Building Valued Neighborhoods Conference October 9, 2008

The Building Valued Neighborhoods conference sponsored by the City of Cincinnati and the Urban Land Institute, included a variety of perspectives: developers, architects, city/county staff, and political leaders. The conference showed how form-based codes, also called smart codes, can be useful tools to build well-designed neighborhoods. Form-based codes have the following goals:

1. Providing certainty for developers and residents alike as to what future development will look like. Rather than creating an adversarial situation with a zone change and a conventional zoning code, form-based codes define the form of future development in a design-based public participation process.

Conventional Zoning	Form-Based Code
What can’t be done (prescriptive)	What can be done (proscriptive)
Minimum setbacks	Build-to lines
Focus on use and density	Focus on built form, streets, public realm

2. Creating a mix of housing types to meet the changing market demand. Families with a married couple and children only make up about 23% of the housing market. Other groups are “settling” for typical suburban single-family homes when they would prefer something different. Traditional neighborhood development can accommodate a variety of single-family homes, townhomes, apartments, shops, and public facilities to meet the market demand.

3. Encouraging efficient use of land and preserving natural resources (“Smart Growth”). Allowing for a mix of uses and compact development encourages pedestrian activity and makes transit use more feasible. Conventional zoning encourages large lot sprawl and undesirable streetscapes. Form-based codes provide a tool for clustering development when desired.

4. Adding value to quality of life by creating desirable public places. Form-based codes focus on “transects” that can vary from urban to suburban to rural. By focusing on the appropriately designed form for the transect, development has character. Streets are a major focus in form-based codes. Buildings address the street creating a more appealing atmosphere, and amenities such as street trees contribute to creating a place where people enjoy walking, shopping, and relaxing.

Conference Website
http://cincycharacter.com/

Lenox Village – Regent Homes
http://www.regenthomestn.com/

Gulch Redevelopment – Downtown Nashville
http://www.nashvillegulch.com/living/index.html

Examples of Traditional Neighborhood Development
http://www.tndtownpaper.com/neighborhoods.htm

Nashville’s Form-Based Code
http://www.nashville.gov/mpc/

Louisville’s Form-Based Code
http://www.louisvilleky.gov/PlanningDesign/

The Origin of New Urbanism’s Persistent Image Problem September 10, 2008

This insightful article gives a bit of context to the “new urbanist” view.

The cause of this odd mismatch between New Urbanists and old urbanists goes to the root of how American cities are built. The new urbanist’s ideology was forged as a reaction to the suburban built environment as they found it, one urban thinkers have had a small role in shaping. Nearly as soon as they allowed themselves to believe their ideas had created the suburbs, center city intellectuals began a decades-long ineffectual barrage on their culture, form, and aesthetics, while meanwhile celebrating urban life. (Works by Lewis Mumford, Jane Jacobs, Herbert Gans, William Whyte fit into these categories.) And suburban growth, minimally or rarely designed by intellectual leaders, barreled on, oblivious to the protestations of critics. The growth was often planned, but by profit-motivated companies and pragmatic municipal governments.

The Origin of New Urbanism’s Persistent Image Problem | Planetizen.

How will West Chester grow? June 1, 2008

West Chester has been in the news a lot lately with the opening of the new IKEA store in Union Centre, a new bus route planned from downtown Cincinnati to West Chester, and a potential move for GE to the area. As our region grows we have the opportunity to make things better through good planning. Michael Lewyn blogs for Planetizen, and identifies two kinds of sprawl: “where we grow” and “how we grow”.

With the availability of a lot of land in the region, and declining economic conditions in established neighborhoods, the Cincinnati region certainly needs to address “where we grow”. To create a common vision that can be achieved, local jurisdictions need to work together in the Cincinnati region and beyond. This is not an easy task, particularly with strong “local rule” in Ohio and a region that is extremely politically fragmented.

In many ways “how we grow” is easier to implement at the local level. Lewyn describes this variety of sprawl “as development oriented towards drivers as opposed to nondrivers”. The new urbanist inspired Union Centre has potential to be a lively mixed use development oriented towards people rather than cars. Future development does, too. A new bus route, intended to bring workers from downtown to the new low paying retail jobs, might be a step in the right direction, in that people can take transit to this destination. What is even better is if those who can choose to drive, choose instead to take transit, walk, or bike to and around Union Centre.

The potential move of GE to West Chester, consolidating two offices currently in Cincinnati and one in West Chester, would not actually be growth for the region, but a shifting of jobs from one place to the next. Therefore, it doesn’t seem to be a boon for the region. Moving jobs farther away from employees, as with busing downtown residents to West Chester, does not seem to be a good idea. While I’m an advocate for improved regional planning, and realize that this really needs to happen to make the entire region stronger, I encourage local entities to make the best use of the powers they have, to create developments that are well-planned. We should create desirable places that attract people and jobs, not attract people and jobs without understanding or caring about the places that get created.