Resilient St. Joseph Community Action Team (CATs)
Notes – October, 2014
System: Neighborhoods and Infrastructure
Vision Statement: A small town that is a collection of neighborhoods connected strongly to the beauty and function
of its unique natural environment while embracing the business and industry that complements its assets.
Goal #1: Foster environmental health and sustainability of natural systems
1. Preserve the health of natural systems that connect the neighborhoods together (tree canopy health,
invasive species, ravine health, etc.)
a. Inventory significant trees – include in a database
i. Responsible party: city, Parks and Rec Commission
b. Adopt a tree maintenance, tree planting, and tree-cutting policy
i. Responsible party: city, Parks and Rec Commission
2. Engage with the parks master plan
3. Study and implement a porous pavement policy
a. Responsible party: City Engineer
4. Create a set of values for streetscapes throughout the city. Match up with MDOT/utilities, etc.
5. Landscape/Street scape the Niles corridor
6. Corridor overlay design zoning standards (landscape/hardscape)
7. Develop a thematic design scheme within nodes (where people gather)
8. 5k and 10k redesigned routes for maximum safety and smooth movement.
9. Integrate green technology into future development
Example: permeable pavement, on-site drainage management, rain gardens)
Goal #2: Enhance existing natural systems and link capacity of natural systems with our man-made needs and
patterns
1. Below bluff and above bluff connected and accessible
a. Better disabled access to get from below the bluff to above the bluff
b. Improved ramp for ADA structures
c. Bathroom facility between Silver Beach and Lion’s Park
2. Consider streets as areas to be enhanced, beautified and improved.
Goal #3: High-functioning infrastructure
1. Research best practices in other successful beach/seasonal communities (physical solutions, programic
solutions)
2. Shorter festivals (like Krasl, not like Venetian)
3. More affordable homes
4. Utilize Kinexus housing study to help drive home policy
5. Inventory the physical uniqueness of each neighborhood. How is their character defined? Uniqueness is
community.
6. Infrastructure to support seasonal population in flux (parking, transportation, non-motorized, hardscape, and
soft scape tied together).
7. Transition areas between shoreline and city streets enhanced and beautified, more accessible to bikes and
peds.
8. WiFi hotspots downtown, parks, beaches
9. Broadband understood as essential infrastructure
10. Buried lines preferred over overhead lines
11. Support the results of SAW grant asset management to improve pavement quality
12. Fill gaps in non-motorized network (bikes and peds)
13. More bike racks
14. Seasonal parking issues solved
a. What does success look like?
b. How should the problem be defined?
c. Trolley system
Goal #4: Neighborhood Character
1. Universal design to help an aging community (e.g. safe crossing of major streets)
2. Enhance and protect neighborhood character
3. Transition areas where land uses change (for example, commercial to residential)
4. PUD provision needs to be reviewed as a city control over sensitive site development
5. Define what neighborhood quality of life is.
a. Green space in neighborhoods is vital
b. Fine tune the definitions in zoning ordinance
c. What is the infrastructure that makes our neighborhoods unique? (soft scape, hard scape)
d. Define the neighborhood ‘geography’ of each
i. Where does one start and another end?
ii. Measure the elements of each neighborhood.