Winter Park | Your Delray Boca

Park Avenue in Winter Park.

In October 2014 I had the privilege of participating in a Urban Land Institute panel focusing on Winter Park.
ULI’s TAP program (Technical Assistance Program) brings outside help to communities seeking advice on how to seize an opportunity or address a vexing issue in their city.
It was a great honor to be chosen to participate, because I have long admired Winter Park and I’m a big fan of Bob Rhodes, who is a legend in Florida.

Bob was Chair for the Winter Park TAP and shortly after the exercise he was honored with a much deserved lifetime achievement award from Leadership Florida.

Led by Bob, the panel produced a document aimed at framing some issues that Winter Park was facing relating to downtown development and offering them some solutions to consider.
So it was interesting for me to return to the city two years later to see what was happening downtown.
We spent a day strolling, dining and shopping on Park Avenue over the holiday break.
It was a beautiful day and the street was bustling.
Park Avenue has a similar scale to Atlantic Avenue, mostly two and three story buildings. Winter Park has some distinct architecture and it’s streetscape is immaculate.
Gorgeous planters, attractive signage, cool little side streets and a lineal park that runs alongside Park Ave gives the city remarkable charm.
While Atlantic Avenue is restaurant heavy, Park Avenue is dominated by retail.
There are a fair amount of chain stores and franchises ranging from Gap for Kids and Restoration Hardware to Starbucks and Burger Fi.
But there’s also a decent number of independents—the feel is decidedly upscale but not pretentious.
It’s a vibrant street and just feels good.
What makes Winter Park interesting is it’s able to succeed as a counter to much larger Orlando which sits (looms) next door.
Orlando’s downtown has come a long way in recent years under the leadership of Mayor Buddy Dyer.

As a result, Orlando is now much more than just theme parks and vacation villas.
Still, Winter Park still feels like an oasis in Central Florida.

The city wants to keep that charm and I think it will. ULI was brought to the city as a result of a strong desire for Winter Park to remain special in a sea of sameness, sprawl and traffic.

We also visited Celebration which is known for its new urban layout and variety of architectural elevations.
Now 20 years old, Celebration looks better with a little age on it. A former Leadership Florida classmate was one of the developers of the landmark project–which has received a huge amount of press over the years– so I had some insight into the thinking that Disney was trying to achieve in Celebration. The goal was to replicate some of the best features of American town planning before cookie cutter design began to proliferate. Critics called it a “Stepford” community, almost too perfect to feel warm and authentic.
I remember visiting some years ago and it felt much more faux than it does today. It has aged well and even my kids–not usually attuned to such things–noticed how different the neighborhoods were in terms of design.
Celebration and Winter Park stick out in a region that is suffering from an acute case of sprawl with all of its attendant illnesses including choking traffic and soulless sameness.
I wish there were more places like Winter Park and our own Delray Beach.
I sense that there’s a large market of people who want a walkable lifestyle, distinct architecture, interesting shopping choices and good local restaurants. Throw in attractive open spaces and large doses of culture and educational opportunities and you have a recipe for enduring success. You also have a recipe for high housing costs, which price many people who would enjoy and contribute to these places out of the market. One answer is density–done well of course–which adds supply and is also better for the environment. But the “D” word is often a third rail in local politics and public officials unwilling to do the hard work of engaging the community in an education effort often abandon the types of development patterns that people long for and create value well beyond a bottom line.
Will cities like Winter Park and Delray change?
No doubt.
But as long as they keep their “bones” and scale intact they will continue to succeed.
We just need more communities to follow their lead. And more public officials willing to push for quality of design rather than simply judging projects based on numbers.

Beautiful Winter Park.

Winter Park is a gorgeous small town.

Nestled next to bustling Orlando, Winter Park is an upscale city of 29,000 residents with a beautiful downtown, historic neighborhoods and a new apartment complex and Trader Joe’s that has inflamed a passionate debate about the city’s identity, growth, character and future.

The debate has been raging for a while but has ebbed and flowed depending on the political winds. But the construction of rental apartments and the opening of the wildly popular Trader Joe’s have created a debate in the community over character and the dreaded “D” word, density.

Sound familiar?

On one side of the debate are those who are OK with change, support transit –there’s a popular SunRail stop downtown– and don’t mind seeing development along the “edges” that might offer some residential opportunities for people who might not otherwise be able to afford to live in the city.

On the other side are those who are concerned with density and multi-family housing, some of whom express concern over the train (which means more people visiting) and traffic, much of it generated because lots of people have to drive through Winter Park to access a booming downtown Orlando–In other words not by development in Winter Park per se.

It’s a familiar debate and I got a dose of it last week when I went to Winter Park on behalf of ULI (Urban Land Institute) to work with the community, mayor, city commission and staff on a visioning effort.

Both sides of the debate have merit, but you wonder if there’s a way to bridge the divide or we are doomed to be caught in an endless loop of fear, division, accusations etc. etc.?

We’ve heard the tired arguments emanating from both sides of the growth divide. For instance:

“Density is bad. “

“All developers are greedy.”

