In late 1999, the Planning Commission concluded that Hercules had a short
window of opportunity to establish a unified design for an important set of major projects
that would establish the quality of Hercules for the next generation. And the Commission
resolved that the City needed to take bold action, by chartering a once-in-a-lifetime
urban design initiative.
Applying their new knowledge about New Urbanist projects, the Planning
Commission resolved that Hercules required a detailed urban design plan. Commissioners
knew that, to be effective, any such plan must have the force of law. The plan must
therefore provide specific, market-friendly and legally defensible guidance for
developers. The plan must also provide a fair process for getting projects approved.
Indeed, it must be quicker and easier to build projects according to the plan than would
otherwise be possible.
Commissioners gave the Plan a name: the District Plan, referring to the
426-acre central district of mostly vacant land in the center of town. The District Plan
would be a concise, technically sound and financially feasible guidebook for developers
and government to use in delivering a high-quality Central Hercules District. As the work
of professionals in urban design, engineering, marketing, finance and government, the Plan
would reflect the agreed common interests of all the private stakeholders and public
agencies.
To charter such a District Plan set an ambitious goal. To achieve it, the
Planning Commission organized and drove the District Plan Initiative, a project
coordinated by City Staff with the objective of gaining the needed commitments from all
the stakeholders affected by the Plan. The key action in the Initiative was the selection
of the nationally recognized town planning firm of Dover, Kohl and Partners, supplemented
by a team of real-estate, retail, housing and transportation consultants.
The Planning Commission requested and received substantial funding from
the Redevelopment Agency to retain the town planning team. Agency funding was matched
dollar-for-dollar with funding commitments by the key landowners and developers, including
Bixby Land Co. and Catellus Development Corp. Planning Commissioners and staff solicited
these private-sector matching funds.
The District Plan Initiative was headed by a seven-member Steering
Committee, comprised of City officials, staff, prominent citizens and developers’
representatives. Over a period of five months, the Steering Committee made the
arrangements for a Town Meeting and community charrette.
The charrette week was a ten-day series of intensive, hands-on discovery,
brainstorming, problem-solving and sketching sessions. In late June 2000, the planners set
up a temporary urban design in an abandoned bank branch in the local shopping center.
Citizens, developers, city officials, affected regional agencies and the urban planning
consultants, all together, in open meetings, had all the data, people and talent needed to
create an urban design solution specific to Hercules.
Great citizen interest was indicated by the overflow crowd of 400 at the
initial Town Meeting and 300 residents participating in the various events during the
charrette week. A day-long "hands-on" public design session challenged citizens
to "argue with their pencils" on base maps. Formal and informal meetings were
conducted in the open; any interested citizen could walk into the studio to observe the
work or contribute to the evolving design solutions.
