PLANNING

Morganton, Burnsville among N.C.’s Great Places

Want to know more? Concord and Davidson Main Streets named ‘Great Places’ in 2013 Download presentation on 2012 Great Places contest. See list of this year’s nominees If you want to see this years’ “Great Places” in North Carolina, you’ll have to head west. In the People’s Choice category, voters picked Morganton’s East and West […]

Windy Ridge: A neighborhood built to fail

In Charlotte, one neighborhood more than any other came to represent the housing crisis. Built between 2002 and 2004, the Windy Ridge neighborhood of 133 small, single-family homes fell victim. By 2008, 60 percent of the neighborhood’s homes were in foreclosure. Crime rates rose, property values plummeted and the homeowners association couldn’t afford to keep […]

Imagine Charlotte places, remade: Week 4

In honor of our second anniversary, PlanCharlotte.org is asking readers to nominate spots in the Charlotte region that need a design makeover. (See our first installment in this series here and our second installment here. Urban designers Keihly Moore and Alex Borisenko have launched a website, www.completeblocks.com, where they’re proposing a series of urban design […]

Imagining nearby places remade: Week 3

In honor of our second anniversary, PlanCharlotte.org is asking readers to nominate spots in the Charlotte region that need a design makeover. (See our first installment in this series here and our second installment here. Urban designers Keihly Moore and Alex Borisenko have launched a website, www.completeblocks.com, where they’re proposing a series of urban design […]

Imagining Charlotte places, remade: Week 2

In honor of our second anniversary, PlanCharlotte.org is asking readers to nominate spots in the Charlotte region that need a design makeover. (See last week’s article, the first installment in this series, by clicking here.) Urban designers Keihly Moore and Alex Borisenko have launched a website, www.completeblocks.com, where they’re proposing a series of urban design […]

High court rail-trails decision won’t affect N.C.

A recent Supreme Court decision has some trail advocates worried about the fate of the national rails-to-trails program, but the ruling is unlikely to affect North Carolina. The case, Brandt Revocable Trust v. United States, has to do with who retains the property rights to abandoned railroad right of ways. The national Rails-to-Trails Conservancy and […]

When a place needs a design makeover

Imagine a spot in your city or town that you think needs a makeover – only instead of adding a new haircut and stylish clothes, you add trees, sidewalk cafes, bicycle lanes or parks. PlanCharlotte, with urban designers Keihly Moore and Alex Borisenko, invites you, the public, to nominate places in the Charlotte region that […]

To stimulate airport area, invest in west Charlotte transit

Several recent newspaper articles have described the city’s plans to subsidize a new edge city west of Charlotte Douglas International Airport by spending about $45 million to widen and extend streets in the Dixie Berryhill area. City leaders want to build on the airport’s expansion and the new Norfolk Southern freight center at the airport […]

Planners envision new zoning ordinance by 2018

Charlotte city planners are moving forward with a plan to look – in stages – at revising the city-county zoning ordinance, hoping to finish that multiyear process by 2018. A city-hired consultant last July reported that the ordinance, adopted 22 years ago, too often works against the goals of the city’s adopted plans. Plus, said […]

Foxx: Bikes, pedestrians are priority, too

Categories: General News Tags: PLANNING, TRANSPORTATION

U.S. Secretary of Transportation and former Charlotte mayor Anthony Foxx gave urbanists and bike enthusiasts hope this week with his remarks at the Transportation Research Board, Streetsblog D.C. writer Tanya Snyder reports. Foxx, referencing increasing pedestrian and bicyclist injuries and deaths on Charlotte streets during his time as mayor, said he would “look out for […]