Morrisville Charrette

The Vermont Design Institute held a design charrette in Morrisville November 1999. The Town of Morrisville was very keen on having us hold a charrette there for a variety of reasons, but perhaps the most pressing was their concern for the downtown due to the "truck bypass" which is currently under design and engineering at the Agency of Transportation. The townspeople recognized that this bypass will have as yet unknown impacts on their town as a whole, and very specifically on the village itself. In trying to think proactively and strategically about their town the Design Review Board, Planning Commission, and Select Board chose to not only hold a full design charrette, but also to work with Orton Family Foundation on a video of the community, and with Vital Communities on a day-long community visioning activity. Kudos to them for activating all this energy!

The charrette broke from the usual pattern of having several teams work on a design for the same location or problem. In this case, rather than multiple teams working on the same site, we thought it more useful for the town to have four teams working on various aspects of concern. These were: Gateways, New Growth Area, Downtown, and an overall "Visionary" team. The work involved:

• Reviewing the issues of the "by-pass," growth center, and downtown
• Developing drawings and planning that elucidated some of the local concerns and drew out the interconnectedness of the issues, and suggesting some new directions and vision for the area!

All four teams dealt with key components of what Morrisville, and many other towns in Vermont are facing. The goals were to give Morrisville some direct design help, as well as to develop an example what might be useful for other towns.

Highlights from each team:

Gateways:
This team of Michael Oman, Nat Goodhue, Kirsten Seibert, Eleanor dePonte, and Jane Sorenson worked on three key intersections--the north and south ends of the bypass where it would connect to the existing Routes 15 and 100 respectively, and Bridge Street. Several options of designs at these intersections were developed that included traffic calming features, as well as reflecting a road hierarchy that maintained the downtown as a priority.

New Growth Area:
This team included Michael Hoffman, Jane Brown, Faith Ingulsrud, and Bob White. They worked on identifying key design and development issue for the designated growth area north of the traditional downtown. Interestingly, they tried to build stronger physical ties to the downtown area with additional housing and a pedestrian bridge across the river.

Downtown:
This team was made up of Diane Gayer, Kathleen Ryan, Brian Burke, Sue Minter and Jill Michaels. They looked at infill and build-out capacity within the downtown, the opportunity of historic renovations to key brick buildings along the river, and parking and circulation issues. In addition, there was discussion about strength of the downtown merchants and suggestions for an association.

Overall Vision:
The visionary team was Dave Sellers, Jan Mueller, Steve Libby, and Cindy Knauf. Their task was to look at the big picture. They identified key desire lines and circulation patterns; and suggested a growth boundary defined by natural areas and agricultural lands to focus the development energy into the center thereby keeping the economic strength and popular heart of the community from dissipating into the hinterland.

For more information contact either:

Diane Gayer, Vermont Design Institute (802) 355-2150,
or Nat Goodhue, ASLA ngoodhue@stowevt.net (802) 253-2121.