Tonight, the Richardson City Council votes on whether to allow a nearly 600-foot-long apartment block in the heart of Downtown Richardson. Most everything about the design of that block (save the fact that it is dense housing) is contrary to how a walkable downtown is built. This isn’t a technical zoning case as much as it is a test of vision, strength, courage, and will. Those virtues (as best I can tell) aren’t winning. An understanding how our nearby neighbors – Plano, Garland, McKinney, Addison – got to walkable stretches of their cities is losing. I could be wrong and I hope I am.
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| Except from Central/Main Street Plan showing McKinney intact. (Source: City of Richardson) |
I tend to write bringing a technical aspect with facts and figures. This time it will be more personal.
I got into this entire business of walkable urban environments and fixing cities by accident. I’ve lived in Richardson over 50 years (not necessarily continuously). I bought a house here in one of its oldest neighborhoods decades ago.
Note: this was written quickly. I apologize for typos or editing errors.
An architect neighbor, who later became a friend, and who has now become a recognized leader in mixed use and urban development, told me back then that we were being eaten alive. I was in denial but he was right. Richardson was struggling from the tech crash and suburban decline. I got involved. I became neighborhood association president. I worked to get things done often with lots of help including creating a new park. I joined Leadership Richardson and was appointed by those city councils to several boards and ad-hoc committees. I read a lot. I listened a lot and let people teach me. I even took graduate classes in city planning. Even though I don’t do it full time, I do get paid (when asked) for my advice, counsel, technical know-how, and advocacy.
Summary: It is a journey from ignorance to some level of expertise through effort that anyone can do. Emphasis on “anyone.”
So, the things I write here are based mostly on things I’ve learned from experience, observation and learning and are not necessarily scholarly pronouncements from on high. Most people understand walkability and have a positive view of its elements even if they don’t have a studied insight into it. Many people, even if they openly harbor opposition to it, will express positive views of its elements often without realizing it.
For downtown, Richardson chose walkability. That question is settled. It took years of study and interaction with the community. There was much more community interaction in that process than there was with our recent “Envision Richardson” plan. These beliefs are expressed in planning documents, zoning ordinances, and many (but not all) of the physical and economic choices of both the city government proper and of private citizenry and business. Note: When I say “Richardson” I do not mean city government. I mean all of Richardson – its citizenry, its government, its businesses, individuals and institutions. For downtown, Richardson chose walkability.
Has it all been perfect? No.
Is some “wrong” (by my esteemed opinion, har har har)? Yes, some is.
Is the general plan and ordinances on paper for the downtown area, correct? Oh yes. Much of its heart and “meat” are spot on. It is scary good how much is spot on.
The two main problems of the plan tonight are that it eliminates a street to create a long block and has no meaningful bottom floor activity. This is (I dare say) literally urban planning 101 on how to screw up walkable parts of a city. It is a roadmap to make a city less economically productive. I can almost gauren-freaking-tee you that, in almost every walkable mixed-use place that you like, you will find block sizes are 250 to 350 feet and almost never longer than 500ft. These standards aren’t just nice and cute. They are financially productive for everyone involved. The ability to move place to place is so easy that it is barely noticeable just like a fish doesn’t notice the water.
It is that heart which is on trial tonight. What is being proposed tears out the heart of what I have said above, what the community, writ large, chose, and what this and other city councils chose. There are no ifs or buts about it. There is no “that’s just an opinion.” This proposal will kill walkable urbanism downtown in every meaningful way. It will be done by fiat with no larger community conversation and against known planning standards for walkable places.
What is proposed is a 600-foot-long block of apartments with only a tiny “we’ve minimally checked a box” pedestrian tunnel to maintain a fake veneer of walkability. To do that the City of Richardson will willingly give up a section of McKinney in downtown and McKinney will literally be replaced with a parking garage.
These changes, along with violating urban design 101 principles above, cuts the heart out of our downtown plans. This is merely a long, unwalkable, automobile oriented suburban apartment block that nobody will want to navigate around, walk to, or want to be next to. It will not only be repellent from the human scale but these have been shown time and time again to be less helpful to surrounding retail than the same density in an urban form.
So if I went to anyone who was even passingly familiar with downtown and I asked that person if they knew where Del’s Charcoal burgers is and they say Yes. I then ask, “So what would you say if when standing right in front of Del’s and….” Then I describe what is being proposed, what do you think that person would say? Well, I know what they would say because I asked a few people.
I asked my wife that question as we sat on an outdoor patio in Richardson eating Tex-Mex with the dog and kid on a pleasant afternoon. Her immediate incredulous, voice going up an octave, response was, “How did we get to be so lame?” Hers was the same as anyone I asked, including responses like, “But I thought the plan was….?” You get the idea.
