College Town Plans

Communities of Opportunity: Smart Growth Strategies for Colleges and Universities
In July 2007, NACUBO and Ayers Saint Gross released a publication entitled Communities of Opportunity: Smart Growth Strategies for Colleges and Universities. Institutions of higher education across the United States have adopted smart growth strategies to help ensure that new growth and development meet the institutions’ mission to provide high-quality education, support research and innovation, and serve the community in which they live.

The publication, co-authored with the Environmental Protection Agency, begins with an overview of smart growth strategies and then makes a four-part argument for adopting such strategies:

1. Creating thriving, vibrant places helps to attract and keep the best students, faculty, and staff.
2. Smart growth development patterns are a more efficient use of scarce resources and are better investments.
3. Colleges and universities and the surrounding communities can work together across the traditional boundary of the campus to solve challenges in mutually beneficial ways.
4. Better development patterns allow colleges and universities to improve their environmental performance.

Project for Public Spaces (PPS)

Project for Public Space's - Campuses Program
Placemaking for Communities - The Pantheon of Placemakers

Community Wealth - Strategies and Models: Universities

University Communities Council, National League of Cities

Town and Gown Association of Ontario

Grass Roots Community/Area Planning

Charlottesville Tomorrow is a non-partisan organization dedicated to informing public opinion and policy on land use, transportation, and community design issues to ensure sensible growth and to realize the best possible future for the Charlottesville-Albemarle area.

We hope you will sign up as a subscriber and see how easy it is to get involved in important community decisions.

"I didn't come to a college town to live in suburbia"

City panel allocates $200K to update 1971 plan
Journal 1 Feb 2008
... ITHACA, NY - The City of Ithaca's current comprehensive plan, written in 1971, includes references to the number of fallout shelters in the city, “the diversity of its industrial base” and railroad spurs to Morse Chain and East Hill Depot.

“The train has not only left the station, the station has left the station,” said alderwoman Mary Tomlan, D-3rd and chair of Common Council's planning committee. “I think we need a new plan.” ...

Vision emerges for UMore
U of Minnesota plans 20 - 30K new city - Umore Park
Town Pages - 25 Jan 2008
... ROSEMOUNT, MN - The reports lay out a city where residents will be able to walk or bike past a variety of public art, where gathering places are plentiful and where on-site solar and wind power generators produce much of the electricity used by residents.

“They’re pretty high-end principles,” Carlson said. “There is tremendous work to be done in really listing out very specific goals and strategies and priorities underneath those and then thinking what would be the best way to move forward? How can we move forward with some of these really interesting ideas?”

University committees used input from residents, collected at several meetings last summer, to produce the reports. The University and a consultant it has hired for the project will in turn use the reports as they develop a clearer plan of what the development, expected to bring 20,000 to 30,000 new residents to the area in the next 25 years, will look like ...

New construction changes the local rental picture
Southern - 11 Nov 2007
... CARBONDALE, IL - Rents at the newly constructed developments will be competitive, but the housing is reported to be first class. They feature recreation centers, a movie theater and other amenities. Pei, who has a detailed grasp of statistics and numbers in Carbondale, said, "Students are wising up, they are becoming smart consumers" and they will choose this new, hassle-free housing. He predicted that just the first phase of Saluki Pointe will result in over 100 rental houses being vacated in Carbondale.

"My crystal ball tells me that a year from now a lot of landlords will be in deep trouble," and dumping properties on the market ...

20-year plan nears completion
Eagle - 29 Aug 2007
... MACOMB, IL - Macomb’s 20-year Comprehensive Plan is nearly ready to go public. The committee met with Mike Hoffman, vice president of Tesla and Associates, for the final time before releasing the final copy, Thursday, Aug. 23 and offered suggestions to strengthen the rough draft ...

The majority of the discussion focused around Macomb’s northwest quadrant, an area ripe with WIU students living in off-campus houses and small apartments. The plan calls for the area to remain home to medium-density housing. Some members pointed out those houses are old, in disrepair and the area should be a future consideration for large apartment complexes to better suit student population.

The argument that there are still many nice houses and non-student domiciles in the area won and the plan will suggest the area is suited for medium-density housing. Hoffman said he has personally spoken to several non-student, long-term residents in that area who led him to classify the area the way he did ...

Judge orders UC Santa Cruz to deal with city's concerns about growth
Sentinel - 29 Aug 2007
... SANTA CRUZ, CA — A judge on Tuesday tossed out UC Santa Cruz's environmental study of its long-range growth plan, and urged the university to seek mediation with the city.

Superior Court Judge Paul Burdick said UC's environmental study of its Long-Range Development Plan doesn't sufficiently deal with the impact of traffic, housing and water use on the city. The university now can either re-do its environmental impact report or appeal the decision.

The judge urged both Santa Cruz and university officials to mediate — rather than spend more money to litigate disputes about UCSC growth. He went so far as to offer the names of mediators ...

City looks to offer 10-year outline for development
Miami Student - 28 Aug 2007
... OXFORD, OH - The city of Oxford has begun the process of updating its comprehensive plan, the road map for development for the city of Oxford, and is reevaluating what needs to be changed within the structure of the city ...

The move to update the comprehensive plan was heard by the city council in June 2006. The council chose ACP Visioning and Planning Ltd., who were hired to act as consultants for the city and to take the steering committee through the process of updating the plan ...

City master plan calls for village concept
GoUpstate - 9 Aug 2007
... GREENSBORO, SC - The parcel is between 15 and 18 acres and should be developed, according to the city's new master plan, as a mixed-use village to include about 750,000 square feet of space as a two-story development or 1.1 million square feet if it is built as three stories. The village center of Renaissance Park would include high-end specialty retail, office buildings and about 40 apartments or condominiums. A neighborhood grocery store, nestled on a lower level beneath other stores, could also locate there, according to the master plan. The master plan recommended the YMCA as a tenant, but its board of directors has decided to build a new facility at the current Pine Street location.

The master plan recommends that Renaissance Park include national chains to supplement, not compete with, existing Morgan Square businesses. The plan was created with input from the public during meetings last year held by Craig Lewis of The Lawrence Group, an architectural and town planning group. Parking would be provided by three new multi-story decks and an additional "trayed" parking deck to support hotel-related functions ...

South Side
Terrain.org - Summer/Fall 2007
... GREENSBORO, NC - Greensboro, North Carolina’s Southside neighborhood, a 10-acre revitalization project, is one of the city's first significant mixed-use infill projects. Greensboro’s Department of Housing and Community Development developed a traditional neighborhood district ordinance—based on the Southside Area Development Plan adopted by the Greensboro city council in 1995—to assist Southside’s redevelopment.

In citing its 2003 award for Outstanding Planning: Implementation, the American Planning Association noted that in creating the Area Development Plan, "the importance of Southside could hardly be ignored. This blighted downtown community connected five neighborhoods, served as the gateway to the downtown business district, and was vital to enhancing residential development in the downtown generally." ...

Battle for Big Downtown Buildings Spurs Tension
Daily Planet - 20 Jul 2007
... BERKELEY, CA - The battle over the future of downtown Berkeley’s skyline took a new twist Wednesday when a group of Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee (DAPAC) members offered their own proposal, sparking heated outbursts and a counterproposal.

At issue is the theme which has driven, openly or more subtly, much of the debate throughout DAPAC’s 39 sessions.

Tasked by the city and UC Berkeley with devising the basics of a new plan for the city center and pushed by city staff to accommodate much of the city’s anticipated—and, perhaps, mandated—growth in the years ahead, the panel is faced with two basic questions: How much and how high?

The Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) wants the city to clear the way for adding up to 3,000 new housing units in Berkeley over the next seven years, though the consensus is that developers would probably build less—probably closer to 1,360 units, of which 559 would be built downtown ...

Making McMansion Owners Pay
Time - 12 Jul 2007
... BOULDER, CO - As bloated homes and McMansions continue to sprout up across the country, Boulder, Colorado, may have come up with a lucrative approach to contain what detractors call the plague of Garage Mahals and Big-Hair Houses. At a July 10 meeting, where more than 70 citizens spoke, Boulder county commissioners preliminarily approved a system of development rights transfers that would extract mega-bucks from builders of mega-homes ...

Mercer, Macon to work to refurbish neighborhoods between campus and downtown Video
Telegraph - 27 Apr 2007
... MACON, GA - Mercer University and the city of Macon today announced a partnership that will look at refurbishing neighborhoods between the campus and downtown to create a stronger college town vibe.

The goal is to attract and retain more students and young professionals.

"This is about building or rebuilding this segment of our city," Mayor Jack Ellis said during a news conference.

He announced the creation of a 15-member commission that would look at the development of the "College Hill Corridor," which runs from Mercer and down College Street into downtown ...

UCCS dream turns sterile
CSIndy - 27 Apr 2007
... COLORADO SPRINGS, CA - Certainly the 900 students living on campus and thousands of commuting students, faculty and staff could use a place to go — the funky element most college towns have near campuses. This project presents an enormous opportunity to UCCS and the entire city. It is a rare urban initiative that w ould help foster a campus identity and create a vibrant new place off the new I-25 interchange.

Instead of this vision, the plan as currently proposed is a typical suburban shopping center anchored by big-box stores Costco and Lowe's. It would have a 3,500-car parking lot, Nevada Avenue as a six-lane arterial and stores facing inward, their backs to Fountain Creek and Monument Valley bike trail. We could also expect a great increase in runoff from the impermeable surfaces.

Rather than something like an Old Colorado City, we will have another Academy Boulevard. It will not create any lasting sense of place, nor will it be an environment where people would want to go to socialize. As Howard Kunstler says, "This is Nowhere," the generic landscape of suburban America. ...

'College town' must appeal to community
Expert says retailers near universities must attract nonstudents.
Tribune - 14 Apr 2007
... NOTRE DAME / SOUTH BEND, IN - The partner university can help by moving amenities to the development that require campus people to go there, such as some university offices or services, Thadani said. "The No. 1 element for success is moving the (campus) bookstore off-campus," he said ...

‘College town’ needs off-campus appeal, expert tells Notre Dame crowd
Tribune - 13 Apr 2007
... SOUTH BEND, IN —The ideal mix for a successful development near campus is 70 percent local retailers and 30 percent national chains, he said at the start of a conference titled "Creating a 21st Century College Town.’ ...

City Plan 2025 - Fayetteville, Arkansas
Recipient of Congress of New Urbanism 2007 Charter Award
CNU - 29 Mar 2007
... FAYETTEVILLE, AR - The Congress for the New Urbanism announces the recipients of its 2007 Charter Awards, the annual prize honoring the best of the New Urbanism ...

Realizing the challenges of uncontrolled growth, the City Council initiated a 20-year plan to focus on preserving community character and livability while accommodating balanced growth and development. To better understand the community's vision for the future of their city, city staff conducted focus group meetings in the fall of 2005 and in Febuary 2006 the Project Team and city staff hosted a 10-day design charrette, including property owners, neighbors, business people, developers, elected officials, city staff, students, and community leaders ...

Temple Students Trying To Revitalize Neighborhood
KYW - 29 Mar 2007
... PHILADELPHIA, PA - Temple University law students plan a forum on how the university can help rev italize neighborhoods bordering its North Philadelphia campus.

The forum tomorrow afternoon will study the redevelopment of West Philadelphia neighborhoods around the University of Pennsylvania as an example of how such revitalization can be accomplished.

Featured speakers will include Eva Gladstein, the director of Mayor John Street's Neighborhood Transformation Initiative, and John Kormer, the redevelopment consultant at Penn's Felks Institute of Government ...

Collegiate Atmosphere Helps Town Earn Top EPA Award for “Smart Growth”
Davidson, NC

Trend to infill spreads
Divisive in Atlanta, at home in Athens
Banner Herald - 29 Jan 2006
...ATHENS, GA - Flanked by railroad tracks and tiny run-down cabins, Harley Krinsky recently bought a brand new one-story house near Hiawassee Avenue - one of dozens of such houses in and near the historic Boulevard neighborhood.

"I didn't come to Athens to live in suburbia," the bartender and recent University of Georgia graduate said.

Despite some concerns about aesthetics and gentrification, the practice of redeveloping and filling in established neighborhoods - known as infill development - remains popular in Athens. Infill development, long common in neighborhoods along Prince Avenue like Cobbham, Boulevard and Normaltown, also is spreading into East Athens and Rocksprings...

Audio Presentation
Smart Growth Speaker Series
Life in a College Town: Rediscovering and Rebuilding the Classic American Campus (scroll down page to 2/7/05 presentation information)
Monday, February 07, 2005
The American college town and campus presents a familiar and classic type of place, one that is being constantly rediscovered and reinvented. College towns can accommodate high density mixed use developments, and these edge conditions are being rediscovered, rejuvenated, and rebuilt.

The challenges of town and gown are familiar, however, these places possess diverse, educated, talented, and technologically savvy inhabitants that are the underlying economic and cultural engine for the new economy.

