What is Advanced Dedication?
Advanced dedication is to dedicate a portion of the land area to the public right of way to achieve more substantial connectivity, accessibility, and walkability within the development. It seems a simple concept, but the existence of this incentive guideline can be traced back to the history of a city block in the United States.
City Block
City blocks form the basis of a location’s urban fabric; they could be subdivided into smaller lots designated for different ownerships. The shape of the block creates the physical edge of buildings and our public spaces. Most cities encompass harmonious-sized blocks, but some have more significant variance.
Across cities in the United States, Portland in Oregon has the more fine urban grain; each block is about 200–220 feet square. On the other hand, Salt Lake City in Utah has more extensive urban grain; most blocks are about 500–600 feet in length with various rectangular shapes.
Superblock
A superblock is an area bounded by arterial roads with the size of the combination of multiple standard-sized city blocks. With the influence of modernism in architecture and urban planning, these huge-sized city blocks without any cut-through passageways were popular during the 1920–1950s. That type of neighborhood also reinforced more automobile dependency.
One representative superblock project is the Radburn community in New Jersey: the network roads within the planning area are mostly dead-end streets and cul-de-sacs. The planning concept aimed to separate vehicular and pedestrian traffic. Thus, its superblocks were complemented by an internal pedestrian path that connected the entire sector.
Example of Earning [Advanced Dedication] Points
Many planning divisions encourage developments to create more connectivity within the neighborhood. Take Montgomery Couty’s incentive density guideline as an example; the incentive points are calculated on a sliding scale that allows up to 8 points in the LSC zone, 15 points in the EOF zone, and 30 points in the CRT and CR zone.
The formula is as follows:
D (dedicated land area) divided by N (net lot after dedication) multiple 100 will get the incentive point.
This site is located in CRT/CR zone and has a land area of about 303,700 square feet. 70,100 square feet of the land area is dedicated to the public right-of-way. With the formula in mind, the equation is 70,100 square feet (dedicated land area)/233,600 (net lot after dedication) =30%. Thus gain 30 points
Additional Sustainable Credit
According to one of LEED-ND Prerequisite-Connected and Open Community, locating a project with at least 90 intersections per square mile is considered a “smart location” strategy.
Images below are the example we can find in our urban area.
What’s The Takeaway?
“it promotes multi-modal transportation and improves walkability and other physical activities, benefiting overall public health.”
A finer-grained neighborhood does not promote multi-modal transportation but also improves walkability and other physical activities, which benefits overall public health. In general, it takes about an average of 20–30 mins for a pedestrian to walk a one-mile-long path. If most essential services are within walking distance, the residents will likely finish their shopping or daily chores on foot, further increasing their chance of exercising.
