Sustainable Land Development Today - July/August 2008 - (Page 23) mended noted New Urbanist design firm Duany Plater-Zyberk & Co. to design the neighborhood. The new design contained two master-strokes, according to Bart Frye, managing partner of East Beach Company. One was that the entire street grid was shifted, which brought stands of mature, backyard trees onto the streetscape. “We instantly had 50- to 90-year old oak trees right on the streetscape that we could form linear parks and amenities around. Immediately the place looked like it had been here for a long time,” he said. The second was to bringing into play the concept of bayfront greens. At the head of every northsouth street are open spaces of 50to 120-feet wide that form parks on the bay. These not only allow people free and open access where they can spend the day or take a walk, creating a connection to the bay front. The greens also created view corridors hundreds of feet into the neighborhood. “You can be sitting on your porch that can be literally 700 feet back from the bay and have a view of the water,” Frye said. “That has helped the price of the lots appreciate considerably, and it’s something that people really enjoy—a view without a wall of houses blocking the bay front.” A total of 15 percent (15 acres) of the East Beach neighborhood has been dedicated to parks and programmed open space resulting in over 70 percent of the homes having a view of a park. Meanwhile, the road infrastructure progressively changes through the neighborhood with four distinct transitions. At the south end, around the marinas, the streets are linear, with full-height curbs, linear sidewalks, with a decidedly urban feel. By the time one reaches the north end at the bay, they have evolved into a very casual feel, with narrow, meandering streets. The sidewalks have gone away and the curbs are flush with the street, When you need to control stormwater it’s what’s underneath that counts. CULTEC Stormwater Systems • • • • • • • • Store Large Volumes in a Smaller Area Unique In-line Manifold Provides Design Flexibility No Separate End Plates Quick and Easy, Patented Overlapping Rib-Lock Connection Limited 10-Year Warranty Single or Multi-Level Systems 1-800-4-CULTEC www.cultec.com Ask about our gravel-less Circle 185 • or www.SLDTonline.com/webcard www.SLDTonline.com 23 http://www.cultec.com http://www.SLDTonline.com/webcard http://www.SLDTonline.com
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