Dhiru Thadani will present his research, documentation, and proposed master plans for several college town across the country. The work gracefully integrates a variety of housing types, national and local retailers, and cultural and civic institutions.

Listen to the Presentation (requires audio file player like RealPlayer )

What Other College Communities Have Done
...URBANA, IL - Examples of Regulatory Actions to Preserve the Single-Family,
Residential Character of a Campus Neighborhood

Rental housing, ruined neighborhoods
A Legislature-mandated study on preserving home values calls for vigilance and cash.
Star-Tribune - 23 Jan 2007
...MINNEAPOLIS, MN - At least 224 single-family houses in southeast Minneapolis -- about 156 in Southeast Como alone -- have been converted to apartments and other rentals since 2000. Many are poorly managed "to the point that there are now many rental properties that students refuse to live in," according to the results of a recently released study on how best to reverse such trends.

Across the country, universities have tried to help stabilize the neighborhoods around them, and the University of Minnesota could learn from efforts that have succeeded in Philadelphia, Hartford, Conn., and Baltimore, experts say.

"Universities and cities across the country ... are trying to be partners in urban neighborhoods," said Anthony Flint, a public affairs manager with the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy in Cambridge, Mass. Such efforts "should yield some results, instead of strained relations, if both parties are willing to participate." ...

Big Man Off Campus
Universities are revamping their college towns in an effort to stay competitive.
Planning Magazine - Aug/Sep 2005
...USA - Today, many academic institutions are partnering with cities, consulting with neighborhoods, forming citizen advisory groups, and embracing mixed-use developments that blur the edges of campus rather than impose hard boundaries.

It's a case of enlightened self-interest. Corporations and department stores can leave cities with ease, but universities aren't portable. They realize that their fortunes are tied to their immediate environs and to cities as a whole. And they fear they'll lose the race for students and faculty if they can't provide safe, attractive settings in which to live and learn.

"Increasingly, students want it all," says Michael Beyard, a senior resident fellow at the Urban Land Institute in Washington, D.C. "They want a top education, but also a top environment. This becomes even more important in a hyper-competitive market.''..

CSU fails to plan for housing
Coloradoan - 15 Jan 2007
...FORT COLLINS, CO - Colorado State University is Fort Collins' largest economic enterprise, and it envisions a bright future as outlined in its Strategic Plan for 2006-2015.

The plan outlines an increase in enrollment by 20 percent (5000 students), 450 more faculty, improved teaching and research facilities, and many other programs that will improve the quality of CSU as an institution of higher education. However, one aspect of the plan seems to be lacking - explaining how CSU will handle housing these additional students. It ignores the impacts of increased enrollment on off-campus neighborhoods.

Residents of Fort Collins and the core neighborhoods near CSU have already experienced the impacts of past failures regarding housing students. CSU has increased its enrollment by 20 percent since 1990 without accommodating the demand for more student housing.

The impacts on the off-campus community have not been very pretty. Family neighborhoods are stressed by over-crowded and neglected student housing. There's been an invasion of party houses where alcohol violations run rampant. Neighboring families are moving away, often out of the city limits. CSU employees are moving further from their place of employment, thereby increasing traffic congestion and frustrating the city's goal of providing suitable housing near places of employment. Similarly, student automobile commuting contributes to traffic congestion.

Neighborhood schools are suffering enrollment imbalances that have disrupted the entire K-12 school system. The city's Police and Neighborhood Services Office don't have sufficient budgets to effectively enforce laws that preserve the quality of life in family neighborhoods. There has developed a general climate of disrespect for values and municipal ordinances addressing quality of life in neighborhoods. Without taking action now, this scenario will accelerate over the next 10 years as a result of CSU's ambitious yet inadequate Strategic Plan ...

Mixed zoning would redefine downtown area
Missourian - 10 Jan 2007
...COLUMBIA, MO - The redevelopment of downtown Columbia is now in the hands of the city, Stephens College and MU.

On Tuesday evening, representatives of the architectural firm Sasaki & Associates presented a tentative downtown renovation plan developed over the last four months. Sasaki representatives Fred Merrill and Steve Wilson, who have been working with MU, Stephens College and the city staff since August, presented a Land Use Urban Development plan for the downtown area south of Broadway between Providence Road and College Avenue at the fourth of four meetings on the subject.

