February 28th Committee Meeting: RG4N

We kicked off our RCD Roundtable Series for 2007 with Paige Hill, president of Responsible Growth for Northcross (RG4N). Our discussion centered on several interesting aspects of this group’s efforts to alert citizens and policy makers of the role that a community, both residents and business owners, should be playing when major development (or redevelopment) efforts are underway. The conversation was not a “Wal-Mart or No Wal-Mart” debate, rather it keyed on the realities of what we should be creating in our neighborhoods and how our neighborhood is much more than a white picket fence and a grill in the backyard. Our concept of neighborhood should be expanded to include the services that we need and want to fulfill our total lifestyle.

RG4N and groups like them are often looking to developers to help them recreate the sense of place and public ownership that has all but disappeared by focusing our planning around the automobile for the last 60 years. These are opportunities for partnerships in development. In addition, the City of Austin is trying to make it easier for developers to vertically and horizontally mix uses as well as focus on a successful pedestrian environment. However, healthy and long lasting projects are not free and can be significantly more expensive to the developer to build. Therefore the community needs to be open to the developer's ideas on how the community can be responsibly renewed while the developer's efforts remain financially viable.

The RCD committee thanks Paige Hill for reminding us how much the whole community, not just design professionals, cares about how our public space can be shaped for everyone’s benefit.

The RCD committee thanks Paige Hill for her time and we look forward to continuing the discussion on the role of neighborhoods in helping shape the whole community.

For more information on RG4N, visit their website at http://www.rg4n.org/