Back to the Future

It's called New Urbanism, but the trend toward self-contained, master-planned communities with shops, schools, parks and playgrounds clustered around homes dates back to the earliest days of city planning.

Indeed, before the post-World War II explosion of far-flung, cookie-cutter suburbs, most downtowns were flanked by eclectic residential neighborhoods, and most urban dwellers lived in close proximity to the places where they worked, worshipped and went to school.

Now it's déjà vu all over again, with master-planned communities popping up all over the country and especially in Northeast Florida. At least a dozen developments incorporating some or all of the elements of New Urbanism are under way in the region.

Buyers like them because they're convenient, secure and family friendly. Government agencies like them because they're carefully planned and make better use of increasingly scarce land than smaller, patchwork subdivisions popping up side by side. And builders like them because they're able to sell both a home and a lifestyle

According to Ponte Vedra-based real estate consultant Charlie Clark, just building a golf course and placing homes around it generally isn't enough. These days, more buyers are looking for the total live, work and play package.

"We're now finding that after a huge

proliferation of golf course development, wetlands and green space are just as important as amenities to homebuyers," says Clark. "Master-planned communities can provide that through preservation areas and parks that are set aside at the very beginning."

More than 300 master-planned communities employing the principals of New Urbanism are estimated to be under way nationwide, according to the Congress for New Urbanism, a San Francisco-based organization that acts as a resource for developers and consumers. And Northeast Florida, in particular, is a hotbed for such projects.

That's partly because the region still has tracts of land large enough to accommodate huge developments. And it's partly because Florida is considered the birthplace of New Urbanism, thanks to architects and CNU founders Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, who in the 1980s designed Seaside, a village-style oceanfront community in the state's Panhandle.

The plan for Seaside emerged as Duany and Plater-Zyberk, a husband-and-wife team, visited cities such as Key West, Charleston and Savannah. By dusting off turn-of-the-century notions about city planning, the pair created a sensation and launched a movement.

Over time, Duany and Plater-Zyberk developed 13 points to describe the principles of New Urbanism. Among them: a variety of housing options and a discernable town center easily reachable by foot. Other components included civic buildings, schools, parks and playgrounds on site.

Sometimes aspects of New Urbanism and Traditional Neighborhood Development are mingled, but the terms are not interchangeable.

Homes in a true TND feature retro architecture in which front porches, not garages, are the focal points. Homes are closely set, and parking is relegated to the rear and accessed by alleys. Finally, because TNDs are inspired by Mayberryesque small towns, they're typically relatively small in scale.

An extreme example is Celebration, the Walt Disney Company's 5,000-acre TND near Orlando. While the project, which broke ground in 1994, has been a huge success by any measure, some potential buyers were turned off by the community's obsession with rules and regulations regarding the appearance of homes and lawns, from front-yard shrub selection to curtain color.

Few Jacksonville-area projects could be called TNDs in the strictest sense, but many are fine examples of New Urbanism. The architecture may or may not be themed, the yards may or may not be compact, and the town centers may or may not be within walking distance. But the communities, even the biggest of them, are self-contained and meticulously designed.

Amelia Island Plantation, started in the early 1970s and located on an environmentally sensitive oceanfront tract in Nassau County, was arguably the first Northeast Florida development to incorporate New Urbanist ideas. It contained a mixture of housing styles, an array of shared amenities and was designed to create a cohesive sense of community.

Baymeadows Country Club, with a mix of apartments, condominiums and fitness areas, was also very

forward thinking for its time, says Clark. Deerwood Country Club, Julington Creek Plantation and Eagle Harbor followed.

"Eagle Harbor is a world-class master-planned development," Clark says. "And OakLeaf Plantation has been extremely well executed and has probably achieved the most sales in the shortest period of time of any community in Florida."

Both projects are in Jacksonville" target="_blank">Clay County near Orange Park. Eagle Harbor will have more than 3,000 homes at buildout, while OakLeaf Plantation is slated for more than 11,000 homes.

But the new frontier for New Urbanism appears to be St. Johns County, which is also home to the nation's oldest city, St. Augustine. There, neotraditional Palencia (2,600 homes at buildout) and World Golf Village (7,200 homes at buildout) have been on a roll for several years.

And now they'll have company. Just under way near Ponte Vedra is the town of Nocatee (14,200 homes). To Nocatee's west is Silverleaf (10,700 homes) and to its east is RiverTown (4,500 homes).

And then there's Saratoga Springs (4,300 homes), Twin Creeks (5,000 homes), Three Rivers (3,200 homes), Ashford Mills (2,633 homes), Durbin Crossing (2,498 homes) and Aberdeen (2,018 homes).

Most of these developments will feature town centers, recreational facilities, civic buildings, conservation areas, walking and jogging trails and even schools. And while golf courses will also be prominent, they are not a crucial component of New Urbanism and are no longer the driving force behind master-planned communities.

"In the south, master-planned communities were typically golf course developments with communities built around them," says Roger Arrowsmith, president of East West Partners of Florida and developer of Eagle Harbor in Fleming Island and Eagle Landing at OakLeaf Plantation. "But what we offer are well-rounded communities that happen to have a golf courses."

The goal now, say Arrowsmith and others, is to provide communities for everybody-and the vast majority of people who buy homes within master-planned communities, even those with golf courses, don't play golf.

That's true even at Davidson Development's World Golf Village, where resident Don Poppleton tees off every morning at 7:30 a.m. The community has two world-class courses-the King & Bear and the Slammer & Squire-but Poppleton says his favorite aspect of World Golf Village is its green space.

