Save the Brick

Sometime after September, 1903 but before or in March, 1912 a large brick building was born alongside where the West Branch Lackawaxen River confluences with Dyberry Creek. This has been an industrial area since the hemlock swamps of Lenape lands were drained by colonial, urbanists in the early 19th century.

Sanborn Map Company, September, 1903 (left) and March, 1912 (right), with Building Highlight

The last remnant of this town-as-we’ve-know-it heritage is numbered 311 off 12th Street. It’s depicted below in a recent photo (right) and with an alternative vision (left). This stately, near 2,700 ft², multi-story structure has sat largely vacant and unused for a decade; having been condemned after a 2010 earthquake. Some have suggested tearing it down. We and others suggest fixing it back up.

Land use issues play a critical role in how our environment gets shaped. Understanding these machinations is vital for general assessment, without which we can’t clearly advocate for helpful community development. It’s easy to take existing buildings, businesses, sidewalks, and parks for granted as fixed elements within the local landscape. Because maintaining what we have is plenty of work, we might forget that a set of rules and norms led to the creation of present day features however long ago. We might also forget that these elements can be re-imagined or created anew.

Our mix of businesses, housing, trails, and parking was shaped by land use policy. We can see this playing out in real time today. Norms requiring off-street parking make upper-floor housing difficult to develop, even when a noted need for housing exists. Rules suggesting transforming agricultural products into drinks for on-site, retail consumption is manufacturing make it problematic for those in the beer or coffee business to maintain their neighborhood-enhancing businesses.

These issues are presented as black and white, printed on sacred ordinance paper, and something we have limited agency over. Our officials, however, choose to create and continue these rules and norms. We, as the locally represented collective, allow our representatives to perpetuate the same.

The notion of private property is worth assessing in a similar light. We provide a lot of leeway for what’s done within the deeded boundary of a neighbor’s parcel. This is helpful for expressing personal freedoms and allowing for organic evolution of place but what about vacancies or under utilized spaces? Where is the good neighbor line between letting something useful fall down or be torn to the ground and encouraging an alternative? Is the line more clearly demarcated when alternatives could achieve a noted, goal-advancing, community good?

We’ve accepted the concept of “anything goes within those walls because what happens across that imaginary line is none of my business” as a norm. This black and white precept was defined by us and didn’t always exist in the same way.

Should we hold fast to an idea that’d allow for the demolition of something that could be productively reused? Do these notions change when a given something is “owned” by a public entity?

Site Map, Atop 2019 Aerial Photography from the United States Department of Agriculture

This warehouse of interest is currently owned Wayne Memorial Hospital, a non-profit, community-controlled entity we’re all glad to have in town. It’s surrounded by natural water features and Borough/County-owned lands, with shading provided by the landmark shadow of Irving Cliff. The neighborhood is undergoing a redevelopment into park and river access that’s part of a grander network of trails and public lands planned to better connect downtown Honesdale all the way to Hawley. High value, transformational potential is available here in bounds.

Years of sidewalk chats imply this building is unsavable and that the aforementioned earthquake damaged the structural integrity beyond repair. Our understanding is a bit different. You can view the structural reports for 311 Twelfth Street we recently acquired HERE. Condemnation aside, the building has stood strong since that decade-ago earthquake. Further, these reports identify the same foundational issues five years earlier so this strong-standing is even more long-running.

Admittedly, there are numerous concerns to address here, like diverting water from the site, replacing half of an exterior wall, redoing sub-level, structural beams, and likely re-securing the superstructure to a new, pier-based foundation that removes weight from the existing basement slab. Remediation may include even more work than that and it would all be costly but solutions do exist (albeit rarely discussed) and are itemized in the engineering reports (linked above).

Paying for these repairs may very well be outside the scope of the current property steward or another that’s on deck. Community organizations that operate in a not-for-profit environment have a whole suite of value judgements to make and targeted goals to pursue. We wouldn’t expect every entity to save this building. What’s vital, however, is a fuller cost accounting. Some entity may be interested, if given the opportunity. Demolition is a choice, not a forgone conclusion.

