Shaping the Healthy Community: Rural Plan

RURAL PLAN

THE H E A LT H Y COMMUNITY

RURAL COMMUNITIES The pastoral tradition, which celebrates the agrarian lifestyle as free from the complexities and corruptions of city life, has had a long run in Western civilization. This Romantic philosophy dominated Western thought when the United States became a nation. Think Thomas Jefferson in his big house on his little mountain, or Henry David Thoreau in his cabin by Walden Pond.

Today opportunities for rural living are much more constricted than they were for Jefferson or Thoreau. There are, however, areas throughout Tennessee where open fields, forests, and free-flowing streams still hold sway. And a renewed interest in small-scale farming, local food sources, and open space preservation for environmental and recreational reasons has intensified the desire to keep these areas rural.

Metropolitan Nashville Planning Department, Community Character Manual (Nashville, TN: Metropolitan Nashville Government, 2008)..

Rural Community Basic Characteristics For planning purposes, rural areas share many of the following characteristics: • Sparsely developed.

• Primary land uses are agriculture and low-density residential.

• • • •

Limited commercial.

Wide spaces between buildings, except for hamlet-style developments.

Naturalistic landscaping and limited exterior and street lighting.

Roads typically two-lane with few

•

•

intersections.

Low pedestrian and bike connectivity: few curbs, sidewalks, pedestrian crossings, or bicycle paths.

Minimal city services; many homes rely on wells and septic

Analysis and Strategies In accentuating the health positives and mitigating the negatives of rural areas, therefore, planners, developers, and residents should consider strategies that preserve the rural, open character. Development options to meet the needs of residents—such as food resources, senior housing, and economic opportunities within the community— should be appropriately scaled and sited to not provoke future overdevelopment. Strategies should be consistent with the fiscal limitations of government’s public service provision to low-population-density areas. Frequent bus service, pocket parks, community recreation centers, and paved sidewalks, for example, are financially unrealistic.

Infrastructure appropriate for higher-population-density communities, such as curb-and-gutter roads, street lighting and sewers, should be avoided.

Transportation

Strategy: Vehicle Pools

Health-Defeating Rural residents are car-dependent due to the scarcity of public transportation. Bicycle infrastructure is also lacking. Roads built with wide shoulders can accommodate cyclists, but the distance between destinations and perception of lack of safety are inhibiting. Bike paths in parks lack connectivity to a wider system and thus are recreational in nature, and not part of a transportation network.

Limited destinations within close proximity to homes compels travel outside the community to access groceries and other retail services, as well as medical care, employment, schools, etc. The lack of alternative transportation options erodes the ability of the aging to continue living in their homes once they are no longer able to drive.

Traditional public transportation is not economically viable in rural communities due to insufficient numbers of riders. Alternatives to the private car, therefore, must be scaled to smaller groups with shared needs to make them financially and functionally feasible.

Rural communities with adequate numbers of daily commuters can organize car and van pools through the Middle Tennessee area’s Regional Transportation Authority’s (RTA) database and the Franklin-based, non-profit TMA Group. (add in more transit groups from across the state) People with disabilities may apply for the rides through programs like the AccessRide. Park-and-ride lots for cars and bicycles in areas with public transit stops could facilitate transit use.

Commuting Traffic Patterns

Daily commuting patterns with out park and ride stations and dedicated bus lanes from rural communities

Less dense

Daily commute with park and ride station and dedicated bus lanes. These rural amenities largely alleviate traffic for every day commuters as well as reduce emissions.

More dense

Traffic flow

Dedicated bus lane

Park and ride station

Rural Communities

Town Center

City

Walkability and Pedestrian Safety Health-Promoting The abundance of open fields and forests in the rural transect zone presents great pedestrian potential.

Residents on large parcels can walk on their own land and neighbors can exchange walking rights. The regional parks within rural communities contain walking and biking paths.

Health-Defeating The rural zone lacks public pedestrian infrastructure. Wide spacing between dwellings makes paved sidewalks financially unfeasible. Rural arterials and subsidiary roads are not typically designed to accommodate pedestrians. The shoulders on some roads offer space for walkers, but many lack this amenity and high vehicular speeds create safety issues. Crosswalks are rare, even at signalized intersections.

Paths on public lands are self-contained and used for recreation; lack of connectivity to a wider network constricts their viability as a transportation option.

Strategy: Pedestrian Safety for Roadways and Multi-use Paths Add safety features—such as crosswalks, signage, and medians at prominent intersections—to provide safe passage across main thoroughfares Multi-use paths for pedestrians and cyclists along main roads can serve as both recreational and active transportation corridors. Such paths can be designed using pervious materials-compacted gravel, mulch, or shortmown grass—more in keeping with rural character.

Off-road primitive paths could be accomplished through a variety of alternative financing mechanisms. Examples of non-governmental sources include funds from foundations and materials grants from corporations like Home Depot and Lowe’s. Volunteer labor from the hiking community could help bridge a project’s realization.

