Data collection is critical to land use planning: data is used to establish baselines to know what is already on the ground, to craft and evaluate alternate versions of projects and plans and to monitor implementation.
What this set of research projects have in common is that they all create knowledge that the City of San Diego’s Department of City Planning & Community Investment can use. They generally are designed to lead to a white paper that can help planners to make decisions. These papers can be the basis of a senior research project but will need additional work, especially in terms of theory and background literature, to become full-blown SRPs.
These projects are clustered around several research methods.
A. Community Mapping:
Kearny Mesa Spectrum job-housing balance: Design, conduct and evaluate a random sample of residents living in the Spectrum (Kearny Mesa) area. This survey is to be designed to determine if these residents both live and work in the Kearny Mesa area.
Mission Valley Transit-Oriented Design: Design, conduct and evaluate a random sample of Mission Valley residents that live near trolley stops. This survey is to determine if, when choosing this location, these residents were influenced by this area’s TOD and using the trolley. Do these residents currently use the trolley or other public transportation near their homes?
Mini and/or Pocket Park Opportunities: Design a survey to identify vacant and/or under utilized land that could be considered for development as mini/pocket parks. This survey includes data research as well as field and GIS work. This survey will focus on older underserved urban neighborhoods.
Walking Trails: Review the methodology and policies used by cities that have included walking trails as recreational space. Identify existing walking trails that are located within one community plan area. Detail the following: where these trails lead; the linear square foot of these trails; the distance these trails cover. What interest these trails would hold as recreational venues for the surrounding neighborhoods and San Diego residents at large.
B. Comparative City Analysis:
This cluster of projects is based around the sensible approach that you can often get new ideas and a better sense of what you can realistically accomplish by looking at cities similar in size and other characteristics. All of the following are related to the implementation of Smart Growth ideas in an urban or suburban setting.
Retail Condo Markets: Research a city that permits the development of retail condos (small retail spaces that are owned individual by retailers - similar to business condos, where each business buys a small space). Analyze the property characteristics and market trends of these properties.
Live/work Units: Review policies and procedures of other cities that encourage ‘live/work’ unit development. Identify the business activities that are engaged in by these residents. Interview local residents that are living in ‘live/work units’ and operate a business. Detail the characteristics of these businesses including: the type of businesses activity, the business clientele, the parking required for operation of this business, the employment opportunities and the business owners plans for expansion.
Row House Development: Analyzing cities that have comparable characteristics to the City of San Diego, summarize the market, demand and property characteristics associated with row house development in these cities. Compare these market, demand and property characteristics to other comparable residential development products. Include the mixed development option of affordable/market rate row houses in this analysis. Using the information you gathered choose a site in the city of San Diego where this type of development would be most successful.
Sustainability: Analyzing cities that have comparable characteristics to the City of San Diego complete a comparative analysis of these cities “sustainability” policies and programs to the City of San Diego’s efforts. How do the City of San Diego’s policies and programs measure-up? What additional best practices, policies or programs should the City of San Diego consider implementing?
Transportation: Evaluate all available information from other cities with similar characteristics to the City of San Diego to review the trip generation and parking demand rates for multi-family development. Do these rates differ for affordable multi-family developments? Do these rates differ for urban and semi-urban areas? Do these rates differ for development that is located near transit centers? Do these rates take into consideration TDM? Do these rates differ for urban infill development? Based on the results of the aforementioned tasks, should new applicable rates be adopted in SD and why?
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