Red Cedar Redevelopment Project - Research Paper Example

Red Cedar Redevelopment Project Envisioning the Red Cedar Renaissance site contains a wooded area that has a widthof 20 feet along the north bank of the Red Cedar River, which was formerly a golf course and Kircher park. The park is a home to a baseball field that is actively used as playground, a park containing bathrooms and concession stands. There is a group of homeless people who have established residence along the banks of the river. The race course site contains a board of water and lighting station which will be removed in redeveloping the race course. The site is in the floodplain. Water from the whole of Montgomery Drain empties into the river leading to pollution. Cleaning the river and offering a clean environment is a major goal for the redevelopment project, to make the town liveable. The redevelopment seeks to modernize the race course and its environs and in the process, make Red Cedar a great city that is liveable. I support the redevelopment project because it is in line with community goals described in in the article; “Is Your City a Great City”. Furthermore, it aims to make the Red Cedar town a perfect city as described by David Byrne in his article about perfect cities. The redevelopment project will achieve the perfect city status by increasing the town’s density, security and sufficient parking. The redevelopment site will be divided into four sites to cover all the aspects of development such as environment conservation, community development and infrastructure among others. Each zone has unique characteristics and all the zones are properly coordinated to bring new developments in the entire location. The first zone focuses on restoration. The aim of the zone is to go back to the natural ways things were before human involvement that resulted in pollution and drove away wild life (Marro 27). Restoration focuses on returning the native species of wildlife and controlling human access for water testing and recreation (Wilson 43, Keddy 37). The second zone focuses on ponds, nature trails and parks. The activities will involve embedding the water management with native vegetation, wildlife and social activities such as boat rides and water sporting. Creating eco-friendly nature trails, paths and social infrastructure such as sitting places in Parks, play grounds for children, restaurants and a movie theatre for entertainment. Another activity involves development of passive recreation activities such as playing chess and active events such as golfing and baseball games. Zone 3 focuses on paly, work and comfortable living. The redevelopment activities proposed will include provision of an active, welcoming social and urban environment. This will be provided through construction of ample parking, unity of cultures, integration of cultural values and education into the entire environmental aspects. Zone 4 will concentrate on modernizing the streetscapes. This will be achieved through making the area welcoming, dense/urban and vibrant. Urbanisation will be achieved through construction of first floor commercial and residential buildings to rival the current generational building structures. A variety of pedestrian friendly setbacks with ample space for social events will be included in the redevelopment plan. The redevelopment plan advocates and will use modern construction materials to achieve state of art status of the buildings and other structures to be erected. In addition the redeveloped facilities will use art and multi-sensory experiences to attract the public to the golf course and other facilitate in the town. These four zones describe the geography of the site. However, the community vision and values transcend the site’s redevelopment. Community goals advocated by Ethan Kent and Kathy Madden in their article about Great Cities are the heart of the Red Cedar redevelopment project. For example the community was involved in developing this project. There are documented conversations and interactions that were held to seek the public opinion and solicit for new ideas from the locals. Following this involvement, the residents of the area feel responsible and have a sense of ownership for public spaces in the town. Community goals also involve developing respectable neighborhoods with a sense of identity and pride of ownership. Furthermore, community goals advocate for well-planned and well managed public spaces that highlight the strength and culture of the community. The redevelopment project focuses on the community by upholding its values and vision. In doing this, the project elevates these values and unites members of the community by cultivating pride of ownership and responsibility for community development. Community goals for this project will be achieved by ensuring land efficiency by increasing the area’s density/urbanization. To achieve the density, the redevelopment plan will focus on construction of commercial buildings to facilitate businesses, institutions and tourism. These building will provide facilities for eateries, shops and retail business infrastructure. Outdoor multi-sensory and multi-purpose public gathering spaces will be constructed. A variety of multi-story residential buildings will be erected. Pathways between residential buildings are well developed and spacious to facilitate easy dog walking and playing for children. Intergeneration residential building models will be used to retain the culture of the community and achieve urbanization. These building structures will be constructed using a variety of quality materials to achieve a state of art modern facilities. In addition, the buildings will be constructed to accommodate people with different needs. For instance, the welfare facilities for the disabled, intergeneration facilities such as babies in strollers and old people with walkers. There will be access to retail, residential and public utilities for all and a specific focus on accessible public transportation network. Another community goal adopted from great cities concept is the emphasis on pedestrians, rather than cars. In Red Cedar, many people use bikes to move around in the streets and major roads and highways. The redevelopment plan focuses on this by providing ample walk ways and riding pathways on major streets to improve safety of bikers. The streets in the proposed plan are wide, safe to use and have resting places, despite connecting with numerous destinations such as parks, offices, residential and nature trails. There are numerous options for transit to facilitate movement of pedestrians to whichever place they wish to go. There is enough parking spaces that doesn’t take too much public space since free parking doesn’t come easy. Moreover, the redevelopment proposes a state of art shopping complex that will be convenient to all the neighborhoods. This commercial complex will be centrally placed to provide daily services and satisfy people’s needs. The services to be provided in the commercial complex will include food and drinks in restaurants, grocery store, library, health services and movie entertainment among others. The redevelopment plan seeks to enhance all existing spheres of community life. For example the new building