Starting the spring with a planning post on housing

StrongTowns.org has a post that really works for the start of a new semester of planning.

Written by Nolan Gray, the post explains how Lexington (the best little city in America) could address its affordable housing shortage without compromising the city's famous urban growth boundary. So for a first day lesson, it already integrates the UGB and an important social and economic issue.

The article goes on to talk about mixed use, setbacks, parking, and little zoning tweaks that could make a big difference. For a first day conversation, it is a useful piece because it shows how planning often uses indirect levers to manipulate a problem. It also serves as a reminder that there is a lot to learn from informal sources, like non-profit blogs. Plus, Lexington is a great city that you should read about more often.

Money for Karst windows

The Architects Newspaper reports that SCAPE has gotten significant support for their Town Branch plan for Lexington. The support comes in the form of a $14.1 million grant from the US Department of Transportation. The project is helping daylight the long-hidden and often ignored Town Branch with a strip of park called Karst Commons and special Karst Windows celebrating the local geology.

Riverview Park Visitor Service Building I

The next time I am in Kentucky I hope to check this out: Riverview Park Visitor Service Building I.

Project for Public Spaces is redesigning Zion and Breen's design for Triangle Park in Lexington, KY.  The park was a notable icon for the city and for Zion and Breen over the last few decades, but the owners have decided it is due for an update.  The NJ firm, Zion and Breen, was well known for modernist landscape architecture and a pretty extensive knowledge of fountains.  The wall of fountains at Triangle Park required a massive pumping system and looked great when lit at night, which is part of why this park has been an Lexington Landmark and photographic icon for 30 years.  But Zion and Breen also designed the famous waterwall that we saw this weekend at Paley Park (see below).