Car-free housing developments: towards sustainable smart growth and urban regeneration through car-free zoning, car-free redevelopment, pedestrian improvement districts, and new urbanism.

• Author: Kushner, James A.
• Position: European Union

ABSTRACT

European car-free and car-reduced housing projects in Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, and Scotland that discourage, prohibit, or ignore automobile ownership by residents, have received limited and skeptical reception by some politicians, public sector planners, and academics. Based on a tour of these projects, they should instead be models for a policy to achieve sustainable urban life. The projects present an improved quality of life due to superior open and green spaces. In addition, the projects integrate the best elements of "green architecture," seeking to use less electricity and water through the use of building materials, insulation, and special elements such as green roofs, solar generation of power, and the reuse of surface water. Three characteristics of these projects merit further study and support their replication as models for urban housing development: (1) residents of car-free housing projects strive together in search of an ecological community, reinforcing community goals and practices, with residents relying primarily on walking and bicycling rather than driving or even public transit; (2) the model ecological community educates and reinforces a lifestyle of environmental sensitivity and protection; and (3) the projects accommodate the demand for living in attractive, accessible, ecological communities and serve as the best antidote to the destructive increase in the automobile dominance of cities. In both developed and developing communities, car-free living can be extended as a residential choice through a number of urban revitalization mechanisms such as car-free zoning, new urbanism, car-free redevelopment, and pedestrian improvement districts.

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CAR-FREE HOUSING

One of the most interesting innovations in European housing design at the turn of the millennium is car-free housing. The concept of car-free housing involves the marketing of housing to a population that desires to live without an automobile and in a community whose residents share that ecological goal. Residents of these communities often share broader ecological values, and typically the design of these projects includes various physical planning elements, architectural design, and building materials and components that reduce water, heating, and electrical consumption. For example, the projects are usually designed to convert surface water runoff to water for irrigation and other uses such as flushing toilets. (1) Most dramatically, these projects convert parking lots to open space for recreation and garden allotments, providing urban high-density housing with a more rural, green appearance. In addition, these projects typically provide community spaces for activities and services that advance the community identity, such as cafes, bicycle repair shops, health food stores, and educational and recreation programs, including day care and kindergartens.

Projects employ restrictions in varying ways. Some, such as GWL-Terrein in Amsterdam, Beginenhof in Bremen, Gartensiedlung Weibenburg in Munster, and Floridsdorf in Vienna, restrict residency to persons who contractually agree not to own an automobile. A small portion of the Amsterdam residents may compete by lottery for a limited number of parking spaces that the city required be included in the project. Others, such as the Vauban in Freiburg, place no restrictions on automobile ownership, but require that automobiles be parked in a parking garage in which the car owner must purchase an expensive parking space. In others, such as the Reim airport in Munich, or Saarlandstrasse in Hamburg, residents may have their maintenance payments increased if they obtain a car. In Hamburg's Saarlandstrasse, if a number of residents obtain cars, the development may be liable for previously waived fees. Some projects, such as the Reim airport in Munich or Donau (Danube) City in Vienna, which provide underground parking infrastructure, or Freiburg's Vauban, which requires parking at large peripheral parking garages, seek to remove automobiles from residential areas. Finally, the approach of Portland, Oregon, and Ttibingen, Germany, establishing urban residential and mixed-use densities invite a pedestrian and transit-based urban lifestyle. Parking is not required and is kept restricted, expensive, and unattractive.

Based on my site visits to Europe's realized car-free housing projects and my experience assisting in various planning initiatives, including Berkeley and Portland, I have identified a number of ordinances that can be enacted to expand car-free living opportunities. Car-free or car-reduced housing and mixed-use communities can result in a regeneration of neighborhoods through both rehabilitation and adaptive reuse, in addition to establishing attractive new urban settlements.

