April 27, 2006

The normally bustling Plaza area has been even more lively of late, as cars back up along Siskiyou Boulevard. Traffic has been forced into two or even one lane through town during the construction of pedestrian safety bump outs. The curbs, when completed, will extend out into the street even with the row of parked cars, affording walkers a better view of oncoming traffic. Orville Hector | Ashland Daily Tidings

Character of city highest priority

Meetings about downtown conclude with clear focus

By Robert Plain
Ashland Daily Tidings

After two days of at least eight meetings attended by more than 200 people, George Crandall and Don Arambula are settling right in.

The principles in a Portland-based planning firm hired to pitch a new downtown plan to this community say they are beginning to get a sense of what makes Ashland tick and what residents want from a downtown plan.

“We know the community better now than we did when we arrived,” George Crandall said as he prepared to leave Ashland, not yet knowing if the city or the community would hire him and his partner to design a plan for them. “We have a better sense of the issues Ashland wants to address.”

Going to the polls

At the end of their final meeting on Wednesday evening, they presented tentative results of the ballot surveys they passed out at each session.

Crandall Arambula uses ballots to identify issues most important to the community when designing a downtown plan. The ballots ensure a democratic plan based on “one person, one vote,” such that public participation drives the process.

Ashland’s “character” received the highest ratings, with 50 people listing it as a high priority.

Throughout their two days here, Crandall and Arambula continually addressed these issues, and others, and explained how they might fit into a new downtown plan.

Character, they said, was of the utmost of importance.

“Across the country, communities are tending to look the same,” Crandall said. “Your strength is that you are unique. The issue here is how do you hang on to and protect what is special about this place. How do you keep it from looking like the rest of the country?”

Time and again, the consultants told attendees that, “Compared to most places, you are very healthy,” Crandall said, comparing Ashland to Santa Fe, N.M., a town much bigger than Ashland. Santa Fe has a vital downtown, but, Crandall said, it has been abandoned by its local residents. A downtown can deteriorate quickly yet subtly, he said, and the trick is “to get out ahead of change.”

Crandall Arambula are developing a downtown design for Santa Fe. The goal is to scale back its tourist economy and appeal more to locals.

“No one likes where they have gone,” Crandall said. “They are very successful but they don’t have the kind of community they want. They want to get back to where you are, or even further.”

The planners also compared Ashland to Whitefish, Mont., another community that hired Crandall Arambula. Whitefish has a population of only 7,000 people but has a seasonal tourist influx similar to Ashland.

The value of inclusion

Some of the problems presented to Crandall Arambula during the meetings — contentious planning battles, division over pedestrian and vehicle traffic for instance — can be positives in a downtown planning process, the consultants said. The pair struck down the commonly held belief that Ashland is overly contentious.

“You’re not extreme at all,” Crandall said, saying that resident activism is a “great asset. In fact, you’re quite average when it comes to the kinds of communities we deal with.”

Don Arambula added, “This is nothing compared with other places we’ve been. Ashland is not unique in that there are a lot of ideas and passions about downtown.”

To foster a successful downtown, both pedestrian and vehicle traffic should be addressed. To that end, the consultants said, on-street parking should be protected, retail shopper parking should be within a block of shops to appeal to local consumers and that monolithic parking garages can spoil the feel of a downtown.

“You can never completely solve the problem [between cars and walkers], Crandall said. “If you want a truly great downtown, pedestrians have got to be a priority.”

What’s next?

Crandall Arambula don’t know if Ashland will hire them to create a plan. The city council chose not to prioritize funding for a new downtown plan in the next fiscal year. An ad hoc downtown planning committee that hosted Crandall Arambula have appealed to the private sector for funding the plan.

Property developers, business and land owners expressed concern with funding the plan. Developers fear the plan will be viewed as biased, and business owners fear that helping to fund a plan could effectively price them out of their market.

Crandall said a hallmark of a good plan is one which combines public and private funding.

John Fields, Chair of the Ashland Planning Commission and a member of the downtown plan committee, told the final group that the hard work is still to come. He said the downtown plan committee will work with Crandall Arambula to turn the information they gathered over the past two days into a report to be presented to the city council.

Fields said generating the political will to do a downtown plan sooner rather than later comes next.

“The next step is the important part,” he said.

The downtown plan committee will meet again to discuss how to go forward at a meeting at noon in the Community Development Department.