PAWTUCKET DOWNTOWN DESIGN PLAN FINAL ... - VHB.com

REGULATORY FRAMEWORK
Like many historic New England downtown districts, Pawtucket’s CD District
was built long before zoning laws were conceived and development patterns
emerged from a common sense approach to creating tightly woven social
networks and commerce opportunities. The architectural styles common to
the late 19th and early 20th centuries were used to frame attractive, dense
“main streets” that gathered crowds of people along public ways designed
to move people, horses, carts and cars. These neighborhoods continuously
evolved over time in an effort to maintain safety without sacrificing the vibrancy
that was central to the main street experience. Despite all of the different
scales and designs found throughout New England, whether small villages
or major urban downtowns, many basic principles are constant in the most
successful examples. These include attractive buildings, a clear connection
between storefronts and the sidewalk, and the ability to mix uses in a way that
blends business with visitors and permanent residents.
CONCLUSION
As zoning standards continued to develop through the 20th century, primarily
in response to suburban expansion, planners struggled with how to adapt
these standards and procedures to their main streets. Standards designed
to apply “lot by lot” across cookie-cutter developments were ill-suited to
deal with environments that operate more as an integrated system. Rigid
parking requirements, dimensional standards, and the perceived need to
segregate residential and non-residential uses continue to erode the vibrancy
of downtown areas across New England. Further, for developers with the
vision and expertise to enhance our downtown areas, these rigid regulatory
frameworks deter future investment.
Districts like Pawtucket’s downtown embody the notion that a neighborhood
is greater than the sum of its parts. Equally important as the architecture and
the uses associated with an individual site, is the manner in which that site
connects to the street and to its neighbors. The challenge, of course, is how
to capture these essential elements and facilitate these relationships within
a local Zoning Ordinance. The PDDP team focused on both process and
standards in our recommendations for the CD District. Recommendations
were grouped into three basic categories: 1) Remove obvious impediments
to redevelopment; 2) Improve upon some of the existing tools within the
ordinance today; and 3) Anticipate future opportunities for incentives.
PDDP FINAL REPORT
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