Municipal Codes & Regulating Plans
Background Modern-day Sprawl is driven largely by obsolete zoning laws and regulations that mandate segregation of uses. Development is divided into isolated residential, commercial and industrial areas connected by the vast expanses of roadway people must navigate to meet the most basic daily needs. Residential areas are further segregated by home value, resulting in monotonous housing tracts and subdivisions devoid of a sense of community and contributing to racism, classism and the inability of seniors and young adults to find homes in their communities.
Municipalities must now move past their mostly-archaic compilation of comprehensive plans, codes and regulations and rebuild them to reflect the conditions and needs of today. Ideally, this begins with comprehensive, proactive community input and results in a vision for the future and a comprehensive plan that is then is integrated with new codes and regulations. Because this process is costly and takes time, interim mixed-use codes can be implemented strategically – with proactive community input — in certain areas before a new comprehensive plan is done. Interim codes are especially important in controlling and civilizing the national chains and convenience stores that can wreak visual havoc on a community.
Guiding Principles • Make neighborhoods the building blocks of codes. Walkability should dictate ordinances for block size, street width, and connectivity. • Adopt New Urbanist standards for large-scale development of greenfields and major redevelopment sites. Encourage redevelopment subject to New Urbanist standards such as minimum residential densities, interconnected streets, and mix of uses. Traditional Neighborhood Develeopment (TND) ordinances are one way to set clear regulatory standards. • In communities with high bus or rail transit accessibility, adopt special standards for Transit-oriented Development. Higher density residential and commercial buildings are best suited to areas with pedestrian access to transit stations. • Require essential design elements by adopting prescriptive rather than permissive provisions. Set codes that will contribute to the overall consistency and reflect a vision for the design of a community. • Incorporate New Urbanist provisions into all parts of the municipal code that affect planning, design, and development. Subdivision regulations should be infused with New Urbanist provisions thus affecting development within the public works department in addition to planning and community development departments. • Integrate standards for streets, blocks, and buildings. Organize regulations by street type. Unique design guidelines can be assigned to boulevards, main streets and squares, residential streets and alleys. • Use graphics. Include illustrations within the code. A picture can communicate more effectively what is or what isn't permitted. • Create procedural incentives that make New Urbanist development more advantageous than conventional development. Speeding up the approval process for good design is a powerful incentive.
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