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"A
City of Villages:
Auburn Village Centers Strategic Development Concept"
Auburn: A City of
Villages
 The Auburn Village Centers Strategic Development Concept presents a new approach for shaping the City of the future. Rather than continuing single-use retail sprawl along major automobile corridors, Auburn will focus development upon a compact pattern of Village and Neighborhood Centers supported by adjacent residential neighborhoods. These centers, in turn, will be further supported by Gateway and Commercial Centers, Community Commercial Centers and existing Commercial Corridors.
The City of Villages concept encourages the development of compact centers that focus and complement the surrounding neighborhoods – centers that are supported by existing and planned road networks constructed in response to traffic demands of both the auto and the pedestrian. The City of Villages concept places the mixed-use core at mid-block – away from the street and intersection. This shift permits the center to function as a true pedestrian-friendly environment as well as maintain the efficiency of the intersection and roadway.
The Village Centers Strategic Development Concept is based upon and builds upon Auburn’s successes. Most notably, this includes Downtown and the crucial role that Samford Park plays in the success of that area, and the City’s older neighborhoods. The neighborhood is an essential element of this new vision for development in Auburn. It is the basic tool for development, redevelopment and enhancement of the City. Several neighborhoods bound together form a Village and several Villages together form of the City. Corridors are connectors of neighborhoods and villages: they include streets, greenways, streams and parkways. Within neighborhoods, a broad range of housing types bring a diversity of people into daily interaction, strengthening the personal and civic bonds essential to an authentic sense of community.
In contrast, when automobile accessibility is the community’s primary consideration for land uses on a future land use map, or for commercial zoning approvals in a commercial or general development district, the inevitable result is Auburn’s Opelika Road and South College Street, and not close behind some of East University, Glenn Avenue and Dean Road. This strip pattern is anti-village, for it clogs the primary street system and separates rather than centers people on their neighborhoods and the community at large.
On the other hand, when the various factors of livability are appropriately accounted for as primary considerations; when a community builds a future land use plan and zoning ordinance and map, very different, and even pro-village, development patterns may be allowed to emerge throughout the City.
Design makes a difference. The details of how a place is put together help determine how well it works. Time-tested principles of place-making govern how buildings, streets, and natural areas can add up to more than the sum of their parts, while making our public investments go farther and preserving our environment for future generations. The following are a few basic examples of such principles:
General Development Policies
- Encourage future land development to be located in centralized, compact patterns rather than decentralized, sprawled patterns.
- Discourage strip commercial activities along major traffic arteries unless specifically designated in the Comprehensive Plan.
- Strive to protect recreational, tourist, unique natural areas and cultural attractions by restricting any development that might harm the environment surrounding such attractions.
- Promote the historic character of Downtown Auburn through the reuse of old buildings and new construction that accents that character.
- Support strong, functional neighborhoods through planning and land use regulations designed to encourage the stability of existing neighborhoods.
- Plan the development of new residential subdivisions around the neighborhood concept by developing new areas as neighborhoods within themselves, or by integrating them into established neighborhoods.
- Discourage development along existing rural and semi-rural roads by increasing the road frontage requirement for new land division outside the City limits.
- Encourage annexation within the 2020 Growth Boundary to promote planned, non-competitive growth.
- Construct infrastructure as needed to ensure orderly and efficient infrastructure systems.
- Promote balanced economic growth to generate adequate resources for high quality services.
- Encourage infill development through a mixture of land uses.
- Create housing opportunities and choices for a range of household types, family sizes, and incomes.
- Create neighborhoods that encourage walking and biking.
- Preserve open space, natural beauty, historic buildings, and critical environmental areas.
- Reinvest in and strengthen existing neighborhoods and infrastructure to ensure viability as they age.
- Invest in downtown public improvements and encourage private investment in the redevelopment of privately owned properties in the downtown.
The Village Centers Strategic Development Concept was tested in a number of key areas throughout Auburn, both as new development and as a retrofit for improving existing areas. The sketches that follow are not site plans for development, but rather illustrations of how new development and redevelopment can enhance and contribute to Auburn’s character. Guidelines and examples are given for Village and Neighborhood Centers, Gateway and Commercial Centers, Community Commercial Centers and existing Commercial Corridors. In addition, a matrix was developed to help illustrate the essential characteristics of the different center types in Auburn, and indicates where these elements exist or may be missing.
Preface
Village and Neighborhood Center Guidelines
Gateway and Commercial Support Center Guidelines
Community Commercial Center Guidelines
Commercial Corridor Guidelines
Appendix A: The Matrix
Appendix B: The Formulation of a Strategic Development Concept
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