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Transit Cooperative Research Program. (2002). Transit-Oriented Development and Joint Development in the United States: A Literature Review. Washington, D.C.: Transportation Research Board.

This report summarizes relevant literature written about TOD as of 2002, concluding with a brief literature review and annotated bibliography. The authors present local, state, and federal regulatory TOD friendly framework, analyzing successful programs across the United States. The report evaluates supportive policies, programs, and guidelines in detail. Additionally, it delineates financing, tax incentives, and funding strategies used in successful TOD markets. Finally, it describes general principles of TOD urban design, density, and scale in the built environment, identifying major components contributing to TOD.

Cervero defines TJD as "Any formal agreement or arrangement between a public transit agency and a private individual or organization that involves either private-sector payments to the public entity or private-sector sharing of capital costs in mutual recognition of the enhanced real estate development potential or market potential created by the siding of a public transit facility".

TOD and TJD essentially strive to achieve the same goal of creating transit focused development, but differ in what scales they are typically implemented. TOD tends to include multiple city blocks and neighborhoods whereas TJD is more site and project specific. Usually, TJD is a public and private partnership created to achieve TOD with public agencies usually consisting of local governments and or transit agencies and the private sector being perceptive real estate developers. These types of partnerships are sometimes necessary to share costs of capital infrastructure, station connection fees, or land acquisition for TOD purposes.The private sector is incentivized by empirical evidence of higher rents and additional dense leasable units that are associated with development in close proximity to transit.

Specifically, the report analyzes various ways TJDs can be organized or structured. Revenue-sharing arrangements and cost-sharing arrangements are the two sides of the TJD coin. Examples of revenue sharing include land leases, air rights development, station connection fees, concession leases, and benefit assessment districts. Cost sharing examples include construction costs, density-bonuses (incentive-agreements), and joint use of infrastructure.

*Percentages sum to more than 100 percent since many programs involved multiple forms of joint development. (Figure 1.)

Another major incentive to engage developers is for local governments to implement sliding-scale impact fee adjustments for TOD projects into their development policies. This is a very real possibility with projects that already have existing efficient transit infrastructure and has proved to be an attractive incentive for developers. Since a fundamental result of TOD is a reduction of vehicle miles traveled, Santa Clara County created criteria for traffic impact fee reductions for TOD projects.

Recommended Impact Fee Adjustments in Santa Clara County, California

Trip Reduction Strategy Maximum Trip Reduction
Mixed-use Development Project
With housing and retail components / 13% off the smaller trip generator
With hotel and retail components / 10% off the smaller trip generator
With housing and employment / 3% off the smaller trip generator
With employment and employee-serving retail / 3% off employment component
Location Within 2,000-Foot Walk of Transit Facility
Housing near LRT or Caltrain Station / 9%
Housing near a Major Bus Stop / 2%
Employment near LRT or Caltrain Station / 3%
Employment near a Major Bus Stop / 2%

*(Table 5.)

Cervero, R. (1998). The Transit Metropolis. Washington, D.C.: Island Press.

The text gives a global perspective on successful transit-development case studies. Divided into four major types of transit metropolises, the book examines adaptive cities, adaptive transit, strong-core cities, and hybrids-adaptive cities and adaptive transit. Adaptive cities create transit-oriented built form through unique planning and development strategies. Adaptive cities with adaptive transit, hybrids, define cities and their transit systems as an evolving unit, constantly striving to accommodate one another. Strong-core cities have revitalized city centers, complemented by efficient transit. Adaptive transit cities have tailored their transit systems to serve the urban city cores as well as suburban development. Cervero's case study analyses present a broad spectrum of applicable policies, guidelines, and regulations used to implement TOD all over the world.

NOT SURE WE NEED TO NOTATE THIS SOURCE BECAUSE WE

COVERING THIS AUTHOR'S MORE RECENT LITERATURE WHICH COVERS THE RELAVENT INFO IN THIS OLDER TEXT.

Institute of Transportation Engineers. (2010). Designing Walkable Thoroughfares: A Context Sensitive Approach. Washington D.C.: Institute of Transportation Engineers.

"Context Sensitive Solutions" (CSS) takes a multi-disciplinary approach in planning and designing transportation and human ecosystems at the urban thoroughfare scale. The extensive report identifies specific transportation design guidelines that safely accommodate urban pedestrian traffic. The graphic format of the guidelines allows the reader to get a strong physical design scope of urban thoroughfare policies and principles. Graphic examples discussed include intersections, parking, sidewalks, roadway design, building heights, and setbacks. The report also includes complex traffic signal and roadway engineering design guidelines used when designing urban thoroughfares.

TYPOLOGY REFERENCE

Bertolini, L., Curtis, C., & Renne, J. L. (Eds.). (2009). Transit Oriented Development: Making It Happen. Surrey, England: Ashgate Publishing Limited.

This book outlines empirical strategies to establish TOD in urban development patterns. Variable TOD project examples provide an array of guidance for planners implementing TOD policies and guidelines into their regulations. The two main challenges for implementing TOD are integrating land use and transport changes. The authors summarize strategies to increase densities and determine functional land use mixes for different scales of development. Additionally, they address the importance of improving transport competitiveness with the automobile, stressing the importance of door-to-door commuting times on mass transit by increasing its flexibility and availability to riders.

