In a previous life, following a tour of duty with a large shopping mall developer, I did three years of hard time in the Minnesota DOT.  As you might imagine, I was not a particularly good fit with the organization.  I saw a lot of disconnects between the state agency and local communities, particularly over state roads that had become the local corridors of crap as they ran through towns and cities.  Sorting out transportation investments so that they actually contribute to good places is tough work.  Most DOT's have a lot of momentum going in exactly the wrong direction to help make places worth caring about. There may be a shift in that grim reality taking place in Dallas, Texas.

The following is from an email I received from Monte Anderson, my favorite Lean incremental developer on the South Side of the Dallas Region.

"John,  A few days ago I got this call from a guy asking me to come in and talk about Freeways and development around downtown Dallas.  He told me that folks from Texas Department of Transportation, HNTB Corporation, North Texas Council of Governments, EJES Corporation & Gateway Planning wanted to interview me about these issues.

Needless to say I was shocked because in my entire life no one has ever asked me what I thought about major transportation planning!  And what was more surprising what happened when I actually got in the room with these folks.  As a broker and developer I think I have a reliable BS detector.  I believe they were truly interested in my opinions about downsizing roads, removing freeways, how to build more complete streets, the need for small scale improvements, and for anticipating the impacts of incremental urbanism and entrepreneurial wealth building on the quality of life for people in our region.  The bottom line is, things in Dallas may be changing on a much larger scale that I had thought.  I am still wondering if I dreamed this.   (Attached is the flyer they sent me)."

I think that getting all those players to fly in something resembling a close formation is a tough job.  Anyone who has more insight as to how this is working in Dallas, please post some comments.

Reprising this post because folks keep asking me about it via email, etc.

These thresholds fit a three story apartment building or mixed use building into the fire/life safety requirements of the International Building Code (IBC) and the accessibility requirements of the Fair Housing Act.

1. All ground floor units are accessible/adaptable (minimum one unit). 2. TYPE V wood frame construction with fire sprinklers. 3. When built with a single stair, upper stories are limited to four units each. (more than 4 units on a floor and two stair will be required separated by a rated corridor at least 1/2 the diagonal of the building floor plate in length --1/3 for buildings with fire sprinklers.) 4. 2nd floor units are limited in size to 125′ max. exiting distance from the furthest point inside the unit to the entry door. 5. 3rd floor units are limited in size to 125′ max. exiting distance from the furthest point inside the unit to the entry door. (3rd floor units can be two story units with internal stairs as long as the max. exiting distance of 125' is observed).

Code research and design by David Kim

A comment from Will Dowdy:

This is a good summary. It’s probably worth being explicit about that ground floor unit. If you don’t have a unit on the ground floor, the requirement for accessibility is shifted to the second floor of the building, which means that you’re stuck with an elevator. BIG problem. This design is an elegant solution.

Since putting up the To Do List yesterday, I have had a number of folks ask me "What's this shark tank thing?"

The Shark Tank is  a platform for recruiting and accelerating the skills of small developer/builders and laying the groundwork for incremental development in a neighborhood or municipality.  It works like this:

• Recruit likely new developers from the local area with help from local trade suppliers, the Lumberyards, Truss companies, Drywall Supplier, Plumbing, HVAC and Electrical Supply House.  Who among their customers look promising for stepping up their enterprise so they can build infill/retrofit projects at a small and incremental scale.  Make the rounds with the local Chambers of Commerce, the NAIOP, ULI, churches, banks & credit unions and the entrepreneurship programs at the Community Colleges and Universities.

• Candidates get homework and guidance on how to prepare development proposals for several local sites based upon the Charter and within a prescribed area to "flood the zone" with as many small operators as possible for maximum impact.  They are now on a clock and must focus on completing the homework on deadline.

• The municipality has made plans for capital projects that make the prescribed area for the projects viable, traffic calming, bike and transit investments, an overlay of code reform and removal of minimum off-street parking requirements. Establishing a Pink Zone (See www.LeanUrbanism.org) as preparation for the Shark Tank event would reinforce the importance of adopting the right code platform.

• Candidates bring their proposals to a 4 day intense workshop with solid coaches and specialists who help them understand the fundamentals and strengthen their pitches.

• On the fourth day they pitch their deals to qualified investors and construction lenders who are there because they are aligned in interest with the goals of the effort and have signed on to the criteria that all the deals much meet in order to be pitched to them.

• Coaches follow up with the developer/builders whose deals are funded and sort out a gameplan for refining and improving the pitches of deals that are not funded with the initial round.

• While competing for investment the developer/builders form a cohort that can provide continued support.  Coaches will reinforce the realities of the market and the need to build capacity and the right code and public infrastructure to sustain infill and retrofit. Their competition for resources is the conventional development at the edge of town.  There are more than enough sites to occupy all the candidates and the market for infill and retrofit cannot be satisfied in the next 20 years.