Tag: neighbor

The Future of McMansions (Part Two)

  • The study found that differences in architectural style stuck out most, but after that, height. (Photo source: Brendel at Wikimedia Commons)

There are some ugly terms used
to describe big, grandiose homes.
Critics call them “Garage Mahals,”
“starter castles,” or “McMansions.”
These insults are flung around
in towns where people worry big
houses are sapping the character
out of neighborhoods full of smaller,
older homes. Shawn Allee
met a researcher who hopes to tamp
down the heated rhetoric:

Transcript

There are some ugly terms used
to describe big, grandiose homes.
Critics call them “Garage Mahals,”
“starter castles,” or “McMansions.”
These insults are flung around
in towns where people worry big
houses are sapping the character
out of neighborhoods full of smaller,
older homes. Shawn Allee
met a researcher who hopes to tamp
down the heated rhetoric:

Jack Nasar studies city planning at Ohio State University.

He got interested in the term “McMansion” because it was used in his own neighorhood in Columbus.

“A realestate agent was befriending older people so that when they died she’d be able to get their properties, tear down the house, and then build a much larger house. I started to wonder whether this was happening elsewhere.”

Nasar says teardowns, and the insults used to describe them, are common in many towns. And some local governments are restricting how big these homes get or even what they look like.

Nasar says, with governments stepping in to the debate, there’s more at stake than just name-calling.

“You’re talking about controlling what goes on on somebody’s private property. So, you would want to have good evidence to use as a basis for that decision.”

Nasar recently studied just what it takes for a house to get big enough or different enough for people to say, “yuck” or hurl an insult like “McMansion.” Nasar and a research partner created computer models of streets with rows of houses.

For each test, they made most houses normal, but changed up something about one of them – stuff like the architectural style, the height, or maybe distance between the house and the street. Then, they showed these models to people.

“We had them rate these streets in terms of compatibility, we had them rate them in terms of visual quality or preference.”

Differences in architectural style stuck out most, but after that, height.

“The effect started to be most noticeable when the in-fill house was twice as large as the stuff around it. So, in terms of regulations, it suggests maybe a community could get by saying, ‘you could do a tear-down replacement that’s twice as big as what’s around it,’ but you wouldn’t let it get any larger than that.”

This is a controversial finding.

Some communities keep height range much lower than “twice as big” figure and sometimes they restrict width, too – something Nasar found doesn’t matter so much.

I thought I’d bounce some of his findings off someone involved in the teardown issue.

“This also was a demolition of a small home.”

Catherine Czerniak drives me around Lake Forest, a Chicago suburb. She’s the community development director, and she gets the praise or blame about how teardowns get done.

Czerniak says Nasar’s findings make sense, especially the idea that style matters most.

“We often say height and size aren’t necessarily the key roles -it’s how the design is done.”

But for Czerniak, there’s a hot-button issue Nasar did not measure.

Lake Forest has lots of tree-lined streets and people like how the trees obscure the houses.

“And really, the landscaping really defines the character of the community. Even the estates on the east side, were not there to shout from the street, here I am, look at me.”

To make the point she drives past a mix of old homes and replacements.

I can hardly tell which is which.

“As we go down the street, take note that even though there are some big homes back here, you still feel you’re in a country lane.”

Czerniak says Nasar’s research might quiet down some debates but people will always fight over specific details. After all, Nasar’s test subjects gave quick judgements on computer models.

