Monday, August 28, 2006

Why Some Towns Place Roadblocks on Cul-de-Sacs

Ben Garvin for The New York Times

TWO-WAY STREET Eagan, Minn., with more than 650 cul-de-sacs, like those above and below left, has long embraced dead-end streets.

Published: August 27, 2006

NORTHFIELD, Minn.

Ben Garvin for The New York Times

Ben Garvin for The New York Time

Dan Olson, a planner for Northfield, thinks cul-de-sacs inhibit ease of access.

ON a crystalline day in early August, grumbling yellow bulldozers and excavators dug into a broad swath of black earth just east of the city limits here, within earshot of both the farm operation the acreage had been part of and the suburban landscape into which it will be absorbed.

Tucked inside the fifth addition to the subdivision Rosewood is Larkspur Court, the type of cul-de-sac that has long been an iconic feature of American suburbs.

But here and in other areas across the country, this staple of suburban development is drawing criticism from a growing number of planners and government officials, who say it should become an endangered species.

Highly popular after World War II, the cul-de-sac is essentially a dead-end residential street, often but not always ending with a large circular patch of pavement allowing vehicles to turn around. The form was initially embraced as something that promoted security, neighborliness and efficient transportation.

Homeowners found that the cul-de-sac limited traffic, creating a sense of privacy, while encouraging ties among neighbors, who could hardly avoid one another. Developers liked the cul-de-sac because it made it possible to build on land unsuited to a grid street pattern and because home buyers were willing to pay a premium to live on one.

Now the cul-de-sac is excoriated in certain quarters, especially by New Urbanists, as a detriment to security, community and efficient transportation.

Michael Lykoudis, dean of the School of Architecture at the University of Notre Dame, grew up on a cul-de-sac in West Lafayette, Ind., but finds himself among the critics. He notes that suburban neighborhoods are difficult, if not impossible, for pedestrians to navigate, making cars virtual necessities. “The president says we are addicted to oil, but in fact it’s not a voluntary addiction,” he said.

And while people within a cul-de-sac may know one another well, they are less likely to know people who live on other streets. “What was lost is a sense of community,” he said.

In Northfield, a city of 17,000 about 45 miles south of Minneapolis, cul-de-sacs are more than out of fashion. “This city has tended toward not liking them,” said Dan Olson, the city planner.

The City Council passed an ordinance several years ago saying that cul-de-sacs can “only be used to the extent that the topography, wetlands or other physical features necessitate their use.”

“They really don’t provide connectivity and ease of access to other areas of the city,” Mr. Olson said.

In 1998, when the preliminary plan for Rosewood’s fifth addition was approved, the subdivision included three cul-de-sacs, Mr. Olson said. The developer agreed to make two of them through streets but insisted that the remaining one was vital to the project. The single cul-de-sac provoked vigorous debate in the planning commission before the revised plan was finally approved in April, with two dissenting votes.

In her blog, Tracy Davis, one of the commissioners who voted no, wrote a few days later that the city was essentially sanctioning “cul-de-sac starter castles and monotonous ‘burb developments.”

Don Mitchell, professor of geography at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, grew up on a cul-de-sac in Moraga, Calif., and has seen both sides of the debate. “It’s a quiet street that all us kids could play on without too much fear of traffic,” he said. “And there was pretty good surveillance by our parents when we were out in the street.”

But those advantages can also be disadvantages. “They’re quite insular,” he said. “They tend to almost induce a circle-the-wagons sort of atmosphere, so anybody becomes a stranger who’s on the street. They don’t often act like public streets. We always knew when there was someone who wasn’t a regular on our street, and yet they had every right to be there.”

Originating in England, where they have also come under criticism lately, the cul-de-sac has evolved since it was introduced in the United States in the late 1920’s.

Eugenie L. Birch, chairwoman of the department of city and regional planning at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Design, noted that in Radburn, N.J., site of some of the earliest American cul-de-sacs, the street pattern had been used to create more public space.

“The houses were designed so the backs of the houses would be on the cul-de-sac,” she said. “In other words, the cul-de-sac was a service street.” The fronts of the houses looked out on either pedestrian walkways or large interior parks.

But even that created a problem in the 1920’s, before the clothes dryer became a standard appliance in the home, Dr. Birch said. Residents debated whether their clotheslines should be in the backs of their houses and therefore on the cul-de-sacs or away from the street and in the fronts of their houses.

