Reporter’s Notebook

SHAPING THE FUTURE, ONE GLUE STICK AT A TIME

There are few things as fun to me as land use planning. I may be in the lonely minority who admit it, but I think deep down we’re all pretty excited about it.

My suspicion was confirmed Wednesday night sitting in the Gaiser Middle School cafeteria armed with the promise of markers and a glue stick.

(I’ll skip all of the anecdotes about my angst of being unsure which was the “cool” table and not knowing whether anybody would like me enough to let me sit there.)

There has been a push to clean up Highway 99 and create a subarea plan to promote a safe, desirable, walkable and healthy corridor instead of the concrete jungle it has become.

Clark County planners and Team 99, a coalition of business leaders, neighbors and property owners, have done a tremendous amount of work to lay the groundwork for the area’s redevelopment. Now, the county has brought on Seattle-based MAKERS Architecture and Urban Design to help with the upcoming subarea plan.

So what was with the glue sticks? We got to be the planners!

As neighbors, businesspeople, patrons (and in my case, a writer) who live and breathe the area, we got designate what we thought should be corridor’s focal points, what pockets ought to be zoned certain ways and where traffic arterials should be placed. It was a much lower-tech version of SimCity.

There were heated debates. There was laughter. There was community connection.

And it was fun.

-Megan Patrick-Vaughn can be reached at mpatrick@vbjusa.com