The following story ran in The Sun on 5/17/2000:
Innovation may be key in plan for downtown
Committee looking at 'vertical zoning' concept
By JASON LEFFERTS
Sun Staff
LOWELL -- City officials are ready to get cooking on a plan to revitalize downtown, but after last night's meeting they are finding themselves a bit overwhelmed at the list of ingredients involved.
Coming up with a master plan for downtown will carry on through the rest of the year, as the City Council's Downtown Subcommittee and the Division of Planning and Development continue to tinker with plans that will encompass a number of different areas.
The main focus of last night's subcommittee meeting was on vertical zoning, a new planning theory that stacks different building zones on structures. For example, a building could be zoned for retail on the first floor, but for residential use on upper floors.
"It's new, it's not a common concept," said Matthew Higgins, the downtown plan project manager for DPD. "But, there are cities on the cutting edge that are doing this."
According to Higgins, cities as close as Providence and Hartford and as far away as San Francisco and Seattle are using some form of vertical zoning. It has a number of different forms, and can be used in selected streets or corners of a district, or stretched out to cover wide-spread areas.
The vertical zoning idea is one of a number of ideas floated by more than 30 owntown activists at the meeting, who also talked about improving lighting in the area, changing the traffic patterns, and perhaps closing off Market Street and turning it into a pedestrian mall.
The end result of the meeting, however, was that there were too many areas that need attention before zoning and pedestrian malls can be attended to. In fact, there was some consternation as to where downtown begins and ends, boundaries Higgins said DPD will try to iron out in the next few weeks.
"Zoning is always a tool. You take your vision, you know what you want, and you use zoning to make it happen," Higgins said. "We need to roll up our sleeves and do a little more visioning before we do our planning."
Higgins and other officials realize that this time to outline a future for downtown and act on it. With a room full of interested downtown inhabitants for the second meeting in a row, Mayor Eileen Donoghue believes the time has arrived for downtown.
"For the first time in five years, I see a real critical mass of people who are interested in the downtown," said Donoghue, who is on the subcommittee.
As the process picks up speed, DPD officials are creating a number of focus groups made up of downtown activists to look at issues like traffic, safety, commercial development, and attractions. With the discussion spinning in a number of different directions, the first goal of subcommittee Chairman Dan Tenczar is to organize the process.
"There's just so many things, it's mind-boggling," Tenczar said. "I think we'll say, 'This week it's this issue, this week it's this issue.' We need some structure."