“I become suspicious when people just say no, no, no, you can’t have them, because there are lots of ways one can be imaginative about them,” Dr. Birch said. “Unfortunately, most of our land development has not been particularly imaginative about them.”

Although planners may be turning away from cul-de-sacs, people who actually live on them are willing to fight for them.

Just a 25-mile drive north from Northfield, the cul-de-sac is quite welcome in the Twin Cities suburb of Eagan. By 2005, the number had grown to more than 650 in the community of 69,000 residents, from about 100 in the late 1970’s when the population was about 17,000.

But in 2004, residents of Wellington Way were dismayed when they learned that their flat-ended cul-de-sac would become a through street as the adjacent Diamond T Ranch, a horse ranch, is developed into a residential subdivision called Steeplechase of Eagan. They petitioned the city to keep their cul-de-sac, but the Dakota County Plat Commission insisted that the cul-de-sac, which had been planned for a through street as far back as 1985, be extended.

Residents argued that when they bought their homes nothing indicated that the street would ever be anything but a dead end. Eagan officials sided with the residents, and the plan, which was also disputed because of wetlands use and density, went back and forth between the city and the county for a year before the city finally relented.

Since then, Eagan has posted signs on about 40 cul-de-sacs saying “Future Through Street.”

“They have been very highly regarded in Eagan, and there has never been any issue about getting rid of them or taking them out of our design standards,” said Thomas L. Hedges, city administrator in Eagan and a cul-de-sac resident.

Brent D. Ryan, associate professor of urban planning at the University of Illinois at Chicago and co-director of the City Design Center, grew up on a cul-de-sac in Branford, Conn.

He noted that by about 1960, cul-de-sacs became the favored street pattern, and in many places the street grid was discouraged or forbidden.

“Now we’re creating new sets of standards that either permit or require gridded street systems again,” he said.

“The thing you can say most about cul-de-sacs,” he added, “is what goes around comes around.”

Posted by M at 06:33:13 | Permalink | No Comments »

Saturday, August 26, 2006

Salt Lake City Moving Toward Less Thirsty Lawns

By MELISSA SANFORD
Published: August 25, 2006

SALT LAKE CITY, Aug. 21 — Covered as it is by red bark and dotted with ornamental grasses and purple sage shrubs, the front yard of Salt Lake City’s mayor stands out in contrast against the other, uniformly green lawns on the tree-lined street.

Not only is Mayor Rocky Anderson’s yard distinctive, though. It is also illegal, one of hundreds of drought-friendly yards and gardens here that are in violation of zoning ordinances.

 

In light of a five-year drought that meteorologists say ended last year, Mr. Anderson is one of a growing number of homeowners in desert cities across the West who have traded in their manicured lawns and colorful flower beds for ground cover and gardens that require little water.

In Salt Lake City, though, all front yards must be completely covered with flat green grass, which needs to be watered often to keep it from turning brown and strawlike. Although the zoning ordinance is rarely enforced, some Salt Lake City leaders — including the mayor — want to bring the letter of law in line with current landscaping trends.

“I think the zoning ordinance is ridiculous,” Mr. Anderson said. “It clearly needs to be changed.”

The mayor is working with environmentalists to come up with an amendment to the ordinance. The final language has not been settled on, but so far, the mayor and other city officials said, it would require vegetation on only one third of a front lawn, and that third could be covered with any plant including drought-resistant ones. The rest of the lawn could be covered with mulch or gravel.

Once the wording is complete, the amendment will go before the City Council.

“Five or six years ago, nobody had these types of lawns here,” Mr. Anderson, 54, said. “In my parents’ garden, they always had petunias and lush bright flowers that required a lot of water. But I think having the native plants is reflective of the identity of our place. We’re in a desert and maintaining our identity can be extremely beautiful, too.”

In some Southwest cities, low-water landscapes, known as xeriscapes, have become the norm, and zoning ordinances have been changed accordingly. Many people in Albuquerque have rock gardens with drought-tolerant plants, which are encouraged by an ordinance that allows residents to plant grass on only 20 percent of their lawn. In Phoenix, the law does not require any decoration in front of single-family homes — only that front yards look neat and be free of dead plants or tumbleweed. There, cactuses are the decoration of choice.

Within the next 10 years, xeriscapes will be standard in Salt Lake City, too, Mr. Anderson said, if only because they are so much more affordable. He said that after he planted his, his water bill dropped 65 percent.