“Elected officials are in the pockets of the big money developers. “

On the other side of the divide are those who argue that all opposition to development comes from NIMBY’s or CAVE’s (Citizens Against Virtually Everything).

It’s as old and as tiresome as the partisan gridlock that has ruined Congress.

We need to do better than this. And I believe we can, but it’s going to take a lot of work and education.

But the effort seems worth it, because the issue isn’t going away.

First, change is inevitable unless of course you live in colonial Williamsburg. Land owners also have property rights and if cities infringe on those rights they run the risk of costly lawsuits.

Ideally, the goal should be smart growth, great design, respect for historic neighborhoods, acknowledgement of–and where possible– mitigation of the impact of development. And yes development has an impact. But to be fair, that impact can also be positive as well as negative.

The devil of course is in the details, but responsible development is not all about numbers: i.e. stories, height or the number of dwelling units per acre.

There’s an art to city building and efforts to drain subjectivity from the process are bound to be frustrating and self- defeating.

In Delray and Boca, we can point to numerous high density projects that work, because the architecture is beautiful and the developers took time to think about traffic flow, open space and how the development relates to adjoining neighborhoods.

I can also point to ugly projects that are both low and high density.

Last week, I received a notice from the City of Delray Beach regarding an update to the city’s Land Development Regulations. The purpose and I’m quoting the city here is to provide greater predictability in the regulations and the process and to incorporate more “form based” code elements emphasizing the importance of the public realm.

Sigh…

Form based codes can be good things and they can be awful too. In fact, our code is pretty good and already incorporates a lot of form based elements. But most importantly, it has worked enabling Delray to become a pretty good place. But there’s a sense– in some quarters anyway– that the answer to all bad development or perceived bad development can be solved by the code. It can’t.

If you want better design and development, you have to roll up your sleeves and work hard to get it.

That means working early in the process with developers and architects, not forcing them to guess about design and other concerns and then sandbagging them at a public meeting.

For developers it means engaging the public and really listening to concerns, not just ramming through projects because you think you have the upper hand politically. And for residents it means coming to the table with a respect for property rights, a knowledge of local zoning (easily attainable these days) and some ideas other than “go away.”

For all, it means working together and finding compromise, which usually means that everybody has to give up something. If you live adjacent to a downtown you have a right to be concerned with development and a vested interest to insist on great design. But you don’t have a right to think you live in a gated community—change is going to occur and the downtown belongs to everyone not just those who are fortunate enough to live there or nearby.

More than a tweak to our codes, what’s needed is a more intelligent discussion about growth, change, design density, traffic, walkability, pedestrian safety, vibrancy, open space etc.

You can’t legislate the art and subjectivity out of city building. You can’t devise a code that will be perfect and you’re not going to get every project right.

I served during a big real estate boom. I met greedy developers and really caring developers. I met genuinely concerned citizens and a few others that could not be reasoned with nor bothered by the facts. I served alongside some pretty good elected officials and we got some things right and a few things wrong. Contrary to rumors, we never granted a waiver or a variance for height and density, but we also didn’t fixate on numbers. We tried to support good projects and we tried to stop bad ones. Our code and master plan was flexible enough to give us those options.

But we also saw the process as an ongoing one of constant education, engagement, outreach and learning. We tried to protect the historic districts and put in new guidelines. We attempted design guidelines and invited local architects to share what would work and what wouldn’t. Our first attempt looked good on paper, but didn’t work in the real world and so we went back to the drawing board.

Plans are meant to live and breathe, not be so prescriptive that they squelch creativity. I hope that’s not where we are going.

Yes, the process should be predictable. It should not take months and months to approve or reject something. But cities need to be both protected and nurtured. They need to be preserved and they need to change. That’s the beauty of this work and that’s where the opportunities are, as well as the risks and pitfalls. You can’t legislate perfection nor can you devise a code—form based or antiquated as I’ve heard our code described—and expect to drain all subjectivity out of the process. Cities are about art and science. Not just numbers. There is no density number that can guarantee good design, no magic phrase or land development regulation that will ensure quality.

In Winter Park, the community and the leadership wants a vision that is values based rather than prescriptive. Values are a great place to start, because as one commissioner stated so beautifully Winter Park is not just about numbers it’s about how we relate and care for each other and our town. At the core of the issue—in Winter Park and elsewhere– is people long for a better way to talk about growth, change and development. Communities don’t want to be estranged, they long to connect and engage.

There’s no code yet devised that takes the place of working together and having honest and safe discussions over the future development of your home town. So we can meet at quasi-judicial hearings and debate whether a project should be 16 units or 19 units an acre even though there’s not a human being on the planet who can tell the difference or we can find a better way.

The passionate debate about the city’s identity, growth, character and future should never stop and there isn’t acode on Earth that will answer every question. All a code can do is help you craft a community that is livable, attractive and sustainable. It’s a tool. Period.

The real work is to build a community where people discuss the future intelligently and get beyond the all change is either great or terrible mindset.

That’s the challenge and that is the opportunity.

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