Urban Growth Management 229layouts, and potential layouts at a quadrupled density. This higher-density
arrangement illustrates the improved safety, convenience, sociability and aesthetic
appeal of cluster (pocket) layouts for raw land subdivisions giving enhanced street
appeal.
Higher-density provisioning demands better and more design and
landscaping effort. My rubric runs: ‘the increase in design effort must be quadru-
pled as plot density doubles.’ Or, more explicitly, a doubling of net density from
(say) 600 m^2 (6,500 sq. ft) to 300 m^2 calls for a multiplied-by-four input of design at
all levels, and also demands massively improved subdivision design, utilities
design, landscaping, site layout and building
design as well. The ideal grossdensity aimed
for in the average ‘raw land’ context is in
excess of 40 persons per hectare (16 persons
per acre) which includes cycle–foot green-
ways and other community space provision-
ing. This works through in netterms, as 70
persons per hectare (28 persons per acre)
where net includes plots plus half the adjoin-
ing access street. As it is not convenient to
interpret the concept of persons per hectare
or acre, this can be more readily understood
as 30 households netper hectare (12 per acre)
- a self-contained grandparent annex being
also a ‘household’: again net (including
abutting streets and pedestrian walkways,
andexcluding community land for arterial
connections, public open space, playgrounds,
schools and the like). Residential living of
Figure 5.8 Density doubled and design quadrupled.
The frequently expressed TOD depiction originat-
ing with Peter Calthorpe.