Nurseries and plant stores here report that demand for drought-tolerant plants has increased in the last five years. Shane Taylor, 26, manager of the nursery Cactus and Tropicals, said that to make room for the low-water plants, the store had to reduce its supply of ferns and other water guzzlers.

Mr. Taylor said drought-tolerant plants came in all colors, including red and orange blanket flowers, yellow columbine, green smooth sumac and lavender vinca.

But not everybody is a fan of the new style of landscaping. Richard Nigro, 53, a Salt Lake City stockbroker who has a lush garden of green grass and plants, said he liked the drought-tolerant gardens only if they were well maintained.

“A lot of these xeriscapes look horrible, and people just use it as an excuse not to do anything with their yards,” Mr. Nigro said. “A lot of people just let weeds grow instead of native plants.”

After Mr. Anderson created his new yard, a complaint was filed with the Salt Lake City forester because the trees in front of his house looked as if they were dying. And they probably were, the mayor said, until he learned to care for them properly.

Mr. Nigro said he was particularly pleased with Mr. Anderson’s new garden.

“Before he was mayor, his lawn looked terrible,” Mr. Nigro said. “There was grass, but it was poorly kept.”

Mr. Anderson has learned that his new yard takes a lot of work if it is to remain healthy and attractive.

“I had some folks digging up weeds for me and they dug up some of my drought-tolerant plants,” he said, laughing. “I guess the garden needed to be thinned out if they could not tell the difference.”

Posted by M at 06:34:39 | Permalink | No Comments »

Monday, August 7, 2006

What’s That Smell?

By TERI KARUSH ROGERS
Published: August 6, 2006

SOMETIMES, vertical living really stinks.


Illustration by Lisa Haney

Robert Stolarik for The New York Times

Suzanne Steward and Seth Berkowitz live with smoke wafting up from two downstairs apartments.

Michael Falco for The New York Times

Toby Levin with one of the dishes her neighbor Adam Potter can smell when she is cooking.

Secondhand smells emanating from pets, cooking, cigarettes, renovations and even garbage can waft up, down and sideways among apartments (and occasionally town houses), sometimes hanging in one place — most objectionably, one’s own — like a stifling August afternoon.

Indeed, summer can be rankest of all: people are understandably reluctant to open their windows, while odors seem to cling to the humidity like sweat to the backseat of a taxi.

But many apartment dwellers believe — incorrectly, in many cases — that tainted air is an unavoidable price of living on top of one’s neighbors. They hesitate over whether complaining to, or about, the perpetrator is an invasion of a neighbor’s privacy. Even when the issue is toxic secondhand smoke, affected neighbors are unsure whether they have the right — legally, neighborly or ethically — to insist on their own clean air.

“I feel like it’s hopeless,” said Susan Stewart, a book promoter for Monteiro & Company in Manhattan and an actress in her 20’s “exasperated” by the cigarette smoke from two downstairs apartments. The smell pollutes the den and master bedroom of the three-bedroom co-op she shares with her boyfriend, Seth Berkowitz, a 29-year-old film restorer and musician, in Jackson Heights, Queens.

“Usually on weekends when I’m sleeping in, I have the window open and get to wake up to the fresh smell of cigarettes,” said Ms. Stewart, a former smoker herself.

Although her friendly neighbors agreed to her request several years ago either to stop smoking or do it in a different part of the apartment, nothing has changed, and Ms. Stewart believes she has run out of options.

Jacqueline A. Weiss, a lawyer who runs the New York real estate department of the law firm of Baker Hostetler, is also a former board president of her building who has mediated disputes over smells in her own West End Avenue building. “Notwithstanding the fact that in New York everyone likes to complain about everything,” she said, “as New Yorkers, we’re just not accustomed to having complete privacy in our ear-space, our sightline and our nose-space.”

Darren Sukenik, a senior vice president at Prudential Douglas Elliman, agreed. “It’s very common that in a 200-unit building, you’re going to have something smelling somewhere.” Still, that doesn’t mean that nothing can be done. “We don’t let our cats and dogs run around our halls,” he said. “Why should we let our veal chops?”

Managing agents and the lawyers who advise landlords, co-op and condominium boards report an increase in complaints about secondhand smoke, although noise complaints continue to trump nose-related ones.

