Holyoke City Center Visioning

[John Aubin]

On Thursday evening, May 28 I attended the second public meeting for Holyoke's "City Center Vision Plan". Vanasse, Hangen and Brustlin, the city's planning consultant, had gotten off to a good start with their previous stakeholder meetings and the first public "ideas" meeting in early May. In contrast, Thursday's presentation of three alternative "Vision Plans" was not only uninspiring, it was not Holyoke. The generic urban concepts VHB presented that evening could be applied to almost any city, any size, any where. The three plans were different arrangements of newly proposed districts; arts and history, cultural, mixed use. Only nothing was new, the building types of the new districts are for the most part already allowed by current zoning. The plans showed no real relationship to Holyoke's organically growing commercial, retail and arts scene. There was no indication of how any of the plans would be paid for or be realized or if they even could be realized. When VHB pushed attendees to pick their favorite plan I felt the ghost of Holyoke's last 40 years staring at me.

So where does planning begin? In early May, Holyoker's told VHB they wanted a vibrant urban city center with restuarants, shops, movie theaters, and culture events. They wanted more jobs and more opportunities to live downtown. A plan for 200 new residents and 20 new businesess would probably support a new lunch counter, but not many restuarants. A plan for 2,000 new residents and 200 new businesess may fill a few restaurants, but will probably not support a movie theater. How many new urban residents and businesses are required for a restaurant, a book store, a movie theater, a hotel, a museum? How big do Holyoker's want their city to be? How big can it be? How big should it be?

Our City Center Vision Plan must identify a population increase goal if it is to become a realizable vision and not a fantasy. There is an untapped market for quality urban space, for walkable urban environments where people can live, work and enjoy their free time. Holyoke has over 2,000,000 square feet of vacant building space and acres of vacant urban land. I have proposed planning for 20,000 new people in the city by the year 2020, HOLYKE 2020. This number would bring Holyoke to just under it's peak population of 63,000, but far less than it's original plan.

Holyoke's is a planners dream, a tight street grid wrapped around broad canals all wrapped in turn by an elegant curve in the Connecticut River, a "fossil Venice" as John McPhee wrote in the New Yorker magazine in September of 2000. The best urban planners in the country would jump at the opportunity and give 200% to be part of Holyoke's future. Whether Holyoke's goal is 5,000 or 50,000, going from a population goal to a Vision Plan that matches Holyoke's potential and ambitions is not an easy planning assignment. Holyoke's City Center Vision Plan requires the best and most dedicated planners and latest urban planning techniques available. Holyokers should settle for nothing less.

[Andrew Mc]

John I completely agree with your post and would like to piggy back on Elizur's point regarding today's news. Hurray Holyoke!

In particular I like your comments about increasing the population of Holyoke. It should be noted that the city reached its peak population in the 1920's without the development of many of the outer wards where a large portion of the population reside today meaning less density is required to get Yoke back. Downtown has been gutted over the years. Denser redevelopment of available lots and conversion of some industrial space into residential could get the Urban density up relatively quickly. I will also note that as a Highland Park resident you can count me in as part of the population that would utilize downtown.

Growing up in the 1980’s with family in the Flats I personally watched my share of the city burn. Many oppose the infill of duplex housing. I agree to a point but realize that developers are not lining up to rebuild large apartment blocks and therefore would prefer to see townhouse style development similar to what happened in Jackson Parkway. On the other hand I am happy to see vacant lots filled in, property returned to the tax rolls and owners taking pride in their property.

Having lived through much of Holyoke’s long decline and hearing story’s of what the city once was I can honestly say that I think we have turned a corner. I returned to Holyoke after attending college and serving in the military with my wife (non-native) and son. I chose to live here because of the people and the potential. Witnessing grass roots efforts such as CRUSH and Open Square helped persuade that decision. Keep up the good work. Holyoke’s best days are ahead of us.

Andrew

[James Chevalier]

I hope that these meetings take into account the great news we've just received today!

[Rebecca]

While I had a very mild reaction to the first planning meeting, I actually felt like we made a lot progress and got to a deeper level in the visioning process than I have previously experienced.
I believe that this urban renewal plan is what will help set the criteria and standards for how we can proactively attract the type of development we want to see in the city with targeted marketing campaigns. This will help direct different types of development into the areas that would be most appropriate for the uses that we had identified in these meetings, as opposed to the haphazard, checkerboard-style, or reactive development that we have witnessed in the past.
The finer details still need to be decided, but overall I am optimistic. I think that the community involvement and input at these meetings has really encouraged the many department heads and city leadership involved in planning and development to seriously consider that downtown revitalization is a possibility when previously it had been met by a tremendous amount of resistance.

