Engineering Inc. - Winter 2020 - 25

"Optimally, the process would look at the who, the why, the
where, and the how-understanding that a TOD project is really
about the people who are using it and where they want to go."
CRAIG SKLENAR
SENIOR URBAN DESIGNER
STANTEC'S URBAN PLACES GROUP

go," Sklenar says. "I had a mentor tell me, if you do not understand the 'transit' in 'transit-oriented development,' you are not
able to do anything else."

up over time." He points to projects near transit stations that
are essentially just office buildings plopped in the center of large
parking lots, and he says that these areas are typically dead after
work hours and, therefore, not truly communities.
Kasabach also advises that TOD projects should incorporate
affordable housing and find ways to keep local businesses and
historic buildings in place.
"As you get into this cycle around TOD, values will begin
to get pushed up, and that may push out residents and small
businesses," he says. "We forget that what makes these places so
special is the authenticity. And that authenticity can be trampled
by good intentions." n

IMPORTANCE OF PARTNERSHIPS

For a TOD project to be successful-or, in many cases, for one
to even get off the ground-developers, transit agencies, and
municipalities must all be on the same page. This is because
dense, mixed-use developments often require zoning changes
that increase height limitations, eliminate or even reduce parking minimums, and otherwise accommodate projects that may
be more urban in their character than existing laws allow.
"The key is the partnership between the city or town and the
development community," Kasabach says. "If the developer is
going to try to turn a town into something else on their own,
that can be risky. It can be driven by either side, but there has to
be a meeting of the minds, where people are saying, 'We want
something better in our community.'"

Calvin Hennick is a business, technology, and travel writer based in
Milton, Massachusetts.

Important
news for
Bentley Users

GETTING TOD RIGHT

According to Kasabach, one of the greatest pitfalls of TOD is
when stakeholders continue to design for cars rather than truly
making people and transit the focus of their projects.
"The biggest mistake is that they are bringing a suburban
mentality to an urban design issue," he says. "That is how we
end up with all these strange hybrids that are not going to hold

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WINTER 2020

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Engineering Inc. - Winter 2020

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