She says, in the real world, critics spend years nit-picking every little thing they hate about a teardown replacement home and whether it’s going to ruin their neighborhood.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

Related Links

The Future of McMansions (Part One)

  • Brian Hickey runs Teardowns.com, a real-estate marketplace for teardown properties. Some communities complain that the teardown market encourages the growth of so-called 'McMansion' replacement homes that are seen as too large and out-of-place for their neighborhoods. (Photo by Shawn Allee)

Your home may be your castle,
but, for some people, too many
homes are as big and grand as
castles. Critics call these homes
‘McMansions,’ and they complain
they’ve ruined neighborhoods
filled with older, smaller houses.
The McMansion fad fizzled during
the real-estate bust. Shawn Allee looks at whether it could
return:

Transcript

Your home may be your castle,
but, for some people, too many
homes are as big and grand as
castles. Critics call these homes
‘McMansions,’ and they complain
they’ve ruined neighborhoods
filled with older, smaller houses.
The McMansion fad fizzled during
the real-estate bust. Shawn Allee looks at whether it could
return:

I head to a Chicago suburb called Hinsdale to understand the hub-ub about McMansions. Over the past twenty years, one in three Hinsdale homes got torn down to make room for mostly bigger ones.

Brian Hickey drives me past one-story brick and wood houses.

Then there’s a huge one, with stucco and Spanish tile.

Hickey: “This is an example of something where someone would go, this is more Florida-like.”

Allee: “It looks like it walked off the set of Miami Vice or something like that.”

Hickey: “Yeah.”

Bigger, mis-matched homes sprouted up in Hinsdale during the real-estate boom, and for some, Brian Hickey’s partly to blame.

He runs tear-downs dot com. Hickey finds and sells homes to tear down, and maybe replace with McMansions … or ‘replacement homes’ as he calls them.

Anyway, during the housing bubble, teardowns increased … and so did complaints.

Allee: “Some of the arguments I’ve heard against the teardown phenomenon is that we’re basically tossing perfectly good houses into landfills.”

Hickey: “See, that’s not accurate. To take some of these homes and bring it up to what people in this community would expect in terms of housing amenities, it doesn’t make sense to renovate when you can build new for less.”

The big-home trend faded recently, but if the soft real-estate market improves, you gotta wonder: will people build big again, or will they keep smaller, older homes?

Hickey thinks old homes might lose.

Hickey: “At some point a buyer simply won’t pay that price to live there.”

Allee: “In that one story …”

Hickey: “In that one story, two-bedroom, small kitchen – that the land will be where the value is.”

Some real-estate pros say Hickey’s right: people want big, and they’ll build what they want, where they want.

Others say, the game has changed.

Local governments in Dallas, Denver, and other cities are starting to regulate teardowns, like Hinsdale did.

(sound of a printer)

Robert McGinnis prints me 60 pages of Hinsdale’s zoning codes.

“Hot off the press, it’s still warm.”

McGinnis runs Hinsdale’s building commission. He says the code got up to sixty pages partly because of teardown complaints.

McGinnis: “Pollution issues, the loss of sunlight in some cases.”

Allee: “Loss of sunlight? What do you mean by that?”

McGinnis: “Some of these houses are so tall they end up physically blocking out some of the sunlight.”

McGinnis says it’s hard to stop teardowns – you can just delay or improve them.

“I would like to think, at some point, Joe Q. Public says, ‘I’d really like to live in Hinsdale, but I can’t afford to heat and cool a McMansion,’ so they’re going to look at building a smaller home.”

But McGinnis says this could be wishful thinking.

So, I thought I’d ask some Hinsdale homeowners about the small-home idea.

Just outside McGinnis’ office, I find Greta Filmanaviciute. She’s stuffing official demolition signs into her car.

Filmanaviciute: “I was getting permits. We’re going to tear down old house and building the new house.”

Allee: “Are you guys looking at a house that’s bigger than what you have now?”

Filmanaviciute: “No, actually, we are sizing down, but that’s because we’re a three-person family and I don’t want to have a huge house and then we have high utility bills. This is perfection for us, actually.”

Filmanaviciute says preservationists might not like that she’s tearing down her place, but her neighbors are glad she’s keeping things modest.

She says she’d be proud to start a small-home trend.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

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The Energy Hog: You or Your Neighbor?