[Peter (VanDog)]

That parking space requirement thing has got to go. When and if parking becomes a problem in the downtown the city can start building bigger municipal garages.

[aaron vega]

Thank you all for this insightful conversation. My fear is that those in charge of this city vision don't see the obstacles listed here,that they don't see the organic growth and development happening here in the city. And that they don't see the importance of proper marketing of our city to encourage the kind of growth, investment and development we want. Small grants to have these meetings, which are encourage as far as getting people together, making us feel part of the process and sparking this conversation, are not going to "fix" our problems and they aren't going to open the flood gates of investors and new ideas.

[John Aubin]

Peter and Daphne,
Thanks for your comments.
It is not possible to mandate growth, but it is possible to remove the obstacles and encourage the untapped market for growth that already exists. I believe VHB has put the cart before the horse. It is extremely important to understand what we already have, what is working and what is not. This includes among other things; an inventory and location map of vacant building space and land; an analysis of existing zoning, recent building sales and building permits; an analysis of recent commercial and residential activity downtown; traffic counts and patterns. As an example, much of our downtown zoning is "urban" in the sense that it permits mixed use, higher density and taller buildings. However the parking requirements are much higher than typical urban zoning requirements. The question of why private developers are not building down town is moot, it is not possible to build a new urban building downtown because of these parking requirements. Secondly, a consensus must be achieved on broader planning and economic development principles for any specific plan to have a chance of implementation and success. Many of the components of this - density, urban vs. suburban, street wall, transportation, walkability, green principles, public and private costs - were discussed in the first meeting. But VHB was not able to show the interrelationship between the components or how different choices effected the implementation or cost of one approach over another. As a result, a cultural district was proposed, but basic planning questions were not addressed or answered. Part of this is basic planning research and analysis. There are also analytic and visualization tools (software) that have been specifically designed to facilitate this process in a public forum.
I have started an architecture and planning blog to talk in more detail about these issues with regular posts.

[daphne board]

Hey John!
I got as much out of that meeting as you did, it appears, and I do hope that the third meeting yields a plan (or plan options) that is a bit more user-friendly. Looking at color-coded blocks of mixed-use vs. industrial vs. residential did give me the idea that there would be areas solely for these purposes...though VHB stated this was not the intention. If, like you say, the areas are all zoned for multi-use now, and thus allowing the area to grow in an organic fashion, then I do not really see the point of the exercises at the second meeting. They caused confusion and did not spark much excitement--according to several people I talked with after. I did run into one person who found the meeting more helpful than the first.
It seems to me that Holyoke is suffering from an intense image problem. Safety, vibrancy, etc. It would seem necessary to concentrate on that image/marketing problem first, to attract new residents and businesses. Statistics showing a decrease in center city crime should be made public--if they exist-it is my belief from living here that the statistics *must* have improved, since there is less crime in my hood, and I would love to see the overall crime reports, if anyone has actually put them together. Police should be walking around downtown, certainly. The City should work a little harder on its website. There is some information available, but it is not the most user-friendly site, and visitors and potential residents will easily think that the only "arts and culture" in the City is the Wistariahurst. A wonderful museum, to be sure, but it should not be the sole listing under that topic on the City's main page.
You mention increasing the population of the City, and I agree completely, But what about the 40k people already living here? We have a farmer's market that takes place on a Thursday during the day, ending at 3:30 pm, when most Holyokers are at work somewhere else. I don't know how many "City" events (like the Christmas Santa train arrival) have their start times at 4:30 pm or 5 pm, completely catering to City employees who leave work at that time, but this practice does not allow for Holyokers who work elsewhere to make it home from work, pick up the kids and head downtown to an exciting event. It is this shortsightedness from the City's planning dept (or whoever is making those sorts of decisions) that ignores the needs of the outlying Holyoke population. I would think there would be enough people in Holyoke right now to support a few more restaurants downtown--but the reality is that most Holyokers living in outlying wards do not go downtown because of perceived safety/image problems and poor planning of City-sponsored events.
Oh well-I hear we will soon get another farmer's market on Sundays, muchas gracias, and slowly but surely we can get the word out that Holyoke is a great place in which to wander around and live.
Peter--I like the idea of mandating growth/population density. A progressive government would surely be in agreeance to that.

[Peter (VanDog)]

Thanks for posting this John. I agree with you 100%, but wonder how do we (the city) mandate growth? What's the next step?