What Exactly Is Transit-Oriented Development?

Ron Silverman is a partner at Cox, Castle & Nicholson.

LOS ANGELES—Developers have been building near public transit stations forever, making the concept of transit-oriented development, even in a car-city like Los Angeles, nothing new. Metro —which is actively looking to boost transit-oriented development projects through public-private partnerships—has a new take. They are looking to create transit-oriented communities, which will create hubs around transit and link the city together. It’s a new take on the term, and a reason for Los Angeles to get excited about the prospect. “Instead of transit-oriented development, Metro is using the phrase transit-oriented communities,” Ron Silverman , a partner at Cox, Castle & Nicholson , tells GlobeSt.com. “I love that concept and I think that they are one in the same. Transit-oriented development has as its premise the if-you-build-it-they-will-come mentality, but transit-oriented communities have the idea that you don’t just build a station but build a plan around a station and incentivize development of multifamily housing and retail. If you can do that, a community will blossom. When that community blossoms, additional development will occur. To me, that is exciting for Los Angeles.”

Andrew Fogg is a partner at Cox, Castle & Nicholson.

These developments are going to have a major impact on growth in the city, and will allow the city to accommodate greater density, according to Silverman and his colleague Andrew Fogg , a partner at Cox, Castle & Nicholson. “If you think about the development of Los Angeles over generations, we have always developed around transit,” Fogg tells GlobeSt.com. “The transit that we are building today is a major part of the infrastructure that we will have in the future, and it is very important to the increase of density. You will frequently here the issue of the last mile problem—which is the issue of how to get people from transit to their final destination—and one of the things that these transit-oriented communities do is that they eliminate that last mile.” This reframing of transit-oriented development will help to create a more united city than transit-oriented projects of the past, and Metro is specifically looking to forge partnerships with developers that understand that vision. “Transit-oriented development is important because it is vitally planned growth for all of our 87 communities of Los Angeles County that will spill over across jurisdictional lines and make this city and our community development synergistic,” adds Silverman. “That is why I find it so exciting.” Fogg shares Silverman’s sentiment about the construction of these communities and the impact that they will have on the city. “The transit-oriented model will allow us to find more density,” he says. “This is smart development and it is development that we should see more in the future. A renewed interest of our urban core is a good thing for us as a society.”