In many cases an RHA finds itself with an opportunity to call for new homes to be built in a similar architectural style as the historical character of the existing neighborhood. This is accomplished by publishing Requests for Proposals (RFP’s) asking for builders and/or developers to use certain pre-selected plans. The plans come from portfolios where independent architects publish ready-to-build editions of historically appropriate traditional neighborhood designs.

Many urban homes were originally built on the small narrow lots platted in the early 1900’s. Some of these house plans came from pattern-book catalogs such as Sears and Roebuck. It is appropriate that a replacement house plan, a century later, should come from a similar catalog of plans. The character of the old neighborhood can be retained with this strategy of individual lot infill projects.

GMF+ attended the Virginia Association of Housing and Community Development Officials VAHCDO conference in May 2013 in Virginia Beach.  It provided a vendor table display at the event where a catalog of its historical urban infill house plans was available. The same plans can be seen on this website as NARROW LOT PLANS.  These plans are regularly featured in RFP’s for in-fill projects in Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Portsmouth, Williamsburg and Chesapeake, as well as cities in North Carolina.

Virginia Beach, VA

Winthrope Avenue residence is a Southwestern style architecture remodel, built in Southeastern Virginia.  The scope of work included adding living space on a portion of the second floor of a single-story house, providing views of the pool and waterfront site beyond as well as a prominent main entry to the house. The design was modeled in 3 D to demonstrate visual balance of the second story additions with the exiting structure that was to remain one-story.

Virginia Beach, VA

The EarthCraft Homes program, which is the largest in the Southeast, has proven to be a successful green building standard for new residential construction including this home in Virginia Beach. It was designed and built by GMF+. The architectural styling, exquisite site, quality materials and fine workmanship combine to make it a landmark project for the next millennium.

The neighborhood of Lochhaven is a gentrified mix of homes dating from the 1920’s and 30’s. The renovation project in the photos assembled transformed a 1950′s suburban colonial home into a striking expression of Tudor style architecture. The owner’s had acquired a variety of “art deco” furnishings and collectible artifacts to be incorporated into the finished product including 16 leaded glass windows with diamond shaped panes.

The affect of the tolls on the commuters of Portsmouth would severely upset the vision of regionalism in Hampton Roads. The toll would hurt business growth in Portsmouth. Neighbor-city residents will be discouraged from going to Portsmouth for shopping, sight seeing, restaurants, ntelos venues, museums, the list goes on. Imagine how the tolls will affect real estate values in Portsmouth?

ATTENTION VDT! One way to reduce traffic on the existing midtown tunnel would be simply to introduce the tolls without the expansion. The capital cost will be zero where the effect the same. And what will happen to all the traffic during construction? Won’t it get severely worse? Is the expansion of the tunnel as a remedy for improving commuter time worse than the problem itself? The idea of the expanded tunnel is great for more cars but fraught with side effects:  worse pollution, greater fossil fuel consumption, increased noise, additional storm water flooding.

As an architect I am schooled in the notion of designing for a vision of the future in terms of lasting for at least a century. It is the “greenest” thing I can do to create a project that is not torn down and replaced before the mortgage is paid off. Site plans are cognizant of the 100-year flood plane as an important design criteria. Shouldn’t transportation systems be held up to the same time horizon? Isn’t fossil fuel depletion, pollution, and land economics setting a stage for an urban development pattern that favors people ahead of providing for ever greater numbers of cars?

Could it be that in 100 years (maybe longer) the expansion of the Midtown Tunnel would look like a bridge to nowhere? There is better idea. Enter the TIDE, here to save the day, with a rolling cape, snappy logo and the ability to vanquish the most powerful villains. Super TIDE has arrived. Our posted map shows that the travel distance to downtown Portsmouth is less than six miles from EVMC (Eastern Virginia Medical Center), the current last stop of the exiting light rail (including the length of the tunnel itself).

We already know that the cost of construction for a light rail tunnel is “considerably less” than the “cars only” tunnel expansion project as currently proposed. It is reasonable to imagine that the cost of providing a new train tunnel as well as extending The TIDE all the way to downtown Portsmouth may be no more expensive than the Midtown Tunnel project with none of the negative side effects.

Light rail promotes urban development patterns that have long term future benefits, providing the millennium planning view for Hampton Roads. Hamilton, Ontario, is an example of a city where citizens have taken a stand for their city’s potential in becoming a more vibrant, livable, and attractive place to live and work. Eight positive reasons in favor of light rail are listed on its website. The extension of the TIDE to Virginia Beach is great. Its time to call in Super TIDE to save the day in Portsmouth too.

The best thing about the extension of light rail to the Virginia Beach resort area is the development patterns that will be anchored at the selected station stops. To quote an article regarding the settlement pattern improvements resulting from the introduction of the new Metro Light Rail in Phoenix: “…they (station stops) draw development around them and with it people, density, culture and business vibrancy …a place where local color develops and evolves at a greater speed and depth than sleeper communities.”

It seems to me that the benefits of improving neighborhood places (insert Hilltop) to become more “centralized, sustainable, and walkable” is accelerated by choosing it as a light rail station stop. If there is a flaw with the vision of The Tide in Norfolk it is that the choice of station stops outside of the CBD. They are “sleepers”. The neighborhood development opportunities at Newtown Road, for example, are enormous and there is nothing there yet.

I continue to be frustrated with the banter that gets published in the newspaper that reduces the discussion of the extension of light rail to Virginia Beach as a matter of public investment accounting. Pubic policy makers (federal, state and local) are currently accustomed to making decisions to subsidize highways almost exclusively. Those expenditure decisions benefit oil companies, automobile makers, and tunnel contractors, as we are painfully aware. What about us? the citizens of Hampton Roads. What do we want?

I am grateful that we will get our day in the voting booth to voice our choice for an alternative to the proliferation of everything associated with dependence on the private automobile as our only means of transportation. I believe that the citizen’s perspective of the best alternatives for transportation investment in the future is more far-sighted than the transportation establishment. The current policy makers view has resulted in funding a 2.1 billion dollar midtown tunnel project. A better choice would have been to extend a light rail tube into Portsmouth.

Budgeting our precious public funds to extend highways and enlarge tunnels results in more roadways that inevitably become clogged with ever greater numbers of automobiles (contributing to air pollution, traffic congestion, accidents and lost time commuting). These expenditures consume vast amounts of vacant land for more and wider roads, thereby creating the need for further expenditures of tax monies to handle storm water runoff, landscape maintenance and noise separation barriers.

The choice for highway investment promotes wasteful low-density residential developments of architectural monotony, encouraging “look alike” subdivisions of single-family units separated by individual driveways with cars parked in front yards.

The choice for highway investment promotes an automobile oriented shopping centers surrounded by acres and acres of pavement that require a car to reach. It is reported that the capital cost to the local government of a parking space at a shopping center is currently $8,000. What is the public value of that expense?

Light rail is the logical alternative to exclusive investment in providing for the private automobile. It is almost like a prophesy for the future of Hampton Roads that the citizens should be the voice of vision that gives it life.

It takes a somewhat bigger view of the future to see the broad opportunities that light rail could have in the future of Hampton Roads, beyond the extension to the Beach. The bigger view was brought home to me upon attending an event sponsored by DBIA, Hampton Roads chapter of the Design Build Institute of America. The March 2012 presentation was conducted by the engineers responsible for the construction design of the new Midtown Tunnel.

The technical engineering expertise provided in the presentation was brilliant, but there is a doubt about this project that pervades anytime the project is mentioned, regardless of the circle. The voices of municipal leadership when speaking about the pending imposition of tolls is with gritted teeth, “we have to accept it.” No one can recall how public comment was invited into the deliberation of the merits of this project, certainly not Portsmouth citizens: Would you like another midtown tunnel? …by the way it will come with a nearly $2 toll each way.

The future impact of this project is clouded. The EZpass toll collection mechanism is fraught with problems. As soon as the tunnel starts collecting the toll local drivers will avoid using it. The statistical overcrowded volume of traffic will suddenly be diminished. The cityscape of Portsmouth will be irreparably desecrated by the flyovers and ramp exchanges to reach 264. Portsmouth will be orphaned economically for the foreseeable future, perhaps until the VDOT decision makers initiate tolling all the bridges and byways to mitigate the isolation of Portsmouth.

There is a better idea to solve this dilemma, compelling logic of a different course of action, other than a new Midtown tunnel, that would strengthen the cultural integration of the region and at the same time relieve the traffic congestion in the existing midtown tunnel. The DBIA event of last month was concluded by questions from an audience of more than a hundred planners, architects, engineers and interested professionals. The last question of the presentation was: Did you consider adding a light rail line to fit into the new tunnel tube?

The speaker casually offered a solution to the omission of a light rail line in their midtown tunnel design by saying that it could easily be added at a later time, by a different kind of tube, at much less cost than trying to include it within the concrete tube that had been designed and funded. The profound dichotomy of this response may be the answer to the midtown tunnel dilemma. I propose that tax funds earmarked for the construction of the new concrete tunnel should be diverted to the “much less expensive” project adding a steel tube tunnel to extend light rail across the channel to Portsmouth. (The Tide currently ends a few thousand feet from the existing midtown tunnel entrance.)

I admit endorsement of light rail to Portsmouth takes some ponderous extrapolation of current passenger data to be a believer. (Virginia Beach is taking three years for a third party study to justify its extension.) For now, consider the intuitive logic of how light rail builds community neighborhood nodes at the station stops. The beauty and cultural vibrancy of an existing urban environment such as Portsmouth is renewed and reinforced by the architectural identity of becoming a destination place for light rail.

Consider the effect of what happens as the price of gasoline climbs steeper and steeper. Vehicle miles traveled are already plummeting. Independent economic choices are being made daily, toward more fuel efficient cars, combining trip purposes, and car pooling. Project our $4 per gallon gasoline to $12 per gallon (the current price of gasoline in Copenhagen) and what happens? Light rail and buses and bicycles become important alternatives to driving the household car. The midtown tunnel project should be evaluated in a 100-year time horizon for its cultural impact, just as we commonly do for designing for a 100-year flood plane for public safety.

As one focuses on a picture a future with much less car driving we begin to see changing urban settlement patterns toward higher density urban living (more dwelling units per acre) where lifestyles move toward neighborhood walking to shop, for entertainment, to recreate and to use public transportation. Fixed transit routes such as light rail are the preferred means of mass transportation. This future vision is much healthier since we walk more regularly, the air is cleaner, and it is also much friendlier since we are interacting with other passersby at closer proximity on a daily basis.

When you can find this vision of the future an attractive alternative to making greater and greater capital improvement investment in accommodating the almighty automobile there is wisdom in scrapping the midtown tunnel project and swiftly switching our precious public funds into a much cheaper light rail tube across the midtown channel. All of the horrible unfairness of the tolls is eliminated. Vehicle traffic in the existing tunnel will diminish. The goals of regional integration of the separate municipal boundaries become less distinct.

I don’t want to imply that the Midtown extension of the light rail should take precedence over the project of bringing it to the resort area of Virginia Beach. We want both extensions. In fact, if the pot of gold that is available to pay for the new midtown tunnel was directly transferrable to pay for our light rail improvements it appears that there would be enough money to cover both extension projects.

Can we abandon the new Midtown Tunnel project at this point in time? The answer is: YES, of course. Engineers and architects do occasionally work on projects that are never built. Owners and end users do change their minds about following through with a design. The engineers get paid for their efforts and life goes on, hopefully for the better. There is a provision in the Midtown contract agreement that spells out the procedure for project termination.

This last minute rethinking is not really the last minute but it is an opportune decision point. Among the objectives spelled out in the DESIGN-BUILD CONTRACT with Skanska (SKW Contractors), December 5, 2011, the Midtown Tunnel project was supposed to: Increase transit service between Portsmouth and Norfolk. This exact language was spelled out in the agreement under the heading KEY COMPONENTS OF THE PROJECT. Needless to say the project we are getting fails categorically on this component. There is still time to save the day.

PS – I wrote this article a month ago and sent it to Virginian Pilot “letters to the editor”.

All the while I have pursued my livelihood as an architect I have continued to see myself as something of a city planning thinker. The principle of NEW URBANISM is what I stand for and why I speak for what I believe is the single most important regional opportunity for the future of New Urbanism in Hampton Roads, extending the Tide Light Rail into Virginia Beach.

The opportunity is about what and where to spend public funds for transportation improvements: ROADS ONLY or LIGHT RAIL as well as ROADS

As I see it – We could continue to spend tax revenue exclusively on improving roads and highways….

We could continue
extending highways and enlarging tunnels that inevitably become clogged with ever greater numbers of automobiles (contributing to air pollution, traffic accidents and lost time commuting)

We could continue
consuming vast amounts of vacant land for more and wider roads, thereby creating the need for further expenditures of tax monies to handle storm water runoff, landscape maintenance and noise separation barriers

We could continue
promoting low-density residential developments of architectural monotony, encouraging “look alike” subdivisions of single-family units separated by individual driveways with cars parked in front yards

We can continue
developing automobile oriented shopping centers surrounded by acres and acres of pavement that require a car to reach

I believe the public knows better than many transportation planning administrators and industry stockholders that would have us spend all our transportation tax monies on subsidizing the future dependence on the automobile. I believe it is folly to imagine a future that can sustain ever greater numbers of automobiles and the availability of an unlimited supply of fossil fuels to operate them.

I believe the citizens of Virginia Beach are anxious to vote for a chance to have a choice in future for Light Rail as an alternative to automobileland.

An opportunity for a remodeling project that comes with the new code is something called a “Habitable Attic”. This was previously not possible to do under the old residential code since any improvements to the attic of a three story dwelling was considered an additional story and would be a governed by the IBC code that requires a fire suppression sprinkler system as a 4-story structure.

Remodeling an attic for habitation or storage benefits the livability of three-story homes, not uncommon in Norfolk, though very scarce in Virginia Beach due to the difference in the way that building heights are calculated in each city. The maximum building height limit in each city is 35’. However, it is not possible to design an attic with enough space to be of useful value in Virginia Beach, whereas in Norfolk 35’ is measured from the grade at the front door entrance to the midpoint of the main sloped roof. A schematic cross section comparison illustrates the difference in the way building height is measured in each city. There is a serious architectural limitation with way that Virginia Beach measures building height. A three-story residence designed in Virginia Beach will have a very shallow roof slope in order to comply with building height measured to the ridge rather than the midpoint of the sloped roof, as is the case in Norfolk. Also Virginia Beach uses a baseline that is the lowest established grade within 6-0 of the foundation of the house. Norfolk uses a baseline that is the grade at the front door entrance. Steep roofs are a visually appropriate for historical or traditional architectural styles making it virtually impossible to design such a three-story residence in Virginia Beach. The addition of dormers, such as the photo example, shows how a Habitable Attic can be made to be a very hospitable living space.