Stuart M. Saft, a real estate lawyer at Wolf Haldenstein Adler Freeman & Herz in Manhattan, says his firm hears smoking complaints two to three times a month, on average. Cooking odors, on the other hand, arise only half a dozen times a year. The firm represents about 300 of the city’s co-ops and condos.

In February, New York City’s 311 phone line began to track calls about secondhand smoke drifting among neighbors; the mayor’s office reports that the calls average 96 a month. But the 311 line will not refer the aggrieved to an agency, because the city doesn’t regulate smoking at home.

And unless you are willing to wear an activated-charcoal respirator, “there’s no single magic bullet for any odor,” said Pamela Dalton, a research scientist with Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia.

But because the nose can so quickly become used to odors — older noses work less adeptly — the perpetrator may not know that he or she may be causing a stink. (Consider this unnerving fact: about 75 percent of the so-called musty odor that greets you upon returning from vacation is what visitors always smell, Dr. Dalton said.)

When dealing with offensive odors, a friendly conversation may prove effective — like encouraging opening a window or installing some other form of ventilation — while preserving neighborly relations. Residents who continue to be afflicted by uninvited aromas (oil-based primer, anyone?) are entitled to ask the landlord or co-op board to remediate. (The rights of condo owners may be somewhat different.)

Since odors often travel through pipe shafts, ventilation ducts, electrical outlets and holes or cracks in the walls, remediation typically begins with sealing up dwellings “especially in older buildings without central air-conditioning,” Mr. Saft said.

“In one building we found holes behind the medicine cabinet,” he said.

Tenements and brownstones built in the 18th and 19th centuries have thinner walls than their larger and more glorious prewar kin near Central Park, for instance, and may be particularly vulnerable and porous, said Arthur I. Weinstein, a co-op lawyer and the vice president of the Council of New York Cooperatives and Condominiums. Postwar buildings, on the other hand, frequently share common ventilation and may suffer from sloppy construction.

With some central ventilation systems, a specialist may try to plug unused airspace with a foam that hardens, similar to a substance used to provide extra insulation. Other buildings may benefit by changing the main filter (though one managing agent disputed the effectiveness).

In addition, said Mark V. Martinez, president of Interior Management, a large Manhattan contractor, “a lot of these old and newer buildings have a central ventilation system for all bath and kitchen systems with a huge fan on the roof pulling air from all of the apartments out — and a lot of times these things just don’t work.”

If your building has one, he said, “you would see a grill in the ceiling but no switch for it. You could test it by putting a tissue on it and see if it holds up.” An engineer can fix it.

Smells frequently snake through hallways. An elevator shaft can act as the Typhoid Mary of unpleasant aromas, sucking them up and distributing them throughout the building’s byways, for instance, or a fish-frying neighbor may prop open a front door. “Sealing the door works pretty well,” said Mr. Martinez, so long as the door is closed. A type of weatherstripping installed by a carpenter can be aesthetically discreet and make it close to airtight.

Smokers can be prevailed upon to light up in a different room, or install air purifiers with charcoal filters. Of course, some offenders require prodding.

“You can tell them it’s bothering their neighbors, and it’s offensive, and that they have to take some action,” said Paul J. Herman, the executive vice president for Brown Harris Stevens Residential Management, which manages 145 high-end co-ops and condos in Manhattan. “After some letter writing, smokers do tend to be cooperative.”

Ms. Weiss, the real estate lawyer and former board president, recalled successfully addressing a problem of smoke drifting from one apartment. “We debated what to do,” she said, citing a resident’s right to live freely within a dwelling. “We sent the super to smell and some of us went to the hall and sniffed and agreed it was rather strong. We knocked on the door and asked them to smoke on the other side of the apartment where there were no adjoining walls” and to put air filters near the door.

Among cooking aromas, Dr. Dalton said, the worst involve sulfur-rich vegetables like garlic, onions, cabbage, broccoli, Brussels sprouts and asparagus. Also, she said, “fresh fish doesn’t smell, but when it is cooked, it contains chemical compounds giving it a characteristically fishy odor.”

With cooking, proper ventilation can be more important than sealing up dwellings. The best solution is a fan that vents to the outside, though that may be impossible because of building rules, historical preservation laws or the layout or placement of the kitchen.

Many open-plan kitchens dropped into the middle of today’s loftlike condos — in lot-locked buildings with windows only in the front and back — may inadequately provide for outside ventilation from the stove.

But architects and others who work on new buildings contend that secondhand smells are rarely much of a problem, given the attention paid to sealing up modern apartments against mold, leaks and energy loss.

