Amsterdam, New York

The city completely revamped zoning in 2017, prior to submitting the winning DRI application. Says Bearcroft, “To have a walkable downtown, you need to have zoning that allows for mixed-use development and moves away from the normal ‘Euclidean’ zoning, especially in the identified downtown core. Relax zoning requirements to allow for multiple mixed uses and cut down on the parking standards – in any successful city, parking is a problem, so you know you’ve made it when parking is an issue. To cut down on that pavement is something the city wanted as well, so we made sure that was up-to-date in the code. Going back to mixed-use, we were looking at a range of housing options, so, if there’s commercial on the first floor, allow apartments on the second floor.” “It was kind of jarring when our consultant mapped our downtown core and something like 75 percent was pavement, which is awful for a downtown you want to be walkable,” she continues. “Through this process, we identified some of the low-hanging fruit we can accomplish, whether it’s streetscape enhancement, including more planting of trees, more beautification efforts, taking away from the larger roadways, and doing more of a road diet for certain streets, as well as looking at removing a huge state arterial that runs through our downtown, which, if completely removed, would enable a whole area of green space for new development. Things like upgrading street lights to LEDs and cutting back on that pavement percentage is a first step we’re trying to accomplish in the downtown.”