“These people don’t do the next step,” said Mayor Darwin Hindman. “It is now up to us, and we need to be productive. Things will start happening surprisingly fast.” ...

Progress made on Central Campus
Herald-Sun - 10 Jan 2007
...DURHAM, NC - Duke University and campus neighbors have reached an agreement on all but one of the 13 points that have been holding up an agreement between them on the proposed rezoning of the school's Central Campus tract.

The agreed-to points include a deal on what until recently had been the major bone of contention, the amount of on-campus retail space the rezoning would permit Duke to have on the property ...

Officials discuss redevelopment costs in College Park
Gazette - 22 Sep 2006
...COLLEGE PARK, MD - College Park officials said the long-awaited downtown redevelopment project, which includes a new City Hall, condominiums and a parking garage would not raise taxes for city residents.

City lawyers and Mayor Stephen Brayman discussed the costs of the city’s downtown redevelopment with residents Sept. 21, revealing that the downtown parking garage — the centerpiece of the project — would cost about $7.3 million. The city hired Alabama-based Capstone Development Corporation to head all the projects.

If all goes according to the city’s plan, College Park will make $67 million after spending about $46 million on the condo project.

Earlier this year, the city unveiled plans to move City Hall to Calvert Road, leaving the current City Hall site open for new condominiums. The condos will be nine stories, the city’s development outline said, which some residents felt would not mesh with the character of the downtown...

Steps taken to rezone South U
Ordinance change would double allowable building height limits
News - 19 Sep 2006
...ANN ARBOR, MI - In a move that is expected to change the way the campus business district looks, the Ann Arbor City Council on Monday took the first step toward rezoning the South University Avenue area.

The zoning ordinance change, which will be up for a second and final vote next month, would double the allowable building height limits in that area from the current three stories. Last night's first reading was approved by a unanimous vote...

"I see more housing options that will be available along the street front,'' Easthope said. "Right now, it is just retail and restaurant dominating.''

Carlberg said developers don't want to bring in just student housing, but are looking for a mix of students and young professionals in that area...

Lessons shared on college-based towns
Banner-Herald - 22 Aug 2005
...ATHENS, GA - Monday, Tuscaloosa's top economic development official joined colleagues from university towns across the Southeast who converged on Athens to share their unique vocabulary and problems - hoping at the same time to hit on some unique solutions.

"We aren't just getting together to commiserate," said Drew Page, head of the Athens-Clarke County Economic Development Foundation and organizer of the first conference of Southeastern Communities with University Based Economies.

"We're trying to figure out who's doing what," Page said. "If I have a pocket of poverty that I'm trying to address in Athens, someone else must deal with a similar problem in their university town. How are they resolving it?"

The conference brings together 30 professionals from more than a dozen university towns, including Tuscaloosa and Blacksburg, Va., home to Virginia Tech.

This is the first conference of its type she's heard of, Akers said, a fact backed up by Page's research with the National Economic Council and its Southern division, two groups that confirmed no one else holds a conference like this one.

"This is the first attempt to define a university-based economy," Page said. "Where will we wind up? We don't know."

While local governments in university towns often wrestle with the same land-use and neighborhood issues, this week's conference focuses more on economic development - how to diversify the local economy and take advantage of university resources to deal with persistent problems, such as low-paying jobs tied to higher education or student-focused businesses.

There aren't any big cities at the conference, only medium-sized ones where the university is the dominant feature of the city, Page said...

UW-Stout is huge part of housing picture
Dunn County News - 28 May 2005
Menomonie, WI

Commission approves occupancy ordinance
Student opinion mixed on new off-campus housing options
Crimson White - 18 Mar 2005
...TUSCALOOSA, AL - The Tuscaloosa Planning Commission unanimously signed off on an ordinance Thursday that would allow more than five unrelated people to live in a residential area near the University. The commission also signed off on a corresponding ordinance that would lower the number of unrelated people living together in the city's historical district from three to two...

NEIGHBORHOOD BEST PRACTICES STUDY
Joint College Town Planning
Beginning in the winter of 2005 the cities of St. Cloud, Moorhead, Mankato, and Fargo, North Dakota began a joint study that was to examine the Neighborhoods Best Practices. All of the cities share a number of common issues and concerns regarding their core neighborhoods. The cities jointly contracted the consulting firm of Dahlgren, Shardlow and Uban (DSU) to conduct the study. The study concluded with two memorandums and two slideshow presentations.

slide presentation