  • Some power companies are sending out charts and graphs that compare you to your neighbors. (Photo courtesy of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory)

Air conditioners are running full-blast
in much of the country right now.
Shawn Allee reports some
utilities are sending out info that might
get you to turn them down a bit:

Transcript

Air conditioners are running full-blast
in much of the country right now.
Shawn Allee reports some
utilities are sending out info that might
get you to turn them down a bit:

Ever wonder if you’re an energy hog compared to your neighbors?

Well, some power companies are sending out graphs and charts to tell you.

Commonwealth Edison is a utility in Illinois.

It’s sending energy comparison letters to 50,000 customers this August.

Val Jensen runs the company’s program.

Jensen hopes competition will get people to conserve, because power bills alone don’t work.

“Despite pretty compelling economic reasons for customers to become more efficient at using energy, a lot of them don’t do it. Despite what they teach you in Economics 101, most customers don’t behave in the traditional, rational way.”

Jensen says, if enough people conserve energy, utilities can avoid building expensive new power plants.

Commonwealth Edison is just the latest utility to try energy comparison reports.

Power companies in New York and other eastern states will try them this year.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

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Car Sharing Goes Solar

  • Chris Duffrin, Executive Director of the Neighborhood Energy Connection in St. Paul, plugs in the HourCar Prius parked at the Mississippi Market. It has a battery in the back, and now the electricity to recharge the battery comes from solar panels on the store. (MPR Photo/Stephanie Hemphill)

Car-sharing programs are more
popular now that gas is more expensive.
People like saving money as well as reducing
their carbon footprint. One car-sharing
project is going all the way in its mission
of reducing global-warming impacts. Members
can do errands without burning an ounce of
gas. Stephanie Hemphill reports
on a non-profit group that converted two Toyota
Priuses to run on battery power – and charges
the batteries with the sun:

Transcript

Car-sharing programs are more
popular now that gas is more expensive.
People like saving money as well as reducing
their carbon footprint. One car-sharing
project is going all the way in its mission
of reducing global-warming impacts. Members
can do errands without burning an ounce of
gas. Stephanie Hemphill reports
on a non-profit group that converted two Toyota
Priuses to run on battery power – and charges
the batteries with the sun:

At the Mississippi Market food co-op in St. Paul, there’s a brand-new
solar collector on the roof.

The electricity goes to a box attached to a lamppost in the parking lot.
A cord comes out of the box; at the other end of the cord is a normal
three-prong plug, and it’s plugged into the back end of a Prius.

“The battery is installed in the spare tire wheel hub.”

Chris Duffrin is taking me for a spin in the Prius.

“You just unplug the plug back here, and you enter the car just like
the rest of our cars — you use your key fob to scan in. That pops the
locks open.”

The key fob is programmed with your account information. It gets
you in the car, and tells the computer when you’re using the car and
when you bring it back. The key to the Prius is in the car.

“power up…”

The computer screen on the dashboard displays all kinds of
information, including data on the most recent trip.

“There’s the trip I just took to South Minneapolis for a meeting; we
went 18 miles round-trip; we got 94.8 miles per gallon. With our plug-
in we often get in the 90s, and at times we’re running over a hundred
miles per gallon.”

There’s still an engine in the front, and it kicks in when you accelerate
quickly. But the primary power is delivered by the battery. These
vehicles get about twice the mileage of a standard Prius.

Chris Duffrin is Executive Director of the nonprofit Neighborhood
Energy Connection. One of its projects is HourCar, a three-year-old
car sharing program.

“You can get some trips in this car where you are literally emitting no
carbon.”

It costs about $10,000 to add the battery, and the solar collectors cost
about $18,000.

“What we’re trying to do is demonstrate that, when those prices start
coming down, this is something people can do. And not just for
themselves, but if they share a car and share those costs, then this
can become a really efficient, clean way of traveling.”

Duffrin says at first, the people who joined HourCar were mostly
motivated by concerns about the environment. But now people want
to save money on gas. He says membership grew by 70% in the last
year. Still, it’s a tiny number: there are 650 members. They share 16
cars, parked at about a dozen locations around St. Paul and
Minneapolis.