GWL-TERREIN--AMSTERDAM

The GWL-Terrein project in the Westerpark District of Amsterdam provides an example of how an exciting new housing project has revitalized a depressed census tract and redefined the district into an area that is attractive to both residents and investors. The project provides only135 parking spaces for the 600 dwelling units. (2) Permits are allotted by lottery, with more than half the applicants unable to park their automobiles. (3) Four of the spaces are allotted for car-sharing vehicles provided to the residents by a local operating company at an attractive rent. (4) The bestemmingsplan (or project plan) took about nine months of administration and deliberation at the city level. The biggest challenge was to assure that cars could not come into the project. (5) Construction of physical barriers and very high curbs resolved the problem.

The project is marketed as a car-free ecological community, and management actively promotes educational programs on living an ecological lifestyle. (6) The project includes environmental elements in addition to car-free or car-discouraging rules, such as collecting rainwater for use in toilet flushing. Much of the surface is redirected from automobile use to open space use, allowing 120 residents a private garden allotment and allowing natural drainage with no runoff, flood control, or drainage infrastructure. (7) The residential buildings have green roofs, or ecoroofs, that are planted and become habitat, controlling surface water, offering insulation as well as long roof life, and providing carbon dioxide sequestration. (8) Apartments have recycling bins, environmental bathroom fixtures, and southern-oriented passive solar heating, and hot water is generated from a central co-generation plant. (9)

The project is located on the site of an abandoned waterworks. (10) and incorporates the beautiful old brick plant as a restaurant, a cafe, an internet cafe, shops, a car-sharing service, and a television studio. (11) More than 6,000 households have applied or indicated interest in applying for the apartments. (12) With a train stop at the entrance, GWL-Terrein residents enjoy easy access to central Amsterdam by public transport or bicycle. The Amsterdam project demonstrates the need to perform effective market analysis that will demonstrate the demand and market for ecological housing settlement and car-free housing. In Cologne, a market survey was conducted by the government, reporting 2,500 households desired to live in a car-free project. (13)

REIM AIRPORT--MUNICH

Munich's former airport provides another example of community regeneration through car-free development. On the site of the former airport, which is still served by the subway, the city redeveloped the former Reim Airport into a convention center and residential district, which includes the 28-unit Wogano auto-free housing project and the adjacent 14-unit Wohnen Auto Frei car-free project. In addition to these projects, hundreds of flats are also available without restrictions on automobile ownership, but all parking and traffic circulation is underground, resulting in a traffic and car-free residential environment. In the Wogano and the Wohnen projects, only two units have cars.

In anticipation of greater automobile usage, the city required the developer to pay _ 18,000 per space for six spaces underground despite the lack of need. The city's basis for the requirement was the possibility that residents could have cars in the future. Indeed, in Hamburg's first car-free project, Stadthaus Schlump, and in Halle's Johannesplatz project, virtually each household now owns an automobile. (14) These experiences, however, may be unique: the Hamburg project is small, the occupants tend to be from the entertainment industry and require transport at hours and to destinations not conveniently served by transit, and Hamburg is a sprawling, suburban, car-oriented city. The Halle project, near Leipzig in the former East Germany, reflects an East German car culture, and there has been little official effort to restrict automobile use. The federal German policy and local Munich city practice is to require one parking space for every housing unit. In approving the Wogano project, the city reduced the standard to 0.4 spaces per unit. Wogano officials who believed that the standard was a good guess of the need for visitor and resident parking have been surprised at a lower-than-estimated demand. The Wogano association has leased two spaces to a car sharing program. (15)

The Wogano project also utilizes many environmental components such as landscaping designed to capture surface water. The residents voted to use half the roof garden and patio for solar panels to generate electricity. The panels generate more electricity than is consumed by the residents, and the housing association profits from the sale of the excess to the power company. Digital displays in the basement indicate annual electric production, consumption, and profits, reinforcing efforts and encouraging children to conserve. Wogano was not permitted to use solar energy for heating or hot water because the...