The marketplace of ideas is bigger than a single stakeholder’s interests. Investment limits of one group may be the starting point of another. This building is, by all accounts, huge. It’s very difficult to build something this large from scratch so its very existence represents an existing, leverageable investment.

Structure of Interest, December, 2020

With a non-profit or governmental property steward, wouldn’t it be fair to expand the use/reuse discussion among the community at large? When identified community goals require space, shouldn’t we save suitable spaces?

• We need housing. How many small, affordable units could be retrofitted into this space?

• We’ve seen a development trend embracing the value of mixed use. How many uses could be built into this structure?

• We know there’s adjacent public land. How economical would it be for people to live, work, and play nearby?

• We’ve learned the value of open spaces by spending a year without close proximity. How valuable would it be to have a large space for festivals and events we’ve recently missed so dearly?

• We understand the lack-of-taxable-property issue in a borough filled with governmental, institutional, religious, and other non-profit buildings and we regularly see the necessity to invest in public infrastructure like stormwater. How helpful would it be to increase our tax base by putting this building back on the roles?

We, our neighbors, and those before us manifest the neighborhood. A natural law doesn’t define a parking requirement or a demolition order. Human decisions do. None of that is fixed. Perceived truths or laws like these are really just the organizational flow of information among structures we design. When we know that, we can lobby our local representatives for change or make changes ourselves.

Expanding the narrative beyond demolishing something that contains a prescribed, engineer’s recipe to fix is one way to embrace this fluidity and have a more productive discussion. It’s okay to consider different structures and other voices in a conversation about preserving community assets. In fact, when the property steward in question is an organization or government entity that represents the people and when these stewards pay less than their neighbors on otherwise taxable improvements, then their demolition plans should not be promoted in a vacuum.

Recent examples aren’t our only guide. Buildings don’t just have to come down. We can build anew and we can lead by new example when fully using, rehabilitating, and re-purposing what we’ve already got. That’s what we’d submit should be done here.

If the current or the next deed holder of this building is constrained by demolition plans, then a compassionate task would be to for that entity to embody a grantor mindset and at least look for a less-constrained grantee. Sometimes the most appropriate thing to do is transfer a gift to others who can pay it forward.

Parking Downtown

“Don’t is always seem to go. That you don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone.”

Jonie Mitchell

We agree with Jonie. It’s worth considering options before we go and pave paradise.

Some say there’s a parking problem caused when trying to reactivate upper floor housing on Main Street. We’d suggest that any perceived or actual need for parking is a symptom. Misdirected land use policy, a lack of creativity, and the gift of historic building stock are the causal factors.

Regulations requiring off-street parking in downtown neighborhoods for the more complete and mixed usage of existing structures is a misdirection. Insisting that more parking is the only way to reactivate vacant spaces isn’t creative. Holding valuable, historic buildings back from expressing their fullest, community contributions squanders a gift.

The core issue of filling in our Main Street corridor isn’t a parking one. It’s a matter of using what we have more fully. Revitalization should be focused on building capacity within existing structures and spaces. New construction more naturally comes second, where it’s encouraged by the organic expression of ecosystem growth.

If we flip our considerations toward using what we have, then parking, rightly, becomes secondary. The challenge to overcome is a straightforward gap in potential and opportunity. Upper floors can potentially be refilled with activity, energy, and uses but the opportunity to refill them is directly limited by regulations and the administration thereof.

Existing Parking where Buildings Once Stood - November, 2020 - Not a Reason People Live in or Visit Places

A lack of parking isn’t preventing the vertical revitalization of Honesdale. But, because project approval often demands it, insistence on providing parking is. If we reevaluate what we insist on, we address the issue. The limitations are not physical, they’re regulatory.

Tweaking our zoning ordinance and changing how we administer it opens all sorts of upstairs doors. It’s a direct fix and a simple solution that favors progress. An early focus on parking creates a false narrative that implies parking is a necessary building block of town life.

