KNIGHT PROGRAM 2002 CHARRETTE WILL FOCUS ON EVERGREEN-EASTRIDGE AREA OF SAN JOSE

October 15, 2002 – University of Miami School of Architecture faculty and students and Fellows associated with UM’s Knight Program in Community Building will travel to San Jose, CA to conduct a charrette – an intensive public exercise in community design – to envision ways to improve the Evergreen-Eastridge neighborhood, which soon will be served by light rail. This event will take place November 13-18 at Eastridge Mall, with daytime and evening meetings to encourage community participation.

San José was selected through a competitive process as the site for the charrette, conducted by the Knight Program. Local sponsors include the San José Mercury News, City of San José, San José Redevelopment Agency, the Silicon Valley Manufacturing Group, and Eastridge Mall.

“The Evergreen-Eastridge area is a lively and diverse neighborhood with tremendous potential,” says Charles Bohl, Director of the Knight Program.  “Residents have already identified a number of issues such as traffic calming, affordable housing, and the need for parks and a community center. The charrette comes at a key moment for the neighborhood and will help the city develop a plan to coordinate the long-term redevelopment of the Eastridge Mall, the incorporation of light rail, and the probable development of the neighborhood’s few remaining undeveloped parcels in the next few years.”

  The charrette study area will cover parts of two Strong Neighborhood Initiative areas, West Evergreen and K.O.N.A. (King and Ocala area), and is intended to build on the ideas and planning that those areas already have accomplished. Through the charrette, the Knight Program will begin to flesh out specific urban design strategies for transit station areas, housing, streets, commercial areas, public parks and plazas for Evergreen-Eastridge. Neighborhood residents, property owners and other stakeholders will be invited to specific sessions, and all of the discussions will be open to the public. Ideas for new development and for improving existing neighborhoods will be drawn by the Knight Program team so participants can review and critique them, refining a community-driven vision for their neighborhoods.

The charrette will be led by this year’s Knight Fellows – an interdisciplinary team of 12 community development professionals from around the country who bring a range of expertise including community development, planning, housing, real estate development, arts management, transportation, architecture, environmental planning, and journalism. The team will be headed by Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, Dean of the University of Miami School of Architecture and principal in the firm Duany Plater-Zyberk, which has created plans for more than 200 communities worldwide. Plater-Zyberk is one of the founders of the Congress for the New Urbanism, a reform movement based on the principles of traditional urbanism that advocates the planning and design of great urban neighborhoods that are walkable, diverse, and economically sustainable, with shopping, civic institutions, parks, and jobs within easy access of residents.

A charrette is a community-wide design process in which members of the public are invited to meet with designers and planners and encouraged to participate in workshop sessions and share their opinions and ideas for the future development and refinement of their community – it is essentially a combination of an urban design studio and a town meeting. The goal is to create a plan that is practical and achieves consensus.

This will be the second charrette conducted by the Knight Program in Community Building, which is funded by a grant from the John L. and James S. Knight Foundation. The first was held last year in Macon, Georgia. For more information about that charrette, go to www.beallshill.net. For more information about the Knight Program in Community Building, go to www.arc.miami.edu/knight. For more information about New Urbanism, go to www.cnu.org.

For more information about the Evergreen-Eastridge Charrette, contact The Knight Program in Community Building at (305) 284-4420 or send an e-mail message to knight@arc.miami.edu. For local information or to find out how to participate, contact Pat Colombe at the City of San José, (408) 277-4576 or e-mail her at pat.colombe@ci.sj.ca.us.

Charrette Schedule