CityLab Orlando Graduate Design 8 Final Reviews

Dear Studio, this is what I sent out to our reviewers. Please visit the blog and familiarize yourself with its new look. I have reformatted it to make it more navigable by visitors. I have added pages that allow visitors to view select posts without having to enter the overall "stream". Please adjust your labels according to the instructions in my next email.

To all Attendees,

This semester the Graduate Design 8 studio has been learning about and testing potentials in redevelopment at different scales and from from different perspectives. I am including a synopsis of the semester because each of the projects are interrelated. You will see Project Three on Monday.

• Project One engaged students from the "ground up" perspective. After first-hand observation of patterns of activity and establishing perceived needs, students proposed small scale interventions to aid, encourage, enrich the urban life of the Parramore District. This proposed project were to be at a scale that each student along with a couple of friends could raise funds and construct it. This was primarily a "public realm" project. Here is a link to the initial assignment which includes links to text, etc,http://citylabg82014.blogspot.com/2014/08/p1-parramore.html
• Project Two introduced housing. It placed the students in the position of an affordable housing developer. The students were charged to figure out hoe to redevelop a block in Parramore that contained 16 existing housing units in 8 separate identical buildings. This building represents a post-war "type" within Parramore district. It is ubiquitous. We have been testing the land use code and affordable housing development incentives from our architect/designer POV. Students worked within the requirements of the land development code but were encouraged to make changes that could improve the intent of the code and improve the developability of the district in terms of both quality and profitability. Students used a proforma to establish that their proposals were viable. Proposals were meant to test existing and proposed density in the Parramore District. Here is a link to the initial project assignment, http://citylabg82014.blogspot.com/2014/10/p2-introduction-keep-it-real.html

These first two projects were focused on Parramore District. The City of Orlando Planning are in a conundrum concerning how and if to rezone Parramore (they are writing the new code now) so we have offered some input. The final project expands research into the region.

Project Three is what you will see tomorrow. Here is an introduction to the design problem.

Project Three carries the semester study on urban design with a focus on affordable housing beyond Parramore.

We will investigate the results of decades of housing development tangled with decades of (sub)urban development. We will look for ground up opportunity and top down opportunity, as we have in the first two projects, in this broader context. To frame Project Three I offer a set of resources. The resources are found at the Shimberg Center for Housing Studies. In particular, a recent study performed by a group of students under the direction of William O'dell. This study looks at suitability of affordable housing in the Orlando region, Orange County as a whole. It introduces a tool for the investigation of the quality of current affordable housing stock and proposes a method of finding best sites for new affordable housing. The tool relies heavily on utilizing the positive impact of linkage and networks. These are systems which we have identified as being necessary contributors to defining the urban condition. It also points out a diminishment issue with current affordable housing availability with units at risk of deterioration or conversion to market rate rents.

This project is set up as an exploration of the Shimberg housing suitability model (HSM) that is meant to grade the sustainably of existing affordable housing development locations in Orange County. We are using a critique of the model (HSM) to theorize ways of siting and developing new affordable housing units. We recognize a crisis in affordable housing on the horizon, as a full 1/4 of the existing tax credit units drop off the roles in the next ten years. We aim to offer ways to redevelop and or rezone strategic areas to preserve existing or promote new affordable housing development while also increasing the quality of the developments. This has been a short project and has not resulted in a "building". It is really a neighborhood site planning exercise.

This link includes the initial project description and links to the Shimberg Center on Affordable Housing HSM and Preservation documents. http://citylabg82014.blogspot.com/2014/11/project-3-introduction-regional-housing.html

We focused investigation on projects that fall into the "high risk of affordability loss (for-profit owned, well-located and in good condition)" category.

Continuous tasks for this project:

1. Review the criteria for suitability presented by the Shimberg study. Add to the list from your own observations and knowledge.

• Physical Infrastructure and Environment 
• Neighborhood Characteristics
• Neighborhood Accessibility
• Rental Housing Cost
• Driving Cost
• Transit Accessibility

2. Review the recommendations for preservation of affordable housing from the Shimberg presentation (v3). Add to the list.

Potential Strategies

• Prevent displacement via regulation 
• Preserve transit-oriented development (TOD)-appropriate affordable housing 
• Increase affordable homeownership opportunities 
• Promote affordable housing development 
• Preserve affordable housing development opportunities 
• Reduce the cost of housing production 
• Leverage market-rate development 
• Promote transit amongst low-income populations 
• Site public facility investments in station area 

The most important strategies for inner city sites: 

• Preserve existing project-based Section 8 and other subsidized housing 
• Prevent displacement via regulation 
• Reduce the cost of developing mixed-income housing 

This link includes more information of these tasks, lhttp://citylabg82014.blogspot.com/2014/11/high-risk-of-affordability-loss-tasks.html

Students will produce:

• A set of maps/drawings that identify an affordable housing development and indicate problems/issues at multiple scales (i.e. location, amenity, boundary/linkage, transportation, density, physical condition, etc).
• A set of maps/drawings focused on opportunities at multiple scales (linkages, densities/reconfigurations).
• Urban Design proposal shown at multiple scales (regional, local) that proposes a way to redevelop the site. This is focused on specific parcel(s) but may address adjacent properties and developments to form a more holistic urban design proposal.
• Three-dimensional digital models, to scale, of the existing condition and the proposed redevelopment.
• Summary lists addressing suitablity criteria and startegies for preserving affordable housing.

Presentations will include:

11x17 case study study pages that summarize the statistics and qualities of affordable housing projects that the students visited. These may or may not have been pursued as actual project 3 sites but they represent a context for the project.

A Slide Presentation of the project with 2- 24x36 pages to accompany it.

Thank you for your participation!

Assistant