The Evolving 2020 Open Streets Movement, or What if We Threw Out the Rule Book and Everything Was Fine?

Step aside, Copenhagen. Time’s up, Amsterdam. The new city that every American city planning department is falling all over themselves to emulate is… Vilnius, Lithuania?

We recently covered an article in The Guardian about how Vilnius is converting itself into “a vast open-air café by giving over much of its public space to hard-hit bar and restaurant owners,” allowing them to continue to serve the volume of customers they need amid social distancing requirements. You can listen to the Upzoned podcast episode about these and related changes.

“Setting up some tables in parking stalls, or a tent on the sidewalk, is the kind of easily reversible, low-cost, low-risk experiment that we should be conducting in our cities constantly. Think of it as rapid prototyping in the service of building better, more thriving places.”

In the week that episode was recorded, the flood of emulators has already begun across America. It’s going to be a fascinating trend to watch in literally hundreds of cities this summer: in the name of helping restaurants and other businesses survive, we’re going to see (and are already seeing) dramatic changes to how public space may be used, and simplified and sped-up processes for getting the required permits.

So here’s the thing you should watch as this unfolds: see if any significant problems or backlash arise. If they don't—or if they're easily resolved—then maybe we never needed all the red tape all along. Because here’s the thing: setting up some tables in parking stalls, or a tent on the sidewalk, is the kind of easily reversible, low-cost, low-risk experiment that we should be conducting in our cities constantly—both private entities like restaurants, and the public sector responsible for maintaining public space.

For cities dealing with the pandemic, where every week now feels like a new year, the biggest imperative now is to be nimble. But we should be this nimble under ordinary circumstances, too, when it comes to small bets. Think of it as rapid prototyping in the service of building better, more thriving places.

Unfortunately, local governments have developed a reputation for being excessively risk-averse instead of nimble. The cultural pendulum has swung too far over the years in the direction of expecting everything about our neighborhoods to be utterly predictable, orderly, and unchanging. When a business or homeowner wants to do anything that isn’t by the book, lengthy permit review processes, high fees, long lists of conditions, and public-hearing requirements are the rule. It’s all about political cover for city officials before they do anything that might risk angering even a small but loud minority of residents. It’s easier to say, “No.” Or “Follow the process,” anyway.

And look, it’s not that there aren’t real, conceivable problems with opening up sidewalks and streets to cafe tables and merchandise tents. Could it snarl up traffic in some locations? Sure. Another consequence I’m definitely worried about is maneuverability on newly-contested sidewalks for those who need wheelchairs or other assistive devices. And of course, there’s the prospect that a popular business will draw crowds that flout social-distancing rules and risk a wave of disease transmission.

But if we can adapt ad hoc by removing a bunch of barriers to experimentation, then I have confidence that we’ll also adapt ad hoc to many of these problems as they arise. And we’ll learn a lot in the process about what our streets could be, in hundreds of places where nobody ever dared to dream outside the color-by-numbers status quo before.

A Sampling of Open-Streets Orders So Far

One of the most sweeping is the Connecticut executive order signed by Governor Ned Lamont on May 12th, for the way it sets standard expectations for cities statewide, while still granting them the flexibility to resolve local issues that arise. Lamont’s order, among other things:

• Allows outdoor dining (without alcohol) and retail as a rule, though local officials can impose limits.

• Suspends minimum parking requirements, and allows outdoor dining and retail to make use of on-street parking spaces.

• Suspends the requirement for cities to submit notice of any zoning changes to the regional planning agency 30 days in advance of a required public hearing.

• Establishes administrative review of any regulatory changes required to allow outdoor food and beverage service or displays of goods: that is, a single local enforcement official such as a zoning administrator gets to make the call, instead of every small change going before an elected body for a full vote.

• Institutes a 10-day time limit for approval of permit requests.

• Allows a business to use an adjacent lot for an accessory use such as additional seating with the written permission of the lot’s owner.

• Allows cities to opt to close local streets without the normal, full series of public hearings that would be required.

• Waives fees for applications filed pursuant to this order.

Countless cities are getting in on the game too. Berkeley, California is one where the mayor has cited explicitly the example of Vilnius as an inspiration. Berkeley’s approach is more ambitious than that of other Bay Area cities: rather than allow individual restaurants to request to use street space, the city’s proposal is to fully close certain streets to traffic during restaurant operating hours, creating giant open-air plazas where al fresco dining can take place.

Tampa, Florida is doing the same thing in historic Ybor City, and on streets in several other neighborhoods that have walkable restaurant clusters. Berkeley has one advantage that Tampa doesn’t, though: rain is almost nonexistent in Northern California in the summer months. In Florida, this is monsoon season!

A simple Google search revealed dozens more cities taking similar steps. The most common seems to be to waive permit fees and guarantee expedited approval—in my own city of Sarasota, Florida, they’re saying an answer within 24 hours. For restaurants, time is money and so this alone should be welcome relief.

But again: the question I expect to be asking after several months of this experiment is, So why did we make this so hard in the first place?

Cover image via Liz Weddon.

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