Newsletter | How Do We Build Healthy Places to Live?
Last month, San Francisco’s new mayor, Daniel Lurie, proposed a new zoning plan for the city that he dubbed “family zoning”: a place “with space for more families, more workers, and more dreams.” Behind the family-friendly spin, the new plan is recognized as a textbook upzoning. It will hopefully change the west side of the city, which added just 4,000 homes over the past 20 years, into a more fertile place for housing.
The plan is key to the effort to meet California mandates for new homes, create more affordable housing, and to bring new vitality and residents - and yes, families - to parts of the city that have been resistant to change (read: NIMBY). This being San Francisco, there’s still a long process before the new plan can become certified. But...
The effort appeals to us at Building H - and not just because one of us lives in SF. By learning in to a family-friendly spin, the plan could - COULD - become a national model for how to create more abundant housing in otherwise slow-growth urban centers, and a template for how to build and strengthen communities with an explicit emphasis on health.
Now, to be clear, the proposal doesn’t mention the word “health” at all, which is a shame. But we’ve heard that SPUR - the San Francisco Bay Area Planning and Urban Research Association, a public policy think-tank that has been involved in the creation of the plan - has begun to advocate for better-than-the-usual development ideas that emphasize health. And that got us to do some research, and some thinking.
ZONING FOR HEALTH
“Zoning for health” has been an idea in new-urbanism circles since the early 2000s, with an early emphasis on using zoning to limit unhealthy businesses (such as fast food restaurants) and encourage healthy businesses (such as produce-rich grocery stores) - especially in disadvantaged and low-income neighborhoods. And rightly so. But these efforts largely took a Just Say No approach: no to fast food, no to happy meals, no to sugar. The policies used a crow-bar to try to force businesses to address market failures - and political failures.
More recently, zoning for health has been more positive and more creative, creating incentives for more bike lanes and public transportation, more open space and community spaces, and better mixed use. Some cities have not only eliminated parking minimums for new development (requiring parking spot quotas for housing units) but actually instituted parking maximums - which caps the area devoted to parking instead of people. This is great progress for advocates of “Health In All Policies” - which argues that every and all government policy should explicitly consider and correct for the health impacts of citizens and communities.
Apologies for all the wonk-speak. We dragged you through it because it's all well and good but clear that zoning can only do so much - in two regards. First, "zoning for health" by itself can inadvertently create more barriers to health that reduce them. After all, San Francisco has led the way on zoning for health, with meager results in terms of actual housing built. The city’s notoriously byzantine codes and planning rules have made building anything harder and slower than almost anywhere in the world. And it reduces the pool of new businesses that might try to open in the city. Which makes zoning kind of moot: if no one is building, what good are your fancy rules?
Which is why we're glad that one of the new mayor's priorities is to reduce the burden of permitting and paperwork to make all housing easier - and cheaper, and faster - to build. Less money spent on planning and approvals means more money that could be spent on building healthy amenities.
And that’s the second limit of healthy zoning - it doesn’t actually have much to do with what actually gets built, aside from height and light considerations, in terms of, you know, architecture and stuff. And so developers and builders who actually want to build healthy housing have to look elsewhere for ideas.
To be clear, there are already robust existing frameworks for building homes and workspaces that minimize unhealthy exposures and maximize healthy ones - such as the Healthy Buildings program out of Harvard’s Chan school of public health and the WELL Building standard, and Gautam Gulati has inspired us and others with his thoughtful "well home" ideas.
Still we were after something more scalable, more practical and less environmental (in the sense of air quality and light exposure). We were after something that changes how we use our living space, not just what is in it. What about ideas for how to build spaces that enable healthy behaviors - that change what we do by virtue of what’s around us?
What about healthy housing that doesn't cost too much but everyone gets to enjoy?
This got us thinking about what real “family zoning” might emphasize, on the scale not of cities or neighborhoods but of blocks and buildings and houses. Could there be new living spaces that encourage play and community and fun almost by accident, where various healthy behaviors happen by happenstance? And where there is a variety of kinds of spaces that work for different needs, so that everyone passes through their ‘healthy space’ at least, say, twice a day?
With our short list of 5 key healthy behaviors in mind - eating, sleeping, socializing, exercising, and getting outside - we came up with a list of architectural/design amenities that could foster health without a lot of space or time or money (and ideally would activate not just one but multiple healthy behaviors at once).
A DOZEN IDEAS FOR HEALTHY BUILDING
Community gardens on every block - Ron Finley showed that, with a little care, any space could be a garden space. Carving out space to grow food, even if it’s just edible boulevards, can change how people feel and feed themselves.
Fitness trails - We’ve always loved parcourse spaces, simple stations that lead people from exercise to exercise. They were big in the 1970s, and sadly we’ve seen several removed in San Francisco. Bring them back! They work!
Corner stores & ground level retail - In these days of DoorDash and Amazon Prime, devoting space to ground-floor retail seems dicey. But corner stores are where neighbors meet neighbors, and where merchants watch out for their communities. And they matter for health.
Active transportation infrastructure - Instead of car parking, build in better, more secure bicycle storage. And what about community coupons with local bike shops?
Front stoops space - Front stoops are magical places because they are on the transom between public and private space. They should be a common architectural element wherever possible.
Communal cookout space - Why are cookout grills typically only at public parks and beaches (and then right next to the parking lot)? Every apartment building should have a little space with a simple-but-ample charcoal grill and a table set. Ideally on the ground floor near the flow of coming and going, not hidden on the roof or a forgotten back patio.
Dog parks - ‘Ruff said.
Trees and plantings - Shade is essential, and a nice place to sit down and rest should be easy to find.
Flex rooms - Remote work isn’t going away, and more developments should have simple co-working spaces where folks can meet their neighbors. And then that convert to game rooms in the evening or weekends. Think ping pong tables and board games for check out. Also bookable for birthday parties!
Free-play space - We believe in the grid, but one thing we appreciate about cul-de-sacs is they’re great for kickball and block parties. New York City often has tabula rasa playgrounds - spaces that can be adapted for kick ball or four-square or (sorry) pickleball. Paint is your friend. Give the kids some space to create and compete.
Good stairs - What we mean is, inside stairs that don’t just meet code but are actually pleasant to use - wide and well lit (natural light preferably), with plenty of space to go up or down. If you want people to use the stairs, then give them stairs worth climbing.
Libraries for things not just books - We love the idea of tool libraries, and think the concept could be expanded to other goods as well - Kitchen staples? Kitchen appliances? And so forth.
This is a just random list - we’d love to add to it! Let’s help San Francisco and every city think bigger and more creatively about what zoning and building for health might mean. Let's make people’s - all peoples, not just the well off or the well situated - every day lives more meaningful and fun and yes, healthy.
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