land for an industrial park in their back yard,” he says. “The same is true for businesses. If a developer buys land to build a strip mall, six months later they shouldn’t find a strip joint moving in.”

“Zoning is about creating trust,” says Lee Einsweiler, vice president of Duncan Associates, an urban planning firm in Austin, Texas. “Cities and counties have to think deeply about what they want to be when they grow up. Zoning is best when it matches expectation. When it is broken, as in the case of Memphis, there is a constant battle over development.”

Many local developers are supporters of a new plan. In fact, Einsweiler says developers embrace a city’s re-zoning because it means much less grief at public hearings.

“Almost all of the development in Memphis is planned development,” he says. “This is a problem because it means the system is broken. Developers have to work with city officials to create mini-ordinances because the written rules don’t work for their projects. When a good zoning ordinance is in place, everyone knows what to expect.”

Rusty Bloodworth, executive vice president of Boyle Investment Co., is one of the local developers on the rezoning bandwagon. “There is a tremendous amount of networking going on right now, especially in south central Memphis,” he says. “It’s combining the knowledge of traffic engineers, architects, fire departments, mayors, planning and development officers and the rezoning staff. The question we’re all trying to answer is how do we reinvent development for the next 30 years? It’s exciting to be working together, all on the same page.”

“The current zoning ordinances have been in place for 25 years,” says Frank Ricks, a founding partner of Looney Ricks Kiss (LRK), a Memphis-based architectural, interiors, planning and research firm. “They reflect the thinking of the time. After World War II, zoning was segregated. Office, industrial and residential areas were all kept separate. The problem becomes that to get from area to area, you must get in your car.”

One of the first steps to the rezoning process came in November when the Memphis Office of Planning and Development unanimously (11-0 with two abstentions) passed a six-month moratorium on new residential projects outside of municipal limits. Wharton said in a statement that “the moratorium will allow us the breathing room necessary to develop effective mechanisms that will encourage growth of durable neighborhoods that pay for themselves.”

Catching their breath gave Shelby County officials a chance to hire Duncan Associates to consult on the rezoning plan, which some call a smart growth plan.

“I like to stay away from names,” Wharton says. “Smart growth implies that the opposite—or what we have been doing—is dumb growth. I prefer to call our plan sustainable growth.”

Whatever the name, the plan includes “protecting natural resources, creating a strong economy, lessening the load on infrastructure and reducing automobile trips,” says Bloodworth. “One of the ways to do that is by building villages.”

Bloodworth points out that rail systems are designed around rail stations.

“Automotive-driven areas need to be designed around interchanges and key road systems,” he says. “Reducing automobile trips is one of the most important parts of the strategy. The goal is to create a walk-ability standard, where people can walk through a community. “It’s about creating mixed-use developments in strategic locations. Reinvent the roads, reducing the need for a number of big roads. And make the experience more pleasant.”

Wharton says commingling single-purpose areas with mixed-use communities is the goal of his sustainable growth plan. “Everything has to be pre-planned and the plan has to be enforced,” he says. “Mixed-use areas are an important part of the plan, but they have to be planned on the front end.

Bloodworth cites Franklin, Tenn., as a city that is reinventing itself with a smart growth mentality.

“Franklin has a clearly defined concept with a smart growth component,” he says. “Officials are in tune with their direction for the future. Still, Bloodworth says, the Cool Springs area looks good from the air, but was designed around the planning theory of 15 years ago. Retail, office and lodging all co-mingle well. But it’s hard for pedestrians to move through the system. You must take a car; it’s not possible to walk from your hotel to the shopping areas.”

Bloodworth says Memphis officials are looking at examples such as Baldwin Park in Orlando and Celebration, Florida. Wharton says the county needs look no farther than its own boundaries to find a good example.

“Harbor Town, created by Henry Turley Co., is the epitome of a walk-able community,” he says. “I know communities like Harbor Town are the types of neighborhoods people want. People may not mind a 10-mile commute to work, but when they get home, they don’t want to have to get in their car to pick up shoes from the cobbler or shirts from the laundry. They want to be able to walk to neighborhood shopping.”

More walking comes into play with a newly planned 22-mile cross-county greenbelt, a pedestrian-friendly walking and biking trail through Collierville, Germantown and Memphis, leading to the Mississippi River.

“Smart growth is more important than any one project,” Bloodworth says. “No single development can create a new pattern. We have to collaborate. It’s all about creating great neighborhoods and villages, and doing it arm-in-arm with competitor developers. It’s time to think about a city holistically and organically and for the long-term.”

“[Our firm does] a lot of work across the country,” Ricks says. “Other cities have put similar plans in place with significant changes in how neighborhoods are developed. This new plan will greatly change Memphis and the county with significant improvements. “But people are sometimes resistant to change and new rules. This new zoning will really be bringing us back to the neighborhoods we used to have. It might be uncomfortable at first, but it will eventually offer a huge advantage to everyone.”

Land Institute, ho!

A group of Memphis developers are working to make Memphis the first Tennessee city with a district council of the Urban Land Institute (ULI). The ULI is a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit organization that works to educate developers, property owners, government officials, engineers, educators, architects, lawyers and others on responsible leadership in the use of land to enhance the total environment. “It started as an organization for developers,” says Frank Ricks of LRK Inc. “It offers guidance in building cities. It’s proactive and one of the best organizations in the country as it educates and encourages developers to do better work.”

The ULI does research on land use trends and issues, and provides solutions to problems.

“Our state is expected to grow,” Ricks says. “Having a ULI council here will help us with development related issues.” The ULI has some 40 councils across the United States, with an office in Atlanta that serves much of the southeast. Ricks says the Memphis office will serve western Tennessee, Arkansas and Mississippi.

“The process of getting a council here has taken about a year and a half,” Ricks says. “We’re hopeful that we get notification this summer.”