Shared-use agreements between local government and private landowners could speed the implementation of a pathway network by avoiding costly land acquisition. By granting easements, property owners can also offset their federal income tax burden for a set number of years.

Housing Strategy: Conservation Design Diverse housing stock can be achieved in rural areas through the design of compact residential plans known as conservation developments.

Such designs maximize housing units on a small piece of land and offer alternative housing options for the community while minimizing loss of open space. If properly located in neighborhood centers and appropriately designed, conservation development enables a community to create lower cost housing and increase age and income diversity, even though retaining rural character.

There are, however, caveats to this approach. The introduction of sewers into a rural community currently relying on septic systems could open up the whole area to more intense development, replacing the rural character with suburban. This could only be prevented by the establishment of sewer-free land use zoning beyond the boundary of the conservation development. And the increase in population, if on a large enough scale, could trigger the widening of roads, another infrastructure change that could severely erode rural character.

Sprawling Development

Large Lots, more infrastructure

Conservation Development

Small lots, more neighborly, Scenic views to wooded areas, 50% more preserved open space then sprawling development, uninterrupted vegetation, more space for agricultural

Parks and Open Space Health-Promoting A main benefit of rural living is access to large areas of open space. Rural public parks are not only beneficial for local residents, but are assets for the whole state—and beyond. According to the Smart Growth Network, the potential of rural parks to lure more urban dwellers “out to the country” should not be overlooked. Such parks can generate lodgings, restaurants, and shops that cater to outdoor tourism. Rural parks can thus contribute to efforts to preserve these transect zones as open space.

Health-Defeating With the exception of the rural zone’s regional parks, which are accessible primarily by private vehicle, open space in rural areas is privately held.

This abundance of undeveloped private land should not be considered a substitute for public open space.

Strategy: Easements and Trees Some property owners in rural areas have placed conservation easements on their acreage through the Land Trust for Tennessee. Such easements keep private land undeveloped in perpetuity while providing tax benefits to owners. This tool for preserving open space should be vigorously pursued in Tennessee’s rural transect zones.

Increased forestation in tree-deficient rural areas could offer benefits to the county as a whole in the absorption of air pollutants, carbon sequestration, and reduction of water runoff.

Large-scale tree planting in rural areas, however, is neither practical nor economically viable. Incentives for tree planting by landowners of rural property would be more feasible.

Other Factors-- Built Environment: Neighborhood Design and Development & Housing Neighborhood Design and Development Health-Promoting Historically, the small amount of commerce in rural communities has occurred in central locations, such as primary crossroads. These sites contain the potential to become true neighborhood centers.

Health-Defeating Commercial centers in rural areas are typically underdeveloped. Residents must drive outside the community for basic needs. And fully mixed-use centers with a residential component are rare.

Housing stock in the rural zone is generally single-family homes in a pattern of very low density. But rural

communities need a broader range of housing types. Rural residents who want to downsize and/or drive less may find it hard to stay in the community as they age. Young people have a hard time affording Strategy: Compact Development Land use policies that encourage compact, small-scale mixed-use neighborhood centers in rural communities should be considered. These should serve basic needs—a bottle of milk, a tube of toothpaste—and thus provide a destination to walk or bike to, increasing activity levels and reducing drive time for shopping outside the community.

The center’s residential component could house young people unable to afford larger properties and elderly residents ready for downsizing and a more walkable environment. Commercial elements could provide jobs within the community.

Neighborhood centers could also contain social space for community interaction. A place for residents to gather for meetings, meals, and celebrations need not necessarily be sited directly in the community’s center, however. An adjacent location on more expansive grounds could offer space for playgrounds, picnics, and playing fields.

There is no one-size-fits-all model.

Each should reflect the particular community’s character and, to be successful, serve its specific needs and interests. Instead of generic chain store centers, the development of a rural hamlet should focus on incubating independently owned businesses, with features such as shared hazardous waste drop offs for mechanics and beauty parlors, for example.

Vacant properties located in the immediate vicinity of a rural community’s center should be redeveloped to strengthen the center’s economic and social viability. The form of the

redevelopment, however, should reinforce rather than erode rural character. The Visioning Workshop for Robertson County: Preserving Rural Open Space and Revitalizing Historic Town Centers suggests “incentives to developers to follow architectural, landscape, scale and walkability guidelines.� The adaptive reuse of old structures, such as those found in Peeler and Bells Bend Parks, offers opportunities to add amenities without compromising architectural integrity. (good case study-use image of Robertson County)

This publication was created by:

Provide a safe and reliable transportation system for people, goods and services that supports economic prosperity in Tennessee.

Founded in 2000, the Nashville Civic Design Center is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to elevate the quality of Nashville’s built environment and to promote public participation in the creation of a more beautiful and functional city for all.

June 2016