Parking is useful but it’s not necessary. Why? Because people don’t use automobiles everywhere within a town. They also walk and ride around without cars. Take a peek. It’s happening right now.

Another direct way to make a town more livable is to make it more walkable and therefore reduce the need to drive, which in turn reduces the need to park. There are numerous ways to accomplish this aim but, again, adding new downtown parking isn’t one of them.

Building a new parking garage is an indirect way to revitalize higher-up spaces. Using our existing parking more fully is a step toward direct action. Changing our regulations to simply allow for the redevelopment of existing buildings without unnecessary restrictions would yield immediate results. Re-imagining our spaces as places to live in that aren’t dependent on automobile use is something worth planning around.

Planning exclusively around parking is misguided, unless the thing you’re trying to create is parking or the opportunity for more people to drive around our otherwise walkable neighborhoods.

Parking spaces are practically useful. That’s easy enough to concede. However, from a value per unit of area perspective, they’re near the least productive use of space we’ve got, particularly in our downtowns.

Whether you’re using the metric of assessed value per acre or that of use potential, parking offers very little return on investment. This is because it’s typically designed around a single, non-human use and it often has no built improvements, aside from pavement.

When considering the inherent investment of infrastructure, utilities, cultural capital, and everything else already in place along our main streets, it’s worth creating, maintaining, and encouraging a maximum mix of uses. Choosing to build stand-alone parking is a misallocation of shared resources.

You wouldn’t build a quarry in the middle of productive farmland. You shouldn’t build a shopping-only center away from where people live. Building parking downtown, without a mixed-use component, feels like a similar misuse of space.

The suggestion that “solving” our parking “problem” demands building expensive, single-use garages represents a focus on a disconnected symptom. Promoting new parking as being of paramount importance disrespects less-car or car-less living arrangements. Such arrangements are desired and useful in livable places and for neighborhood resiliency.

When we plan, we guide development toward the image of our plans. Residential living without an automobile is worth designing around. Our planning constructs should treat people as principle users and automobiles as accessory. That’s one way to make a place easy to live in. The opposite approach applied to our village centers does not sound like revitalization.

To imply the only pathway toward more downtown housing is by first building parking is disingenuous and glosses over the fact that we can more cheaply address root causes by simply changing our zoning. Principally permitting upper-floor residential and mixed-uses downtown and removing off-street parking requirements for the redevelopment of existing buildings are turn key solutions. And, they’re equitable.

If parking is really everyone’s problem, which we’d argue as untrue, then holding building use hostage for parking ransom is a policy disproportionately disadvantaging the very buildings and building stewards we rely on most; namely, Main Street structures that partially belong to everybody who patronizes local businesses, works in the same, lives nearby, or drives through town.

The structural bracing for the character we cherish and the existence we desire to revitalize is our building stock. That framework is less able to be cherished and revitalized when its use becomes dependent on parking. We need to change our collective minds about this.

Existing Sidewalks that have Always Been There - November, 2020 - One Reason People Live in or Visit Places

In recent history, more buildings have come down in our downtown than have gone up. Are we leading by example for a better future if the next buildings that grow up are parking garages? If we champion low value construction in our downtown, does that tell a story of progress? Are we realizing local opportunity by celebrating structures that will at best simply store cars and at worst often sit empty?

A revitalization focus on parking feels like a design intent on making Honesdale more desirable to visitors looking in from the outside than a design intent on making Honesdale easier to live in while already here. We can do better than that.

Parking development isn’t a zero sum game when it comes to downtown life. It’s not one thing or another. And if it were, we’d submit that allowing the maximum use of existing buildings should come first. It’s cheaper and easier and, logistically, that’d give us a better sense of how much parking we actually need.

More thoughtfully, that’d allow the natural progression of our downtown ecosystem back into the productive, mixed-use environment it desires to be. A state it was once in, before our thought leaders and policy makers got blinded by the head lights of car culture.

Assessed Parking

“When new (uses are) added to older (ones), the addition often cuts ruthlessly across categories… And wherever it is forced to stay within prearranged categories… the process… can occur little if at all.”