The payment plans include a monthly fee and a charge per hour and
per mile.

HourCar is helping just a tiny handful of people reduce their carbon
footprint. But their individual choices are moving the whole society
toward better answers, according to J. Drake Hamilton. She’s a
climate change expert at Fresh Energy.

“When companies and policy makers see that people really want
better options out there — they want smarter ways to get to work, and
they want cleaner cars — that’s a time to step in and say, ‘Okay we’re
raising the bar, we’re keeping climate and people’s pocketbooks in
mind, and we’re making better choices available everywhere.'”

HourCar is installing another solar battery-charger at a light rail
station. Members say as mass transit options improve, more people
will be able to get along without their own car.

For The Environment Report, I’m Stephanie Hemphill.

Related Links

To Dam or Not to Dam

  • Residents on Boardman Pond are upset about the water level dropping after the pond was drawn down because of safety concerns at a nearby dam. Homeowners here are worried that if the dams are taken out, they'll lose their waterfront property permanently. (Photo courtesy of Jim and Joane McIntyre)

America has been a country that builds
dams. There are more than 75,000 major
dams in the US. But now, a lot of those dams
are getting old and they’re breaking down.
That means people who live near those dams have
some choices to make. Rebecca Williams has
the story of neighbors who are debating what
to do with their river:

Transcript

America has been a country that builds
dams. There are more than 75,000 major
dams in the US. But now, a lot of those dams
are getting old and they’re breaking down.
That means people who live near those dams have
some choices to make. Rebecca Williams has
the story of neighbors who are debating what
to do with their river:

We’ve built dams for good reasons – they can produce electricity and help
control floods. But a lot of the dams in the US are 50 or even a hundred years
old. In dam years, that’s really old.

“Right now we’re sittin’ on an earthen dam, which is Union Street dam.”

Sandra Sroonian lives in Traverse City, Michigan. It’s a touristy town on a
bright blue bay of Lake Michigan. The Boardman River flows into the Great
Lake and it cuts right through town. There are four old dams on the
Boardman.

The utility company that licensed those dams decided they weren’t profitable
anymore. So they gave up the licenses, and now the city and county are trying
to decide what the heck they’re gonna do with the dams.

Sroonian is an engineer who’s turned into a mediator of sorts. She’s helping
people here sort through all the options. Some of the dams could be made to
generate power again, or some of the dams could be taken out to restore the
river to a more natural state. The water would be faster and colder.

“So depending if you’re a fisherman or fisherperson you may feel it’s a benefit
to remove the dams to improve the fishing along the river.”

She says other people want a whitewater park to kayak on.

But the Boardman is a blue ribbon trout stream, it’s one of the best. Biologists
say it’d be even better without the dams.

And then, there are the people who say they have the most to lose if the dams
are taken out.

(sound at Boardman Pond)

Jim and Joane McIntyre live on Boardman Pond.

“When we bought this house 14 years ago it never entered our minds that we
wouldn’t always be on this wonderful little piece of paradise.”

McIntyre says if the dams are taken out, their pond will be drained. They’ve
actually gotten a taste of that already. Because of safety concerns at one of the
dams the water level in the pond was lowered. The McIntyre’s dock is 25 feet
above the water. They can’t even get their boat out on the water.

“We would be having this interview floating around on our electric deck boat
with an adult beverage (laughs). But we’re not able to do that. So from that
standpoint we’ve lost some of the attractiveness of living on water – it’s
beautiful but we want to use it.”

The McIntyres say they want what’s best for the river. But they also want to
keep their waterfront property. And they say it’d make more sense to produce
electricity from the river.

And that’s what this debate is boiling down to: energy versus property rights
versus the environment versus the economy.

Mike Estes is the Mayor of Traverse City. He says boosting the local economy
matters most.

“We’re trying to increase tourism here. Traverse City is already a destination
spot for people to visit – they visit because of our golden sand beaches and the
bay. Adding the river to it is simply going to add to that mix.”

This dam debate has lasted more than three years – there’ve been lots of studies
and dozens of public meetings. Some people here joke they won’t be alive by
the time the whole thing gets resolved.

But a decision on this Michigan river is expected by the end of the year. Most
people think it’ll be a compromise – maybe keep some of the old dams, take
some out.

A lot of towns close to rivers all across the nation will be having these same
debates.

And you can bet that not everyone’s going to be happy.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

Trees as Odor-Eaters

  • Researchers at the University of Delaware have found that planting trees around poultry farms has many benefits (Photo courtesy of the USDA)

As suburbs are built closer to
farms, there are sometimes complaints
about the odors. Researchers are now
working to smooth things out between
farmers and their new neighbors. Jessi
Ziegler has the story on one
of the simple solutions they found:

Transcript

As suburbs are built closer to
farms, there are sometimes complaints
about the odors. Researchers are now
working to smooth things out between
farmers and their new neighbors. Jessi
Ziegler has the story on one
of the simple solutions they found:

If you’ve ever driven by a chicken farm, you know the
smell can get pretty bad.

So, imagine living by one, and smelling it every single day.

Well, researchers may have come up with a solution –
trees.

Planting a few rows of trees around a farm can do all sorts
of good.

They capture dust and ammonia. And they block noise
and odor.

Also, they make the farm look a lot prettier. Which,
researcher George Malone says, can make a big difference.

“There’s been other studies to indicate that attractive
farms, statistically, have less odor than unattractive farms.
Perception is reality of what we deal with.”

And the perception is, the better you think a farm looks,
the better you think it smells.

For The Environment Report, this is Jessi Ziegler.

Related Links

Farmers Respond to Peer Pressure

  • Farming is big business in America's heartland. Many farmers say they want to be left alone to run their farms the way they always have - and they don't want government regulators or researchers dictating to them. (Photo by Rebecca Williams)

Farm pollution is the biggest water contamination problem in the
nation. But government agencies often struggle with getting farmers to
use less polluting farming methods. Many farmers say they don’t want
outsiders telling them what to do. Rebecca Williams reports one
grassroots project is trying to encourage farmers to change, by relying
on peer pressure:

Transcript

Farm pollution is the biggest water contamination problem in the
nation. But government agencies often struggle with getting farmers to
use less polluting farming methods. Many farmers say they don’t want
outsiders telling them what to do. Rebecca Williams reports one
grassroots project is trying to encourage farmers to change, by relying
on peer pressure:


(Sound of birds and buzzing insects)


The corn around here is way over knee high, and there’s a whole lot of
it. This is Iowa, after all. So, pretty much everyone farms corn and
soybeans.


But there isn’t as much farming happening today. Dozens of farmers are
hanging out by a creek that meanders through farmland. They’re
checking out the day’s catch.


(Sound of splashing around in bucket)


“Now there’s one really bright-colored southern red belly in here, kind
of the prettiest fish we’ve got in this stretch.”


Biologist Dan Kirby just used an electroshocker. It stuns the fish and
they float to the top of the water. Now that he can see them, he can
get an idea of how many fish there are and how big they are. The
farmers are watching closely.


(Farmer:) “That’s a real good sign to see them that big, at this
point?”


(Kirby:) “Yeah, especially the southern red belly – they do classify
them a little bit different, they consider them to be a sensitive
species, so it’s a good thing to have them there at that adult size,
for sure.”


That’s better news than they might’ve been expecting. This creek
running along many of the farmers’ fields is in trouble. It’s on
Iowa’s impaired waters list. In this case, that means the fish and
other aquatic life in the creek are not doing as well as they should
be.


“In some of these streams we have had some rough times. Chronic issues
where fish were not even getting to size they could catch them or else
were just plain absent.”


