There are two train station-related discussions that never took place — with the public, at the Planning Commission, or even at the City Council level — and that is unfortunate. They are…

• the decision to build a plaza-based minimalist station instead of a singular signature multi-use building; and
• the decision for a more modern (or contemporary) design instead of a traditional one.

None of this matters anymore. The process was flawed, but it has been salvaged with the past few months of public meetings. Most important, community input has been integrated into the final design. And it is a good one.

But it does bring us back to the beginning again.

The original Szabo plan would have destroyed New Urbanism in the Waterfront. (What we have now is a far cry from the Szabo plan. The station will be impressive architecturally and a part of the neighborhood, not a suburban sprawl commuter hub isolated from the surrounding community.) Why was there a Szabo plan anyway? Why was there an effort to give up on New Urbanism in the Waterfront?

New Urbanism is not something that can be added in pockets. In order to be successful — in order to marry homes, businesses, shopping, schools, parks and transit, and succeed in the long-term — New Urbanism must be the entirety of the development. There is no here-and-there. And there is no turning back.

When this City documented its desires for the Waterfront in its 2000 charette, it embraced New Urbanism, which remains a uniquely different, and arguably more difficult and costlier method of building a community. In a sense, the City climbed the ladder to the high platform (a diving analogy). With the proposed Szabo plan, the City not only descended the ladder, but left the pool facility altogether.

The passing of the Waterfront Now initiative (even with its failings) resurrected New Urbanism in the Waterfront — in fact, it codified it. And the most recent station design plays into that. We are back on the high platform with our toes over the water. Now it is time to dive in.

That being said, George Szabo remains as town architect, contracted specifically with oversight of the Waterfront. Residents are blindly relying on his “vision” to carry-through New Urbanism in the Waterfront, yet he has no background in New Urbanism, and his station design was labeled by himself as a big-box solution, the antithesis of New Urbanism design.

The intermodal station design team has repeatedly stated — for the record — that George Szabo has had very little input on the design process. That is a good thing. But that begs the question: Why are we paying him at all? What does he do? (Szabo has also been tasked with the redesign of the City Hall complex, and has reportedly come forward with a complete derivation from the oft-praised previous Opticos design. That is correct: The City has hired George Szabo to redesign a building that was well-received. See signature train station, also designed by Opticos, however preliminary.)

It is time for the City to regain the long-term vision that was first outlined in the 2000 charette, and subsequently codified in the Waterfront Now initiative, and hire a New Urbanism architect to oversee the development of the Waterfront, and beyond. There is a lot of development in the City remaining — one or two decades in the Waterfront alone, plus Hilltown, New Town Center and Cinema Town, the proposed grocery store adjacent to Victoria-by-the-Bay, and now, the City-owned Walmart property.

This City has a vision. It is New Urbanism. We need a town architect that shares our vision and values.