While Billerica leadership continues to bicker over whether it’s a good idea to remove the broken down AMC Gremlin from our front yard, our neighbors are busy building gardens in theirs.
Tewksbury
As reported by the Boston Globe, Tewksbury Town Meeting will vote on a mixed use overlay district for an area just south of the town center. The new zoning, proposed by the Planning Board, will be called South Village Overlay District and encourage “pedestrian-oriented” development.
Here’s what Tewsbury community development director Steven Sadwick says about it: “The property owners win because they have the greater flexibility. And the town wins because we have some set of standards they are meeting as far as their designs.’’
And from Tewksbury Planning Board Member Nancy Reed: “We’d like to see more services and retail for the people that live in that surrounding area so that they may be inclined to actually walk there or meet there. That way, they would be taking care of their business in our town rather than having to go elsewhere.’’
OK, it’s too early to call this story a success. (Tewksbury TM will vote May 5.) But if it does pass, it’s yet another municipality that will be taking business and development attention away from Billerica, which is the last thing we need right now.
Lowell
Over the past two decades or so, Lowell has done an excellent job of finding new uses for old mill buildings. Rather than tearing them down and building sprawling and separated retail, office, and residential, developers have renovated these structures, turning them into lofts, stores, artist studios. etc. By maintaining “livable density” in their small city, Lowell continues to be a place where it is comfortable to make some trips without driving, and possible for some to live entirely car-free.
But Lowell isn’t done.
As told by Globe columnist Alex Beam, the non-profit Lowell Plan has hired a man named Jeff Speck to further improve downtown. Speck is a “New Urbanist,” a movement that seeks to change the way medium-sized towns and small cities are built.
New Urbanism is related to Smart Growth, but there are important differences. Smart Growth usually involves retrofitting existing, blighted places while New Urbanism builds entire towns from nothing. Two early examples of New Urbanist communities are Celebration, Florida (famous for being associated with Disney) and Seaside, Florida. New Urbanism has some critics (myself among them), but more importantly this movement provides an alternate to suburban sprawl.
Read more about New Urbanism in the book “Suburban Nation,” a link to which can be found on my bookshelf.
Anyway, Speck’s addition to the team of people thinking about Lowell’s future signals the city’s interest in staying ahead of the curve in terms of land use planning. This is not your father’s Lowell. Speck could easily take them to new heights, as one of the most interesting places in Southern New England. (Another is Providence, which has seen its own resurgence.)
Interesting places bring business activity, new development, and residents with disposable income.
Meanwhile, back in Billerica…