Dan Kirby says farm pollution such as excess fertilizer and soil
erosion from farm fields can harm fish and other stream life. That’s
the kind of thing that put this creek on the government’s watch list
three years ago.


One of the farmers, Jeff Pape, remembers hearing about that. For him it was a big
red flag:


“We knew there was an impaired waterway and it was running through some
of the land I rent and obviously I don’t want that to shine on me… I
didn’t want the DNR – not that they would or have the time to do
it, but I didn’t want them to come in and say hey, you will be doing
this, or you will be doing that.”


Pape says the fear of being dictated to by the government was a strong
motivator for him and a few of his neighbors. In late 2004, Pape
formed a watershed council with nine of his farming neighbors.


Now there are nearly 50 farmers in the group. Pape says there are some ground
rules: No finger pointing. And everyone gets equal say:


“That’s nice with this group – nobody’s telling them they have to do
anything – they do what they want when they want and that’s it. You
know, they don’t do any more than they want to.”


Pape says he’s proud of what he and his neighbors have gotten done.
They’re installing grass strips along ditches and creeks to filter
water rushing off fields. They’re putting in fences to keep cattle
from tearing up stream beds and banks. They’re being more careful
about how much fertilizer they apply.


Maybe most importantly, they’ve gotten a lot of their neighbors to join
them. Jeff Pape says cash incentives help – farmers are paid for the
conservation projects they do. It’s not as much money as some of the
government’s conservation programs, but it keeps the government out of
their hair.


Pape says this program works because there’s an even stronger
motivation:


“That guy’s looking over your fence – he sees you ain’t got a waterway
and you’re thinking about it, so that peer pressure thing does make a
difference too. You know everybody’s watching each other in this
watershed – not pointing fingers at nobody but everybody’s watching
each other and that keeps people on their toes – they want things to
look right, too.”


Other farmers here agree that a farmer-to-farmer project is going to be
much more effective than anything government regulators or researchers
say.


John Rodecap is with Iowa State University Extension Service. He’s
been helping these farmers clean up the creek. He says it’s remarkable
that more than half of the farmers in this 23,000-acre watershed have
signed on.


“The trials that they do, they talk about it at their coffee shop, they
talk about it over the fence… If the trial’s done 50, 60, 100 miles
away, that’s not good enough. They want to know how it’s gonna work on
my farm.”


Rodecap says if you see your neighbor making a change first, you’re
going to feel a little more comfortable giving it a try yourself. And
knowing your neighbor’s watching you over the fence… that’s a powerful
incentive all its own.


For the Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

Song Satirizes Trash Dumping

If you think your neighbor across the border sends too much garbage to your local landfill, you now have a songwriter on your side. The GLRC’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:

Transcript

If you think your neighbor across the border sends too much garbage to
your local landfill, you now have a songwriter on your side. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:


Some states are dumping grounds for trash from other states and from
Canada. The U.S. federal courts have ruled that the garbage hauling is
interstate commerce and have protected the practice, but that doesn’t
quiet a Wisconsin musician who lives near a fast growing landfill which
takes in trash from three states.


“Thank you for your generosity. Mountains full of garbage give us one
more place to ski.”


Kevin McMullin’s song urges the other states to just send cash instead of
trash, but many pro-business legislators in some states see trash as cash.
So, when environmentalists call for higher landfill dumping fees to try to
slow the amount of garbage… the lawmaker’s song remains the same –
they vote no.


For the GLRC, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

Related Links

Suburb Sees the Light in Rail

  • The town of Elburn, IL is working to preserve their small town feel in the face of sprawling development headed their way. (Photo by Shawn Allee)

Rural towns on the edge of big cities often see encroaching suburban development as a threat to their way of life. One small town is feeling those pressures too. And it’s taking a page from its past to fight them. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee has this report:

Transcript

Rural towns on the edge of big cities often see encroaching
suburban development as a threat to their way of life. One small town
is feeling those pressures too. And it’s taking a page from its past
to fight them. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee
has this report:


Eric Gustaffson is a young guy who works at his family’s drug store. He says he plans to stick around because he likes his small town – Elburn, Illinois – just as it is. It’s still got a working grain elevator and animal feed stores. It also has a real town center, a strip of shops that people can walk to.


