Daniel Farrell

I went to the kickoff of the city’s Downtown Master Plan charrette tonight. I biked over and got there a little early. I caught up with Jon Baliles for a little while when I first got there. I also got to sit with Ross and Justin during the meeting. Good peeps. There was a very good turnout, thanks in no small part to John Sarvay’s hard work publicizing it. He estimated 400 people showed up and I’d say that was about right. Great to see that kind of community involvement!

The city hired Dover, Kohl & Partners to be the consultant for this update of the plan. They were very impressive. Not only are they VT grads(go hokies!), but they seem to know their stuff. They did a nice presentation about new urbanism, focusing on walkable communities, non-car transportation, maximizing the river as public space, mixed use everything and other cool stuff like that. They had a lot to say about the good things in Richmond(James River, Monument Ave, some very good architecture and neighborhoods) and the bad(some “brutal” architecture, one way streets, large paved areas, etc)… they seemed to have gotten a pretty good grasp on the city so far. They have been out on the streets taking pictures and getting a feel for things and dealing with lots of maps.

There was a open mic time at the end where the public was able to voice their concerns and interests about the city. I was impressed with how progressive most of the ideas expressed were. I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s interactive time and getting to work with others to come up with good ideas!

My biggest disappointment tonight was that Church Hill was outside of what was considered “downtown” and isn’t a direct part of the plan. I wish this lovely neighborhood up here could get some attention as a part of this. Seems to me to be more of a part of “downtown” than Manchester is, but whatever.

Here is the video I took and edited quickly of tonight’s meeting: