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Calling it like he sees it
By AMY WIMMER, Times Staff Writer MADEIRA BEACH -- At least he was honest. Brutally honest. But judging from the nodding heads and knowing laughter Friday night in the packed middle school gymnasium, Andres Duany's descriptions of this aging beach town struck a chord with those who know it best. Duany on Gulf Boulevard: "A traffic sewer." On Madeira Beach architecture: "Soulless buildings." On the city in general: "Tacky, going on kitschy." (Borrowed from a resident, he said.) "I've said some horrible things this charette," said Duany, referring to the series of meetings he led the past week, inviting residents to dissect various sections of the city with him. Duany, an urban planner who has traveled the country with an evangelistic message of new urbanism, said he isn't always as hard on the communities that hire him. "Some communities are incredibly beautiful," he said after presenting his plan Friday night, "and this one isn't." Still, Duany believes Madeira Beach has potential. He says it has more water access than Venice, and large expanses of undeveloped land at a vital city entrance. Yet Duany, who heads the Miami-based consulting firm DPZ, which worked with another planning firm, HDR, and engineering company Jones Edmunds to present the charettes, was not dazzled by Madeira's sandy beaches or glorious sunsets. He was looking for a city with "good bones," areas that could be tweaked into walkable, pedestrian, mixed-used communities. He had a hard time finding what he was looking for, so many of his proposals are radical, Duany admits. Among the most far-fetched, yet appealing, ideas: reclaiming the waterfront by building a road behind gulf-front properties, and selling off pieces of a city park to finance a new city hall, library and even a concert hall. "Some of you will be shocked into kind of a negative stance," he said, "but some of you will be shocked into action." Here are some of the particulars: Causeway areaDuany pitched the Tom Stuart Causeway entrance to Madeira Beach as a new "town center." He suggested the city use its new park land, on the north side of the street where the causeway touches down on the barrier island, as a way of giving visitors the idea that they have entered a special place. He urged the city to extend its property across the street to the south so its gateway could be more symmetrical. He also proposed an oval-shaped green space divided by the causeway, with vehicle parking along the oval. Duany said he preferred this arrangement to a drab parking lot in the new park. Gulf BoulevardUrging city officials to take an adversarial stance against the state Department of Transportation, Duany insisted that parallel parking should be allowed on the sides of Gulf Boulevard. Such a pattern would make pedestrians feel more comfortable walking the boulevard, he said. Right now, walking Gulf Boulevard is "humiliating," he said. He also urged the city to force new condominium projects, which generally use the beach as their "front yard," to make the view of their buildings more pleasant from Gulf Boulevard. "They give their backs to the road," he said. "You get an elevator shaft, a fire escape, maybe a couple bathroom windows and a trash Dumpster or two." He told the city to encourage development along Gulf Boulevard with no setback allowance, with garages or businesses on the ground floor and offices or residences on an upper floor. The garage entry should be from the back of the property, he said, protecting travelers on Gulf Boulevard from unsightly vehicles. Mentioning that he "can't help stepping on some toes," Duany showed slides of Madeira Beach condos -- home to some people gathered in the gymnasium -- and poked fun at their architecture. He said the city had behaved like a "beggar" by allowing developers to build whatever they wanted in Madeira Beach. He urged the city to demand higher standards. NeighborhoodsIn an idea that drew a round of applause from about 200 people attending Friday night's presentation, Duany advocated adding front porches to homes. He showed a photo of a mismatched set of homes in a Madeira Beach neighborhood. "There's a Swiss chalet, this one's a third-rate Seaside, this one's a McMansion . . . this is a ranch house from the Hollywood hills, and here's a decent Key West style," Duany said. Then he showed a drawing of the same homes, all with front porches drawn onto their fronts. Suddenly the neighborhood looked cohesive. Duany suggested the city give homeowners an incentive to build porches by allowing encroachment into the front-yard setbacks. "There are so many things that are great about porches," Duany said. Besides the town center at the Tom Stuart Causeway and Gulf Boulevard, which would contain more mixed-use projects and enticements to make those developments happen, Duany proposed "neighborhood centers" at 140th Avenue/Gulf Boulevard and in the John's Pass Village area. He suggested that neighbors gather to form their own small funding districts to provide small neighborhood parks and green spaces. He called Pelican Lane, the street directly behind John's Pass Village, the only "lost cause" in Madeira Beach. That strip faces the back of the village, and the Dumpsters and building backs that come with that environment. Duany suggested a developer could purchase all the homes on that strip for about $7-million and move them across the street so they back up directly to the village. The result would be an unblocked view of the Intracoastal Waterway. He also was critical of John's Pass Village, despite $1.7-million the city recently spent improving it. "This is a place out of control," Duany said. He complimented the quaint, purposely shabby look of some of the structures, but thought dilapidated buildings perched beside them didn't mesh with the fishing village theme. "The fact that John's Pass is as good as it is is amazing." What's nextDuany's company will prepare a final report in the next six weeks. He urged city commissioners to approve his ideas "in principle" immediately, rather than let the report sit on a shelf collecting criticism from nay-sayers. Said Duany: "This is a plan that will bear fruit about a generation from now."
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