The authors also discuss the conflict of developing station areas into a node or place. Station areas that have nodal character as opposed to a place character tend to be more of a transportation hub than a TOD. The text summarizes ways of having a compromise of the two by discussing TOD case studies that faced similar predicaments.

The information presented in this book aims to give planners a source of inspiration or starting point in identifying TOD strategies and adaptations applicable to their communities.

Four Strategic Planning Tools for TOD:

  1. A strategic policy framework that asserts where centers need to occur and at what kind of density and mix:
  • Centers provide services and amenities based on economies of scale and density.
  • Centers enable car dependence to be reversed without destroying the character of the suburbs.
  1. A strategic policy framework that links centers with a rapid transit base, almost invariably electric rail:
  2. Car dependence is expensive; rapid transit plans assist cities in wealth creation. Americans spend up to 40% of their income on personal automobile transportation.
  3. Build a transit system in corridors that can travel faster than automobiles.
  4. A statutory planning base that requires development to occur at the necessary density and design in each center, preferably facilitated by a specialized development agency:
  5. Strategic planning is necessary but not sufficient. There needs to be a statutory planning mechanism that requires density and mix in centers.
  6. TODs require regional planning sources. Proactive planning processes that create land packages and do the detailed urban design are usually beyond local government resources.
  7. A public-private funding mechanism that enables the transit and the TOD to be built or refurbished through a linkage between the transit and the centers it will service:
  8. Public-private partnerships for rail projects automatically integrate centers.

The Network City Theory (applied in Perth, Australia):

"The significance of the 'Network City' is its attention to regional structure, accessibility and the land use/transport function of roads. Of importance is for a strategy capable of being retrofitted to existing urban areas as well as guiding development in new urban areas." 'Network City's spatial framework consists of three elements:

  1. Activity corridors: land located within a quarter mile of a main transit artery or subway rail line, optimally on both sides of the transit spine.
  2. Activity centers:are developed at intervals along the activity corridor as the focus of daily activity needs including small-scale employment, shopping and services, and medium to higher density housing all placed within walking distance of the public transport node at the center.
  1. Transport corridors: are paired with one or more activity corridors to form a network, and provide a fast moving route for inter-urban travel, reducing the need for longer through –traffic routes to access activity corridors.

Network City community planning headline strategies:

  • Manage growth by sharing responsibility between industry, communities, and government
  • Make fuller use of urban land
  • Plan with communities
  • Nurture the environment
  • Encourage public over private transport
  • Strengthen local sense of place
  • Develop strategies which deliver local jobs
  • Provide affordable housing

Network City community planning headline strategies:

  • Define and plan for TOD centers based on public transport accessibility
  • Mandate housing and employments targets for these TOD centers in order to provide certainty for infrastructure providers (including the public transport agency) and local government
  • Design for some arterial roads to achieve TOD at centers rather than simply maintaining a car-based traffic function
  • Establish a framework for cross sector and cross-agency collaboration
  • Provide for collaboration with the community

Promoting TOD at the Local Level (Opportunities and Constraints):

Adaptive Sustainability Strategies

  1. Framing: A means ofcircumventing sustainability initiatives at the broad policy levels as well as the specific, local levels. The two scoping processes involved are:
  2. Contextualization: includes "big-picture" frameworks that identify guidelines, resources, and procedural tools. Without sufficient contextualization, TOD projects may encounter lending uncertainty, anextended development review process, and difficulty facilitating a collaborative team of informed professionals to implement the project.
  3. Localization: identifyingopportunities and constraints pertinent to a specific local area to determine what local resources or solutions to apply to the project.
  4. Blending: merging tools and processes identified by 'contextualization' which have been determined to be applicable solutions and or solutions through 'localization'.
  5. Translation: after determining what processes are applicable, translation is the act of delineating social, cultural, and environmental opportunities that can be complimentary to the existing built form.
  6. Review: must establish aefficient, comprehensive, and consistent evaluative framework for project review processes.

Delivering Mixed-Income Housing in Transit Served Neighborhoods:

  • Provide truly affordable housing
  • Stabilize high-percentage riders
  • Broadening access to opportunity
  • Extending the health benefits of TOD to all

Boston Mixed Income Neighborhoods

The state of Massachusetts created a $30 million dollar TOD Infrastructure and Housing support Program coupled with smart growth housing laws that provide financial incentives for compact housing. Additionally, MassHousing, a state agency dedicated to affordable housing initiatives, provides technical assistance and resources for TOD proponents including allocating millions of dollars for mixed-income projects near transit.

Charlotte Mixed Income Neighborhoods

The City of Charlotte approved a comprehensive plan that allocates new growth and development along a future light rail and modern streetcar line. Further, a TOD Response Team was created to assist developers obtain entitlements, public improvements, and financial assistance. The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Planning Commission has been proactively determining what sites would be most suitable for TOD, and set up a South Corridor Land Acquisition Fund to assemble opportunistic land for future station area plans. To accommodate affordable housing, the city increased an allowance of subsidized housing to 20% within a quarter mile of transit stations.

