An ambitious urban expansion plan
Today is March 16, G.Y. 2
WARNING!! You are into a big, and ambitious urban expansion plan! Your help is needed! Please be attentive throughout the meeting!
Since we are anti-urban sprawl, this urban expansion plan is a rare opportunity (it only happens once in a few hundred years) !! We want to "fit" as many people as we can in the urban expansion, and of course, keeping smart growth in mind.
Figure 1 - Area of focus, in the United Town of Randolph - Rebecca.
Recall from the last meeting. Randolph-Rebecca is a highly industrialized town, mostly dominated by manufacturing industries. There are currently 18,000 empty jobs in the town, attracting from workers far and wide, from as far as Old Watersauga to come here and work.
As a result, commute time is a great issue in Randolph - Rebecca. This is mainly due to the large area that the town spreads upon.
Figure 2 - The commute time trend in the town. Due to the extension of the Rebecca - Hokoe Expressway, the commute time has decreased from 70 minutes from a year ago to the current 56 MINUTES (compared to 110 minutes 10 years ago).
The Trafalgar Corridor (as seen in our last entry), is extremely underdeveloped. It's the ONLY corridor without a freeway or an expressway stretching through it. As a result, we have deduced an ambitious plan.
Figure 3 - The master plan for the United Town of Randolph - Rebecca. The bolded, solid red line indicate an existing expressway (the north-south one is named Rebecca - Hokoe, the east-west one is named Rebecca By-Pass, but will soon re-name to be the Trafalgar Corridor Expressway). The dotted red line indicate the proposed, future extension of the expressways. The area circled in yellow are our first phase of development, which will be thoroughly discussed below. These areas passed the environmental assessment (EA). The area shaded in yellow are our second phase of development, which are accompanied with the extension of the expressways.
The decision is, however, both proposed extensions stretch into naturally reserved lands (i.e. The Trafalgar Fjord area). An extension is warranted, but we do need to figure this out... Should we either build an elevated expressway, or, divert the expressway, or lower the class of the expressway (i.e. build a road instead of an expressway), or cancel the extension?
But keep in mind, by cancelling the extension, some of the development plans along the proposed highway corridor might be cancelled, which defeats our original goal: Consolidating the Trafalgar Corridor.
For now, we will just discuss the first phase of development.
However, feel free to discuss the possible types of zoning and urban designing concept of the second phase of development along the proposed extension of the freeway.
Proposed Development Area #1
Figure 4 - Proposed Development Area #1. Situated near the Trafalgar River and the Rebecca - Hokoe Expressway, the area is prime when it comes to view and convenience in terms of traffic.
The area is proposed to be either medium density residential or high density industrial. As a city counsellor, we hope you can help out in making this decision.
The pros of medium density residential is of its convenient location and its view. However, the cons would be that it is so close to the industrial area (almost immediately south of it), that the industrial area may bring pollution and freight truck traffic to the locale.
The pros of high density industrial is also of its convenient location and providing jobs. The cons would be bringing pollution to the other side of the highway, to the medium to high wealth residential area.
You may voice other opinions of zonings if you desire to.
Proposed Development Zone #2
This area is the biggest development zone, and is shown as the largest yellow circle on the overview map.
Figure 5 - This is the second development zone. It is located east of the current alignment of the Rebecca - Hokoe Link. Its big area lead to concerns of ecology and the impact to the environment due to the urban sprawling.
The council has accordingly proposed to zone low density industrial (agricultural), or low density residential, or medium density industrial.
However, for the residential development and medium density industrial to develop here, according to legislation, since this is a semi-protected area, 50 - 75% of the land must be retained as greenspace, or untouched land.
So, the thing is, even if the land is developed into residential or med. density industrial, much of the land is unused, affecting the efficiency of the land. As well, since the area is so big, the zoned areas might not all be occupied due to over-supplying.
Proposed Development Zone #3
This development zone was proposed for ages. During the past 7 years, the area is under debate of which zone type should this piece of land occupy.
The housing to the left of the image below was actually some of the housing that was built recently. It was originally part of this development zone #3.
Figure 6 - Proposed development zone #3. There are really no special features of the site, except for its view of the Trafalgar River.
There are currently no developments across the river, but that will change within the next century, as the area is marked as the second phase development area of the Trafalgar Highway Extension.
There are four choices of land types for the locale: low density residential, medium density residential, agricultural, or parkland.
The main concern for agricultural is that the pollution generated by pesticides may affect the beauty of the river, just south of the site.
If the area is used as parkland, it might be considered as a waste of land by some (as this location is not in protected lands, and there is no legislation suggesting how much land should be kept natural), or it might be considered as eco-friendly by others.
Keep in mind this debate went on for many years already.
Remember reviewing our last entry (the tour of the town) may help with your decisions.
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That is it for the meeting. Please be on time for our next meeting. You can do that by SUBSCRIBING the journal.
I know I am jumping around between topics, but for your general idea of where are we going next:
NEXT UP: Portås do Cerco / Furontia Kur? Zudoeria >>
THEN: Traffic Problem in Rexdale >>
AND THEN: Queen Elizabeth Corridor >>
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The regional chair
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Constructional comments are appreciated!
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