But like a lot of his neighbors, Eric’s bothered by some of the sprawling subdivisions that are popping up nearby. He doesn’t want to see that that kind of development come to Elburn. He says it would become a place where neighbors live too far apart and everyone has to drive to get anywhere. He does have hope, though.


“I really think that the plan that Elburn has set in place will work a lot better and will control how things grow a little bit more instead of just things from popping up in random places.”


So, what’s the plan? Well, it turns out Elburn’s looking to its past for help. Residents used to catch passenger trains here for day trips to Chicago. The passenger service died out decades ago, but now Elburn’s bringing in a new train station. It will be part of the region’s Metra commuter rail system.


By next year, commuters will be able to avoid the congested roads that lead to Chicago, but the town also wants the station to be the center of a new neighborhood, a cluster of new shops, smaller homes, and even apartments.


The idea’s to get people to walk to stores and the train instead of driving to them, all of which is very different from what’s happening in nearby subdivisions. Those are pretty much isolated tracts of big houses and little else.


There is some danger in Elburn’s plan, though. The proposed development could double the population, and the train station will attract extra car traffic to its parking lot. During our drive to the construction site, I ask the mayor, Jim Willey, whether this plan might kill the town while trying to save it.


“I get the impression sometimes people wish that we had some secret sauce we could spray on the town and keep it just the way it is. It’s sad, but you can’t do that and change happens, and we have to deal with it.”


(Sound of heavy machinery)


At the site, construction machines pack down a couple of acres of dirt. It took a decade, a lot of political will, and a hundred and forty million dollars to start the project. But Jim says that was the easy part.


It will be harder to resist the temptation to stray from the plan, and build only big, single family homes here. He says a compact mix of stores and housing will be good for the region, not just Elburn. If there’s enough housing here, maybe there’ll be less pressure to build houses on the nearby farms.


“You can’t go anywhere in the world and find finer farmland than where we’re at right now. So the least that we can do is, when we’re going to convert this to housing, is let’s think about what we’re doing, let’s try to make some intelligent decisions.”


There are towns that look like Elburn’s vision of the future. Last century, commuter towns with compact development sprung up along the country’s commuter rail lines. But they all got their start in the days before interstate highways and long car commutes. So, is it possible to mimic those towns now, in the post-automobile age?


Well, I put that question to Dave Schulz. He’s with the Infrastructure Technology Institute, a federally-funded transportation research group. He says it’s hard to keep projects like Elburn’s on track; homes are clustered close to shops, what planners call high-density. He cites Glenview, another Illinois town with a commuter rail station.


“Basically, a number of members of the Glenview board who were voted out of office for approving a townhome development that was judged, apparently, by voters to be too high density near the train station. I think we have a situation where people in the suburbs fear density.”


Schulz says it’s hard to change that attitude. But to fend off the sprawl of suburban development, towns like Elburn need to stay the course. Otherwise…


“If all you’re gonna do is build a bunch of stations in the middle of the cornfields with giant parking lots to allow people to drive to the station from wherever they choose to live, I think a fairly strong argument can be made that you’re not fighting sprawl, but you’re in fact facilitating sprawl.”


Dave Schulz says places like Elburn could be onto something. Maybe its plan for compact development will attract people looking for something different from typical suburban homes. If Elburn can keep its small-town feel, maybe newcomers won’t mind giving up their spacious yards and extra cars.


For the GLRC, I’m Shawn Allee.