"We've got a conservation area, and this morning I saw a bird catch a fish and take it up in a tree," says Poppleton. "The wildlife here is abundant, and even though there are other houses nearby, they've left so much land untouched that it feels very private. Just being in that type of area is a special experience."

For Rita Mailie, who moved to Palencia with her husband, Nick, earlier this year, living in the community "is like living in a resort and being on vacation every day." The couple bought a new condominium that overlooks the golf course and the water.

"I'm a writer, and living here is like my Walden Pond," Mailie says. "To me, that's what this is like, particularly when we're out golfing and we see birdhouses throughout the course. It's charming touches like that we enjoy."

In addition to the course, Palencia project manager Lane Gardner and developer Walt O'Shea created pocket parks that take the place of paved cul-de-sacs and even built tree houses in one neighborhood for the children.

"We saved a major section of wetlands and green space," Gardner says. "It takes more work, but the end result is great."

Palencia, developed by Hines, also boasts an extensive network of interconnected trails and a boardwalk under way that takes walkers, joggers and bikers through the marsh to the Intracoastal Waterway.

St. Joe's RiverTown, which fronts the St. Johns River, will offer water access for public and private use, a town center that combines ground-floor shops and upper-floor condominiums, a huge multi-use community park, four baseball diamonds and several multi-use sports fields.

With a riverfront park as its back yard, RiverTown's seven neighborhoods will radiate outward from its town center nucleus. The community will be interconnected by 16 miles of trails, according to Gina Wilson, marketing manager.

Plans also call for 30 acres of pocket parks as well as a new middle school, two elementary schools and a parochial school. Civic sites are earmarked for churches, a library and other uses.

St. Joe broke ground on RiverTown in June, beginning construction on the riverfront park and infrastructure.

But Northeast Florida's most high-profile example of New Urbanism is going to be Nocatee, located on 15,000 acres straddling the Duval and St. Johns county line.

The project, rising on land held by the Davis family, founders of the Winn-Dixie supermarket chain, will ultimately encompass 14,200 homes, 4.2 million square feet of office space and about 1 million square feet of retail and commercial space.

"There'll be a town center area with parks, school sites, churches and multifamily homes," says Greg Barbour, partner with The PARC Group, the real estate development arm of Nocatee. "Beyond the core will be primarily single-family homes."

Nocatee developers will donate nine public school sites and more than $150 million in road construction. The most significant road-building project will be the Nocatee Parkway, a four-lane thoroughfare connecting the Intracoastal Waterway bridge to U.S. 1 and replacing a two-lane portion of increasingly busy C.R. 210.

And, notes Barbour, more than 9,000 of Nocatee's 15,000 acres will not be developed. Three and a half miles of land along the Intracoastal Waterway have already been donated to St. Johns County, while a 5,000-acre greenway system will provide a wildlife habitat as well as an extensive system of walking and biking trails throughout the community's preservation areas.

Certainly, New Urbanism has struck a responsive chord in people looking for a place to call home-in every sense of the word. And in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, people seem more anxious than ever to find refuge and security, and to connect on an emotional level with the communities in which they live.

But that doesn't mean New Urbanism is for everyone. Some buyers are opting for "Old Urbanism," snapping up and renovating older homes near existing urban cores. Others enjoy the privacy that comes with large home sites and the serenity that comes with rural living.

A survey conducted three years ago by CNU found that 70 percent of buyers still have conventional tastes, preferring larger lots and wider streets over narrow streets, sidewalks and shared recreation facilities.

But the numbers are shifting as baby boomers age, and as land shortages force new projects further out into what had been the hinterlands. At the same time, developers are becoming savvier, tailoring their communities to consumer demand and loading up on ever more elaborate amenities while avoiding the strict regimentation that some found a bit overbearing in Celebration.

"This kind of development is good for the whole family," says John Carpenter, who lives with his wife, Bobbi Jo, and three children on the 14th hole of the King & Bear course in World Golf Village. "It's a tight-knit community, and there are a lot of amenities. And there's also a mix of ages that's moving more toward younger families than we when first moved here, five years ago."

As for the architects credited with inventing New Urbanism, they're quick to point out that their ideas, while innovative, were hardly original.

"We didn't invent a thing," says Duany, now known as the father of the movement. "It's all been done before."

WHAT IS NEW URBANISM?

The 13 points developed by architects and town planners Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk to describe the principles of New Urbanism:

1. The neighborhood has a discernable center.

2. Most dwellings are within a five-minute walk of the center.

3. There is a variety of dwelling types, including single-family homes, row homes and apartments.

4. There are shops and offices at the edge of the neighborhood of sufficient variety to meet the weekly needs of an average household.

5. A small ancillary building is permitted in the back yard of each dwelling. It may be used as a rental unit or as a place to work.

6. An elementary school is close enough to the neighborhood that most children can walk to school.

7. There are small playgrounds not more than one-tenth mile from each dwelling.

8. Streets within the neighborhood are a connected network, which disperses traffic by providing a variety of pedestrian and vehicular routes to any destination.

9. Streets are relatively narrow and shaded by rows of trees.

10. Buildings in the neighborhood center are placed close to the street.

11. Parking lots and garage doors rarely front the street. Parking is relegated to the rear of the buildings, usually accessed by alleys.

12. Certain sites are reserved for civic buildings.

13. The neighborhood is organized to be self-governing.