and residential complex are designed in such a way that they are accessible without much need of private means of transport. The developments are scaled to human needs and connect to places rather than being isolated and therefore inaccessible. In addition, the plan encourages intergeneration building construction models to bridge the gap between people of all ages. This allows the conservative senior members to age gracefully in a familiar environment while the younger generation can explore and enjoy the modern state of art facilities. The plan includes all areas of community life such as safe environment, clean water, recreation and commercial facilities, wild life conservation and efficient transportation among others. The new facilities aim to improve community life through increasing accessibility, providing security, constructing a variety of active and inactive recreation games such as baseball and chess, proving Safe streets with ample space and connection to major places. There are many public spaces that are utilized well and widely accessible in the redevelopment plan. For instance, the new building complexes will include public squares and meeting rooms where people can hold informal and formal meetings. The parks are constructed with sitting areas to accommodate groups and individuals engaging in different activities. For example, the parks will facilitate bonding moments for informal groups by availing different recreational facilities and activities to be performed by a group such as ball games and chess. The proposed parks have attractions for people of different ages. For instance, there are passive recreation games for older people and baseball and water sporting for younger generations. Furthermore, there are nature trails, wild life conservation such as bird watching that suit people of all ages. The public places have ample and comfortable social amenities such as benches and seating areas that are conveniently located and formed to satisfy their intended use. Moreover, the public places are safe and convenient and safe for sensitive members such as the elderly and children to walk to wherever they wish to go. Safety is maintained by restricting idlers and negative users from accessing the public facilities. In the redevelopment pan/project, local economic development is a key focus. The new business parks proposed are meant for the local community to invest in. The new building complexes will support retail, whole sale and service facilities of all types. For example, there are proposed restaurants and coffee shops, grocery stores and service provision such as health care services. The mix of locally owned business operations include places where people can just meet and spend time such as the proposed restaurants and movie theatre. In addition, public places will be efficiently managed, properly programmed and regularly improved and upgraded. The redevelopment plan lays down the procedures to be followed to ensure proper management and eliminate delays in upgrading the facilities whenever the need arises. Furthermore, the public spaces are efficiently managed and coordinated to give opportunities for a mix of generations i.e. serves people of all ages. Through these community initiatives, the redevelopment plan upgrades the gold course and simultaneously, improves the lives of the entire community. David Byrne’s goals of the perfect city were also incorporated in the redevelopment plan. David advocates for ample parking that doesn’t take too much Space. Parking is one of the major issues tackled in the redevelopment of Red Cedar. In fact, the new developments provides for parking spaces in all of its new constructions. In addition, the parking spaces are modelled to increase ease of parking, security of cars and efficient parking fee collection system to eliminate delays. The proposed plan seeks to use new and quality materials in constructing the parking lots. Some parking areas will be constructed in the basement and underground like it is done in Japanese cities. This will increase the parking area without using too much public space. For example in Japan, parking facilities are thin and just wide enough for the car to fit in. As much as parking is important, it shouldn’t use too much public space since parking space is not as essential as other social services that improve community’s life. David Byrne’s Perfect cities have tight security for all members in both private and public areas. The Red Cedar redevelopment plan has addressed security issues in different ways. The buildings and public places the redevelopment plan are fitted with state of art security facilitates such as metal detectors, smoke detectors and physical inspection devices such as scanners. Public places will be monitored through CCTV cameras to ensure that negative users don’t gain access or commit security breach after gaining entry (Ryan 23). In addition, there are ample space and walk ways between buildings and residential places. These facilitate spotting of idlers and monitoring their movements before they commit security breaches. Wide street paths that connect to major places ensure that there are always people in the streets and neighborhood. The human traffic prevents insecurity as suspicious characters will be spotted before they commit any crime (Hatch 33). Having people in the streets all the time has prevented crime in New York’s West Village that are rarely abandoned. There is a proposed police department complex that will ensure law and order and thus prevent danger and chaos. The Red Cedar redevelopment plan will encourage mixed use of facilities. A perfect city/town will be created where different activities and events go on simultaneous in close proximity to each other but at different times. For example, there will be businesses, recreation activities and other activities that will be taking place at the same time but in different places in the proposed facilities. The new developments will ensure that the town will be busy and streets will not be empty by 6 pm as it happens in most of downtown of Los Angeles. The proposed developments include security features such as floodlights, sufficient and efficient public transportation network to facilitate security and movement of people at all times. Through these initiatives, people are able to move and do business at night without being inconvenienced. The redevelopment plan will improve community life and increase the density/urbanization. The project is crucial in transforming the lives and livelihoods of the community and boost economic growth. Work cited Hatch, Chris Cordes Jason Cozza Kenny, et al. "City of Lansing." (2007). Keddy, Paul A., and Chris G. Drummond. "Ecological properties for the evaluation, management, and restoration of temperate deciduous forest ecosystems." Ecological Applications (1996): 748-762. Marro, Marcy, ed. "Redefining Community." Metal Architecture 27.7 (2011): 48. Ryan, Brent D. Design after decline: how America rebuilds shrinking cities. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012. Wilson, Mark Griswold, and Emily Roth. "Urban natural areas." Restoring the Pacific Northwest: The art and science of ecological restoration in Cascadia (2006): 279-297. Read More