LONGMONT-A Florida-based design team set up shop at the Dickens Opera House Thursday in a quest for ideas on creating a new neighborhood with a turn-of-the-century flavor.

Andres Duany is in Longmont with nine architects, designers and planners from Florida-based DPZ Architects Inc. to design a neo-traditional Village on 80 acres at Pike Road and Main Street.

Kiki Wallace is the owner and developer Of the project called Burlington Village.

The key issue, Duany said, is creating a community that brings people together as opposed to suburban developments that he said alienate people.

"Urban sprawl is not laissez faire," he said. "People say it is uncontrolled growth - but that's not true. This is the model America has intended and committed itself to. Cities have changed their codes one by one so that traditional villages have become illegal."

Developers and builders sell only two ideas, Duany said. One is a view and the other is having a lot of space. "But they forget one important thing - the sense of community which is becoming more and more important to people," he said.

The idea of getting back to communities is not intended to stop growth. That won't work, Duany said. When cities try to stop growth, prices skyrocket and the current city government is voted out in the next election. And people start developing their greenbelt.

"We want to design a community in the way we think growth should happen," he said.

Modern developments fail, according to Duany, because people are clustered together in homes all the same size and price.

"The American dream has become the McMansion. But as soon as you leave your yard you are in the ugliest world possible."

In a traditional community, the streets are narrow so pedestrians become equal to cars. Small shops are interspersed with houses where people gather, and people walk rather than drive. The streets are on a grid and are lined with trees.

"Creating a sense of place is so simple - it's all in the packaging. This development (Burlington Village) is a small project for us. We will have some time on time one, so we may push the edge of the environmental envelope and develop an environmental and energy efficient community, because we think it would be popular here."

The design team plans several more sessions with community members to gather ideas.