Paul Lukez of Paul Lukez Architecture was the guest speaker at Arlington High School as part of the Arlington Community Education Tuesday Night Conversations Series, moderated by David Witford. The title of this particular discussion was Creating Sustainable Suburbs.

Paul Lukez started the discussion with a presentation on what it means to be sustainable and some examples of sustainable towns or cities and also some sustainable freestanding buildings. Arlington differs from many of the examples given because it is a well established town, as opposed to a planned, sustainable community. Arlington is inherently sustainable because its proximity to the city, public transportation, and the three business districts allow one to walk from almost any part of town to a business center. This last point was brought up by an attendee when Mr. Lukez stated that one of the reasons for Arlington’s lack of identity is that it has three different “nodes”. He agreed that there are definitely advantages to the three separate business districts but chose to highlight Arlington Center as needing a more defined identity. During the discussion, the Mass Ave project did come up and Mr. Lukez was asked to comment on it, but he declined saying he has not looked at the plans in any detail. That being said, many of the comments made by both speakers, Mr. Lukez and Davit Witford, have been paraphrased in discussion in support of the Mass Ave project. Many people felt that too many people drive through town from elsewhere and have no reason or desire to stop. Arlingtonians, themselves, do less driving and the larger thoroughfares actually create barriers, rather than tie the community together. There was collective agreement that more should be done for walkers safety and enjoyment of the town in order to create a sense of place and to bind the community.

In order to accomplish the goals of sustainability, Lukez said a Sustainability Master Plan for the town should be established. To accomplish this, he said, strong leadership backed by a community/neighborhood group is required.