Indeed. How did we get to be lame? Why do we abandon plans? Why do we abandon plans almost always at the first request?
I have a few theories. One or more or a combination of these might be at play.
One is that our city (speaking of the Council and City Hall) are told things that give them a (fake) impression that something must happen now, there is a quasi-economic problem to be solved (now) and all other concerns are lower priority. Somehow this solves that problem without any actual evidence. Another is thinking of plans as arbitrary or legalistic.
I doubt anyone explicitly says they think this way. It is more implicit or ground into culture of interaction. These are, again, observations over two decades. They are not singling out any person or all persons or any specific interaction.
One thing I heard about this was, “We need bodies to support retail downtown.” This is befuddling for a number of reasons the least of which being that we have thousands of people surrounding downtown and they visit downtown. Putting less than 400 people closer, especially when the design will encourage them to get in cars and leave, will not cause any vacant space to be filled.
I visited the beloved Staycation coffee shop downtown this weekend (which this development will displace incidentally) and it was busy as heck. The back patio area was filled. I visited Del’s Charcoal burgers. It was packed with almost every seat taken. People already ARE GOING to those places.
I am not an urban designer but I know a bunch of them. They teach me a lot and I have a lot more to learn. One thing I have learned is to SEE. Seeing is not, “Oh that’s a sidewalk and a bench.” Seeing is continually asking, “What am I seeing both physically and in concept.” When one starts to intentionally look and see, then one asks questions. Seeing then gets you to ask, “How” and “Why?” Then one learns.
Seeing these places packed but seeing coffee and a burger place NOT in downtown NOT packed, we have to ask, “Why?” Staycation and Del’s are authentic places. That’s your answer. Staycation isn’t making gold plated coffee (although it is really good.) The same is true for Del’s. If you sold the same burgers out of a suburban retail storefront with a boring plastic interior with a big parking lot, it is questionable if it would succeed. People go for the place. (They are great burgers too!)
People go because the experience is part of the component. They come to our downtown specifically for these and not the downtown experience because there isn’t one…. yet. People are NOT very likely wandering downtown and happening into either of these. They go specifically for one or the other. To put it clinically, “The Place is the Product.” And since there is no place outside of Staycation or Del’s, so to speak of, what happens when people are finished there?
They leave and go away from downtown.
OK. Does that happen in downtown Plano, Garland, etc? The answer is no. People have reasons to stay. People DO go to those and other downtown because of the downtown. They will wander happenstance into various establishments or just the place itself which is the case of Garland’s newly repurposed square.
This is a key to our problem which is not being understood in the context of the apartment superblock proposal. We are trying to spend a ton of money to get people near the place instead of concentrating on making a place for people.
People have said to me, “Well our downtown isn’t like [Carrollton, Plano, McKinney, etc.]”
That would be correct statement actually. Those places were at the level of our downtown now in the past. I had a childhood friend with divorced parents where one lived adjacent to McKinney’s square a few decades ago. It was empty, cold and dusty. Then in intervening years it was made – through deliberate intention - to be an active, economically successful downtown. How? By paying attention to, and nurturing a sense of place. It was NOT made that way by combining existing blocks, that have been there for over 100 years, and putting in a large apartment block.
That is true because I checked. I examined every downtown or “urban area” housing block I could find in Richardson, Plano, Carrollton, Garland, Addison and McKinney. That’s 65 housing blocks. 91% of blocks were either less than 500 feet or if greater than 500 feet there is a vehicular and pedestrian cut thru. 75% were less than 500 feet so short blocks are dominant.
What about the 9% of blocks without both vehicular and pedestrian pass thrus? Are they comparable to our situation? No. Not even close. Those blocks without pass thrus have some circumstance, such as for example, being pushed against DART tracks at grade level. Not comparable in this case.
None of the cities have combined two blocks in the middle of their grid in order to make large block housing. We would be the only one.
If we pass this we will also be the only city among those WITHOUT small urban block housing in our grid.
We would literally be experimenting on our own downtown with unproven ideas while ignoring ideas implemented in other cities with success, ignoring the same principles in our own planning and zoning, and ignoring techniques known the world over. (and on that last point, that is exactly WHY we chose them and other cities implemented them.)
All of these cities followed these time-honored design principles and the success of their downtown and other areas benefit. This is NOT an accident.
So tonight, we find out if downtown is part of The Core or part of The Car. I hope I am wrong.
If you read this before 5PM and want to send the City Council a note here is the information:
To submit a comment, go to THIS LINK.
* Click "Electronic City Council Public Comment Card".
* The date of the meeting is 2/10/25.
* The file/case number is ZF 24-31.
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