Jane Jacobs “The Economy of Cities”

Above, Jane is speaking about work being created within a city but it’s equally applicable to land use creation. These notes were what she saw as the inherent nature of livable places evolving over time, increment by increment. If accepted, seeing this happen would be a sign of an active economy and, by most accounts, a positive development.

What if, however, we noticed these same data points and saw them as concerns to decline acceptance of or as helpful trends to stop in their tracks? Wouldn’t that be counter productive to natural community growth? Let’s look at one Pennsylvania municipality and see what they choose to do when such evidence was presented.

Honesdale Borough Council recently denied a conditional use application for a Main Street building. The plan was to reactivate and redevelop some upper floors for residential use. The following is a critique of Council’s decision and others like it. First, a little background.

The Honesdale Borough Zoning Ordinance (§210-19 F.) states “Any structure or building hereafter erected, converted, or enlarged for any of the following uses, except uses in the C-1 District, or any open area hereafter used for commercial purposes or manufacturing purposes, shall be required to provide not less than the minimum number of parking spaces, as set forth… .”

Underlined emphasis was added above because the main decision we disagree with involves an existing building that’s within the C-1 district and therefore not typically required to provide parking. This zoning district represents the commercial corridor of downtown Honesdale that surrounds Main Street.

The project in question involved a building at least as old as 1885, as seen in the Sanborn Map from that year (below). Like all others of the vintage, this building has gone through many changes over time but has multi-use roots, since that’s the most productive way to utilize structures in compact, urban neighborhoods. This building is also safely within the C-1 zoning district, mentioned above as a place where off street parking is (rightly, in our view) not required.

The issue, though, is the 3rd floor is currently unoccupied and the 2nd floor was recently under utilized. In order to make upper floor renovations and changes in use to accommodate additional residential units, the project must pass conditional use hurdles placed in its path by Honesdale Borough Council.

Rephrased, to make reasonable changes to an existing structure, in an area where the highest intensity and most mixed land uses fit best due to infrastructure access and connectivity, the building steward has to overcome extra administrative challenges and added investment costs.

Now, let’s consider the issue of parking. Parking, in fact, is the issue at issue with this proposed development. As an affront to the already referenced zoning language, the conditions placed on this building rehabilitation project are that of requiring off street parking. Due to the age and nature of the block, this building has no room for the “required” off street parking within the confines of its parent tax parcel.

As with most downtown lots, the parcel lines approximately follow the building footprint. The historical development limits of a traditional neighborhood often leave no room for on site parking. Leaving aside the actual parking burden and need for the same, parking was proposed for this redevelopment project on a nearby lot.

This type of concession is common. Prearranged parking resources on lots other than the building lot in question are allowed as proposed alternatives to on site parking. In fact, a similar development proposal was recently approved with this same type of arrangement.

The map below shows these projects in relation to each other. Building A is where the project we’ve been talking about was proposed and where conditional approval was denied. Building B was where a similar project was proposed. The conditional approval in that case was approved.

In a straight line, Building A was approximately 607 feet from the proposed parking. By walking on the street grid’s sidewalks, the distance is approximately 1,138 feet. This arrangement was denied in April, 2020.

Building B was approximately 667 feet in a straight line away from its proposed parking and approximately 957 feet away away, by foot travel. This arrangement was approved in June, 2019.

What makes one project worthy of approval and the other not? It’s tough to say but it’s not relative distance from proposed parking since those details are similar. It’s also not use type that’s causing problems.

Building A was declined the opportunity to add resident apartment stock to a lively downtown facing housing limitations. Building B was approved the opportunity to add vacation rental stock.

In our view, both of these development projects should have been approved, without additional conditions requiring off street parking. Additionally, when previously allowed for solutions (like dedicated, neighboring parking) are accepted as suitable for one development and not another, we do not have an equitable administration of local regulations.