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Neighbors Reclaim Abandoned Urban Land

  • Maria Graziani (in green) teaches neighborhood kids about farming. (Photo by Lisa Ann Pinkerton)

It can take years for city government to demolish or develop abandoned property. In one urban neighborhood, a group of neighbors has found a new way to reclaim land that has been left behind. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lisa Ann Pinkerton has their story:

Transcript

It can take years for city government to demolish or develop
abandoned property. In one urban neighborhood, a group of neighbors has
found a new way to reclaim land that has been left behind. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Lisa Ann Pinkerton has their story:


Maria Graziani’s house was built on a hillside. At the top of the hill, people have dumped old refrigerators, broken air conditioners, dried up paint cans, worn out tires… lots and lots of junk on the abandoned property. Last year she brought her neighbors and the city together to clean up the mess. This year, she’s farming it.


(Sound of rusty metal squeaking)


On her front porch, she lifts a manual reel mower onto her shoulder to carry to the top of the hill. She’s made this trip so many times before, she’s carved a path through the weeds. On her way, she has to step over and around various pieces of rusted junk.


“There’s like a wooded area that’s owned by the city that, I guess, used to be people’s backyards because there’s trash and cars up here.”


Graziani’s not your typical urban developer. Her orange knitted headband keeps her brown dreadlocks at bay, her paint-splattered overalls are ripped, and her pockets are stuffed with tools. At the top of the hill, she leans on her knees to catch her breath. Ahead of her, is a field covered by invasive knotweed.


“This is where the farm property starts.”


Despite field’s condition, it has a breathtaking view. Nearly the entire Pittsburgh skyline is framed by trees and lit by a gold setting sun.


“It’s one point seven acres, nineteen lots that the Urban Redevelopment Authority and the city own.”


Graziani formed a non-profit organization to get foundation money to pay for the block and the back taxes. In five years, it will all belong to The Healcreast Urban Community Farm.
The farm doesn’t have a lot of rules. If you help out, you can have some food.
If you’re needy, there’s food available for the asking. Besides the theft of the farm’s tomato plants, Graziani says it works pretty well.


As the sun falls and the evening cools off, another workday begins.
Volunteers trudge up the hill from every conceivable direction.


(Sound of shovels, talking)


The volunteers say once they heard about the urban farm they wanted to help. Even if they weren’t sure how.


VOLUNTEER 1: “I know close to nothing about farming, so I just need to learn – I need to dig in and learn how to do it.”


VOLUNTEER 2: “I work for the Bloomfield Garfield Corporation So that’s how I learned about this; it’s a small office.”


VOLUNTEER 3: “It seemed fairly absurd at first, but it makes a whole lot of sense when you think about it, with all the vacant spaces in town that aren’t being used.”


Everyone picks a spot and starts digging. Immediately they’ve got a problem: they’ve hit concrete. It’s the foundation of a demolished house. That’s only one of the obstacles the Healcrest farmers have faced. The volunteers had an easy time with their first garden. Not much junk was dumped in that area. But the rest of the property is contaminated with arsenic and lead, but Graziani has a plan.


“I would like to till it and put in some dwarf sunflowers. Which I want to use for phyto-remediation.”


The sunflowers will draw up the contaminants into their roots. In the fall, farmers will pull up the plants – roots and all – and dump them at a hazardous waste facility.


(Sound of rain)


Two days later it’s another workday. And it’s raining. But the Healcreast farmers hardly notice.
Because they uncovered the foundation of an old house, they’ve decided to build raised beds.
They layer peat moss, compost, and topsoil into mounds. And even though it’s raining the sun breaks through for a moment.


“And I think that I see it; it’s right there! So we’ve got a rainbow, just kind of right over the hill, it’s quite gorgeous.”


As summer has progressed, all kinds of vegetables are growing strong: peppers, collard greens, corn, squash. With a grant from the Health Department, Graziani can pay junior high school students a little bit of cash to help her once a week. They’re kids from the neighborhood, who’ve only known the hilltop as a dump. Soon, Graziani, the kids, and the volunteers, will have a harvest on the hilltop.


For the GLRC. I’m Lisa Ann Pinkerton.

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