Also, “keep in mind that a lot of people in New York love the showcase kitchens, but there isn’t really a tremendous amount of cooking that goes down there,” said Andrew Gerringer, the managing director and head of new development projects at Prudential Douglas Elliman.

Grills mounted on the wall drawing air out are another fine alternative, said David Mandl, the president of Meltzer/Mandl Architects in Manhattan. So are hoods fitted with charcoal filters — so long as the filters are changed regularly. Far less effective are hoods that simply recirculate air. Both types are common in lower-priced new construction, though anyone spending more than $1,200 a square foot should demand better, Mr. Mandl said. “For what these people are paying, they better not be smelling their neighbor’s fish for dinner,” he said.

And then there is a do-it-yourself method as old as windows themselves: creating a draft through cross-ventilation. One method is to lower the top of a double-hung window in one area of the apartment and the bottom of another in an opposite area, creating a draft and speeding air replacement.

Brokers say secondhand odors “can impact the sale and value of an apartment because first impressions are so important,” said Alexandra Bellak, an associate saleswoman at Prudential Douglas Elliman.

For Samantha Kleier Forbes, a broker and a vice president at Gumley Haft Kleier, “the best smell is no smell.” She recalled the $4.5 million Park Avenue sale she lost after her buyers realized that an elderly neighbor in the white-glove building frequently cooked fish, Brussels sprouts and cabbage with the door to the hallway open.

Some brokers’ solutions are more temporary than others.

Toni D. Haber, an executive vice president with Prudential Douglas Elliman, recommended “anything from a candle to air freshener to professional cleaning, including the carpets, to even painting.”

As for which secondhand odors downgrade an apartment’s appeal the most, “cigarette smoke is the kiss of death,” said June Iseman, a vice president and broker at Stribling & Associates.

Mr. Sukenik of Prudential Douglas Elliman, said, “Cigarette smoking and cats are big.”

(Scientifically speaking, Dr. Dalton said, cat urine is more offensive than dog urine because of the greater amount of sulfur, which is “easily airborne, very volatile, and humans have an incredibly good sensitivity for detecting.”)

Even as sellers should swallow their pride or confront their ignorance by asking their broker whether their apartment stinks, buyers can do some detective work of their own, because secondhand odors can materialize erratically.

A major problem will probably be discussed by the board and therefore emerge in its minutes, said Michael Messi, a Manhattan real estate lawyer with Swidler & Messi. “It’s caveat emptor here in New York,” said Mr. Messi, whose clients realized after closing that secondhand smoke was filtering up through floor vents. The couple were forced to rip out the floor vents to block the smell from leaking into their Brooklyn co-op.

Other red flags include “anything that’s an attempt to mask an odor, whether it’s those electric fans that send out scented oil, or potpourri or fancy candles actually lit and burning,” said Julie Friedman, a senior associate broker with Bellmarc Realty.

Access restricted to a certain time of day is another cue, she said, recalling the Upper East Side co-op that allowed her clients to visit only at midmorning and then again in the late afternoon.

“It turned out the broker was working around the fish schedule” of the fishmonger downstairs that was accepting its deliveries and preparing foods when prospective buyers were banned, Ms. Friedman said.

Sometimes it comes down to finding the right buyer, like one attracted to the aroma of roasting chicken, or the young cigar smoker in his 30’s who snapped up a one-bedroom two years ago that reeked of cigar smoke from an 80-year-old neighbor, said Daniel Berman, an executive vice president at Bellmarc’s Midtown office.

And then there are neighbors who could not care less about making or fighting over a stink. Ever since her broiler broke two years ago, Toby Leviton, a stay-at-home mom on West 79th Street, fries a cut of kosher meat three or four times a week for her husband, Ira. Her stove has no fan, the pan (which she cheerfully admitted should be replaced) is blackened, and her apartment is overcome by smoke and smell.

“My smoke alarm goes off, I open all the windows, the kids complain, and within half an hour the smoke is pretty much out,” though the smell lingers, she said. It also infiltrates the adjacent apartment of her friend, Adam Potter, the president of Cobis Alliance, whose “complaints” consist of gentle ribbing. Ms. Leviton, 41, said she would stop if asked.

The secondhand odor “maybe lasts an hour and a half,” Mr. Potter said lightly. “At this point you get used to it.”

Posted by M at 06:36:36 | Permalink | No Comments »