While we don’t agree with Honesdale’s Zoning Ordinance, with respect to its unnecessarily restrictive parking requirements and its inability to welcome mixed use development in places where that type of development has a longstanding historical precedent, we do expect equity in how ordinances are administered.

If two local stakeholders present equivalent projects and one is approved, the other should be too. That’s just basic fairness.

Residential Honesdale, April, 2020

The Central Wayne Regional Comprehensive Plan (2010) has a stated goal to “Provide for a diversity of housing opportunities for the economic and demographic groups within the Region, in harmony with existing development and the historical and natural environments and in a manner that allows existing and potential residents of the region to live in the region throughout the life cycle.”

The Wayne County Comprehensive Plan (2010) has a stated objective to “Work with municipalities to ensure land use regulations do not unnecessarily limit the ability of the private market to produce affordable housing and condensed and mixed use projects that match traditional, small town development patterns and accommodate the varied housing types now found throughout the County.”

Denying an existing building’s ability to re-add mixed use residential in a walkable, core downtown area is an action against these stated planning aims.

Charles Marohn of the Strong Towns organization suggests that incremental intensity of uses should be allowed by right in every zoning district. We can’t help but fully agree. The natural evolution of a place is illustrated by these very types of development and investment and it’s best practice to let these changes happen.

Seeing this progress in motion should be a positive trend to take note of. We would argue these changes should be celebrated and encouraged by local governing bodies. At the very least, we shouldn’t be actively getting in the way of more people more fully utilizing our central neighborhoods.

Downtowns are where our value is concentrated. If we can’t express and leverage that value in positive ways, we’re not maximizing our shared investment in common infrastructure and culture.

The chart below highlights this metric by looking at the assessed value of different building lots in Honesdale. Two are within the downtown core and involve existing buildings that recently proposed redevelopment. Two are on the fringes and represent entirely new development in the image of highway commercial patterns.

Assessed Value Per Acre

The difference in assessed value is striking when considering the parent parcel size, atop which the buildings in question rest. Each of these projects involved a conditional use hearing. All were approved but one.

If you looked at the numbers and the neighborhood, you’d never guess the truth. That being, Honesdale Borough placed administrative hurdles in front of and scuttled a mixed use project in a building on Main Street that’s been sitting there since we had a canal.

We’d recommend downtown building stewards and everyday people challenge decisions like these (by proposing mixed use redevelopment of existing buildings over and over and over again) and the notions they imply as often possible. Drop us a line if you need a public meeting advocate. Municipal government does not have to add restrictive conditions and deny reasonable development based on the same. It’s their choice.

If government officials want parking at the expense of building vitality, perhaps they should work toward building more parking or walking infrastructure because what we’re seeing instead is akin to a select demolition plan that clears lots of usable building stock.

Some downtown revitalization efforts have recently begun and will lead to an eventual plan. This topic and others surrounding it will inevitably come up. Planning consultants and public committees on design should also counter the logic of weighting off site parking higher than the continued use of existing Main Street buildings.

Downtown Honesdale, January, 2020

Many of downtown Honesdale’s buildings aren’t being used to their fullest capacity and these historic buildings will never see full productivity if they need to provide two parking spaces for each proposed dwelling unit. Heck, here, providing for those spaces wasn’t even enough. We need to think differently about this arrangement.

We could reevaluate those parking space requirements or we could make upper floor, residential a principally permitted use in commercial zoning districts, or we could simply step aside and choose not to add unreasonable conditions that hold us all back.

In this case, the commitment isn’t too much to ask. We just need to acknowledge that some our older rules are unfit for the present day and that our administration of those rules is a roadblock that doesn’t have to be there. More plainly, we can make progress on this front by simply getting out of reality’s way.

Jacobs, again in “The Economy of Cities,” says our central places act as the “primary organs of cultural development.” If we want these places to stay that way, we should express strong criticism against municipal actions that thwart natural progress and, instead, begin to embrace this same progress that’s happening in full public view.

We should listen more closely to the humming of our local landscape. It’s alive and moving, no matter what we write in code books. We’d vote to let our downtown neighborhoods live.