TOD in America: The Private Sector View

Developers face more challenges building TOD than traditional development. Assembling large parcels of land, constructing dense multi-story development, determining proper mix of uses, and the perception of a risky market type are all major dilemmas developers encounter when contemplating developing aTOD project. Despite recent demographic market analyses reporting TOD is an emerging trend in real estate, developers do not have many U.S. TOD projects to draw conclusions from, thus making it difficult to calculate risks. Given that TOD is a relatively new concept in development 'trends', it will take time to affirm the financial gains typically associated with TOD.

Although no project is guaranteed success, indications from existing TODs in Portland, Dallas, and Washington, D.C. validate TODs typically have higher market rate rents when compared to adjacent areas outside the quarter-mile transit node. On average TOD has lucrative potential with rent premiums are 15-25 percent higher, mitigating increased construction costs of 10-20 percent. Further, if parking requirements are relaxed (unbundling from units) and measured by maximum instead of minimum, developers can increase bottom lines by saving money parking lot construction.

Public-Private Partnerships

TODs inlarger cities such as Boston and New York are easy for the private market to develop without assistance from the local government. Developers already have existing public transportation infrastructure to accommodate more transit-based development. However, in medium size cities with little public transportation infrastructure, developing TOD solely from a private development can be challenging. Developing TOD through public-private partnerships is a viable option for communities and local governments interested in implementing TOD. Public financial assistancecan be challenging to obtain, and once found, often takes longer to implement projects. However, this type of partnership can be mutually beneficial when a municipality wants to execute TOD in their community and a progressive developer is looking for real estate development opportunities. Given the financial and logistical complexities involved in TOD projects, sometimes project costs, thus risks are too great for one developer to employ.

Federal Government Financing Tools:

  • Low Income Housing Credits
  • EPA funds for contaminated sites for TOD redevelopment
  • FTA pedestrian safety and enhancement funds

Local Government Financing Tools:

  • Tax Increment Financing (TIF)
  • Tax Abatements
  • Low Interest Loans
  • Parking Revenues
  • Local Improvement District Bonding
  • City Capital Improvements Funds
  • Low Income Housing Tax Credit Allocations

Autler, G., & Belzer, D. (2002). Transit-Oriented Development: Moving From Rhetoric to Reality. The Brookings Institution Center on Urban and Metropolitian Policy .

This paper outlines possible opportunities and constraints associated with TOD projects. The author does however offer possible strategies and solutions for the constraints. It frames performance criteria such as location efficiency, value recapture, livability, financial, and choice components needed to ensure TOD project viability. To facilitate TOD projects, the authors list proactive measures that local governments and transit agencies can take to ensure frameworks are in place for future TOD endeavors.

Frameworks:

  1. A focus on the desired functional outcomes of TOD, not just physical characteristics.
  2. Acknowledgement of a continuum of success.
  3. Adaptation to different locations and situations.

Six Performance Areas:

  1. Location Efficiency: area where residents have less transportation costs due to their proximity to alternative modes of transit. Usually entails high quality transit options, mix of land uses, and good pedestrian design.
  2. Value Recapture:reduced broad cost of living. TOD not only saves households money, but also has the ability to save developers and local governments money too. Reduced automobile use means reduced demand for parking, roadway construction, maintenance costs, as well as land acquisition for automobile related uses. Additionally, mortgage-lending institutions have recognized the value of households near transit, allowing borrowing households higher mortgage limits that are located near adequate transit (recognizing borrowers will have more income to spend on housing because of reduced automobile dependency).
  3. Livability (TOD):
  4. Improved air quality
  5. Decrease commute times/congestion
  6. Improved access to retail, services, cultural, recreation and public space opportunities
  7. Better health and public safety
  8. Better economic viability
  9. Financial Return:TOD planner must understand the expected return on investments made in projects, facilitating creative financing, and initiate public-private partnerships.
  10. Choice:TOD provides a variety of housing, lifestyle, and transportation choices.

Challenges for Transit-Oriented Development:

  • Difficulties of financing
  • Poor transit design
  • Unsupportive regulatory framework
  • Lack unifying policy goals objectives
  • Tension between node and place
  • Parking and access roads
  • TOD placemaking (designated appropriate mix of uses)
  • Uncertainty of synergy among complex TOD components
  • Need appropriate/supportive marketing, physical, and regulatory environment for TOD projects

Recommended Actions for Transit Agencies:

  • Should be place-based and market-oriented
  • Needs to work for communities, people, employers and employees
  • High degree of flexibility
  • TOD educators/intermediaries need to advocate and form partnerships and provide technical assistance to local governments
  • Establish a TOD fund and create financing/funding
  • Create a typology of TOD projects
  • Showcase examples to realize TOD potential
  • Develop and promote TOD parking strategies
  • Promote standardization of lending strategies for TOD
  • Close joint development/partnerships between transit agencies and local government for TOD
  • Create station access plans for critical link from stations to adjacent land uses, promoting integration
  • Plan TOD at system wide scale: regional, local, site/station.

Recommended Actions for Local Governments: