Form-Based Codes:Zoning Innovation for Policy Change

Wonderful. All right, going to go ahead and get us started here. Uh, welcome everyone to On the Park Bench, a public square conversation brought to you by the Congress for the new urbanism. On the Park Bench presents interactive conversations with thought leaders in new urbanism and allied industries providing an opportunity for the audience to engage in real time. The webinar series is a platform for CNU members and allies to engage debate and collaborate on the pressing issues of today. Today our on the park bench webinar is formbbased codes zoning innovation for policy change with Marta Goldmith, Karen Perole and Marcus King. If you have thoughts about On the Parkbench, you can share those at www.tinyurl.com/onthearkbench feedback. And you can also stay tuned for upcoming on the parkbench webinars. You can go to our website cmu.orgresources/onthearkbench. And now for today's webinar, we are joined by Marta Goldmith, Karen Prolle, and Marcus King. Marta Goldsmith is the director of the formbbased codes institute where she oversees all programming including technical assistance, educational offerings, and a dry house award for formbbased codes. Prior to joining Smart Growth America, Martyr was senior vice president and chief operating officer at LRG, Inc., a public affairs and nonprofit management firm. She has served as senior adviser to the commissioner of the public building service GSA and chief operating officer of the institute for transportation and development policy a global NGO that advises cities in emerging economies on sustainable transport and urban development projects. Karen Perolik is the principal and CFO of Optic Coast Design where she's a passionate advocate for diverse, equitable, walkable, walkable and rollable communities, user centered design thinking, and impact driven business. Karen's efforts redesigning zoning codes for cities in the US and abroad have helped revolutionize the way we regulate land development in our communities to reinforce more walkable sustainable places and have led to her recognition as a national expert in form-based coding and zoning reform. In 2008, she co-wrote the book form-based codes with Paul Crawford and Daniel Perolik. In addition, as the chief as the chief architects of the missing middle housing movement, Karen and her firm advocate for missing middle housing as both a critical element of walkable communities and an effective tool to address the needs for housing choice and affordability. Marcus King is the managing principle of fabric design. Fabric design strives to help people and organizations build better lifestyles through contextual, sustainable, and people centric design. As an architect, he has designed projects as small as residential roof repairs to 50 plus unit mixeduse apartment buildings with multi-billion dollar budgets. As an urban designer, the teams he has worked with have produced award-winning, published, and codified master plans for cities like Atlanta, Savannah, Georgia, and Nanjing, China. This intimate understanding of the built environment at every scale is present in every project. It is a critical part in making sure that no building or any other urban component system operates in isolation but as an important piece to assist to a much more elaborate neighborhood system. And I'm Lauren Mayor. I am the communications manager at CNU. So today's topic conventional zoning is founded on principles of separation. Not only land uses but also racial and ethnic groups, poor, rich and poor, large and small. Form-based codes are based on principles of integration, land uses, building forms, modes of transportation, building types. Because of these foundational differences, policymakers are looking to form-based codes and form-based zoning to create communities that are healthier, more equitable, diverse, and sustainable, and where prosperity is shared more widely. Today's conversation will focus on the why and how of using formbbased codes to shape policy changes. So now I am going to turn it over for Marcus to start his PowerPoint and then I will open this conversation with a moderated discussion with the panelists. We will then open up to questions from the audience. So please use the Q&A function of Zoom to ask your questions as they occur to you. All right. And so to start, Marcus, can you discuss the separationist roots of conventional or uklidian zoning, please? Yeah, absolutely. Um, so f first, I'd like to thank um CNU, Lauren, Rob uh for for allowing this sort of form to happen. Um, honored to be alongside uh my two colleagues, Marta and and Karen. to talk about this particular uh topic. I will preface uh there there is you might hear some noise in my background. There's a tree being being cut down. So I apologize for that. Um but to the question um I I think um there's this sort of notion um historically that um the idea of zoning sort of came uh to us as a as a people as a society um uh with the the goal of sort of protecting uh property and I and I think there's a there's a lot of truth to that but through a lot of the research and and the teaching that I've done. I I really be began to wrestle and discover that the the notion of Uklitian zoning um um before it was even called that is really founded in this idea of sort of segregationist roots roots. And when I say segregationist, I don't I don't mean segregation strictly on racial lines, although those are part of the conversation. There's other forms of segregation which all three of us will talk about, I'm sure, today. Um but but one of the things I like to start with when I'm teaching classes or or doing lectures about um zoning in general, but in particular form based uh zoning and contrasting the two um is that zoning isn't new. You know, I I often give the example of uh something like the Greek Acropolis where uh the the top of the hill, right, was this sort of set aside land specifically for temples to deities, right? U so this idea of setting aside land to to be something in particular is not a new notion but in the American context I think um um it really is founded in this idea of segregationist and so this slide that I'm showing here is is really some of the sort of initial nent zoning codes or precursors to zoning codes that were passed before the code that I think we all think started it all which is the New York City 1916 code. Um all these codes right here that I'm showing here uh were passed and put in place before that. And you'll notice four of them are in red. And these are all the ones that uh regula regulated land not based on sort of form measures which is what you know primarily uh buildings have been sort of founded and and organized on prior to this point. But they're these four that I'm highlighting here are are are based on regulating uses and users. Uses and users, right? It has nothing to do with form. It has everything to do with what's occupying the building and who is occupying the building or a combination of the two, right? And so, you know, again, when we talk about uklitian zoning uh versus uh a form-based zoning, which is sort of governed us for the larger part of human history, I would argue um uh this is really the splitting line here is that there's a there's there's a sort of segregationist element that has been embedded in this sort of at least in the American way we we start to regulate in zone laying, there's this embedded um um uh sentiment and philosophy of things needing to be separated and segregated from one another either based on a use or a user. That makes sense. Wonderful. And that goes right into our second question here, which is how have these historic trends shaped the physical and social landscapes of in many of our cities? you want me to tackle that one or Yeah. Mar Marcus, why don't you go ahead and um continue? I know you have some other slides that addresses this. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Um so, so historically um I think um the way this has transpired and I I'll sort of begin with the racial element uh but again this sort of racial element is just one component of it. Um but but because we sort of got in into this sort of momentum of regulating specifically and in some instances unilaterally along uses and users. Um it this mechanism was used to um as as I mentioned before um segregate individuals uh particularly um uh those people of color uh but also undesirable immigrants as well. And this is I use that particular language because that's a specific language used in these federal documents to segregate and separate people. Um so I think this is a good time to sort of show these these next two slides here. Um uh because they talk about the connection between the philosophy of uh zoning based on uses and users and then assigning um other zoning layers if you will on top of them. Um um I I' I've found this is sort of the case in just about every city that sort of embraced the idea of uh uklidian zoning in the 20s and 30s. There's this relationship between the zoning code itself and the uh sort of economic and policy measures that were layered on top of it. And I think it's sort of best seen in this map here, that that wasn't passed in in its original form, which I'm showing here on the left, Atlanta's 1922 code, um, where it's explicitly zoning and calling out, um, um, uh, race as a zoning measure, uh, that was strucken down by the Supreme Court. Um, but what we see is the links between the two, right? So on the left, you have Atlanta's zoning code. I'm highlighting for clarity the um uh the R1 district or as it was known before it was uh sort of struck struck down by the Supreme Court, the white district and then R2 and then the R3 districts which are specifically uh areas of the city that were zoned for uh color folks and I use those in quotations because that was the terms that was used or other undesirable immigrants um um and that and everyone that fit into that category. And if you compare and contrast the two maps here, so on the right is the HOLC map or colloally called the red lining map, you'll see similarities between the two, right? So, uh, keep your eyes on the purple area around the periphery and then the blue areas in the concentrated in the in the center of the city of Atlanta. Um, and if we overlap the two, you you'll see the relationship. So just about 90 95% of all the areas that African-Americans and undesirable immigrants were allowed to live in based on this zoning code just so happened to fall within the redlinined areas. If you know anything about redlinining, these are the the areas of the city where um uh residents could not access loans or loans that were backed by and insured by the federal government. Um and if they did access them, they were they were given undesirable terms. Um uh they weren't able to access um um uh um um instantaneous equity. And then on the opposite end of the spectrum, you have this other segregated group um um that is able to benefit from the uh the giving out of federal back loans and all that stuff, right? And so here we see an instance where the sort of segregationist sentiment of zoning by a race allows for the ease of of propagating these other segregationist philosophies attached to them. Right? And again you can find the sort of phenomenon that that um that happens just about every city. I'll end by saying uh because of this sort of relationship um it has sort of propagated other um malicious things in the built environment um and I would argue has set us or set cities up in the modern sense um um um to be illprepared to address things that we're seeing in our built environments today. Things like affordable housing, housing equity, um um housing uh quantities in general. um it's sort of uh um the the segregation of sentiment that happened early on has sort of um dominoed effect into other aspects of the built environment and and other aspects of social life as well and economic life uh to add to that. So, it really is a a complex a complex uh um issue here and I would and that really addresses um I think directly the social landscape that is um produced by um the the historic zoning and um I would add also that particularly uh like Atlanta and Houston and many other sunb belt cities most of the city's growth occur occurred after the advent of the car. So the separation of uses was exacerbated um and led to significant sprawl in these cities where there was the opportunity to use the car to separate uh not only groups of um income groups and racial groups and ethnic groups but also uses. So that anytime uh you wanted to leave your house and go buy something or go to work or um even go to go to uh the recreation area that you had to have a car and that these areas really are scattered across the landscape in a in a highly unsustainable and autodependent way. Um and Karen, I know you you had additional thoughts on this. Marcus, did you want to talk? I do, but Marcus, did you want to talk about this slide first and then we can jump to the next two slides? I can talk more. Yeah, really quickly. I I think what Martyr was sort of bringing up is is is what these two diagrams sort of illustrate here. I mean, this is taken from that that 1920s Atlantic code. And um uh the caveat here or or the the backstory here is that, you know, that that map that I showed you before wasn't codified because it specifically mentioned race. uh the only thing that was changed to get it codified was the removal of race. And so you still have the R1 district and the R2 district with the same mechanisms overlaid on top of it. Um but uh uh these sort of diagrams here illustrate exactly what Martyr was sort of talking about, right? How we we're segregating against race or along racial lines, but we're also segregating along using lines, right? And these diagrams sort of compare and contrast that. Which which would you rather have? Would you rather have this sort of monotonous single-use neighborhood or do you want to have these, you know, back then, you know, these sort of uh uh undesirable things mixed in your neighborhood, right? That was sort of the trend of the day. And the same thing with with dwellings and stores, right? It was it was the trend of that particular time, unfortunately, to to shun the sort of mixing of uses throughout a neighborhood, right? And and this was made possible just as as Marty was saying because of the vehicle. Um you know we you were able to think like this because the car was going to save us all, right? Um and I think these diagrams um that were codified talk it talk exactly to that that notion and that that way of thinking I think. Yeah. And Marcus, do you want to go to the next slide? You know, and the result directly these are these are slides from a group called desegregate Connecticut. If you're not familiar with them and you're on this webinar, um you're probably very interested in the work they're doing. They were formed uh in the wake of George Floyd's murder and the kind of increased attention on these issues. And they Connecticut is actually one of our most segregated states in the United States. And they formed specifically to focus on desegregating the state of Connecticut. Um and this was again two years ago. Um and some some of what they've done is created a zoning atlas of all the zoning in Connecticut. And on the left hand side, everything in purple is where single family houses are allowed in the state of Connecticut. And on the right hand side, those tiny dots of purple are where forplexes are allowed. So what you can see is the vast majority of the state, you can have detached single family zoning, but you can't have any you can't have anything more than that. You can't have duplexes or forplexes or more housing. And this is the direct result of everything Marcus was talking about. Essentially, by taking the R1 white zone and the R2 colored zone, removing white and removing color, they replaced R1 with detached single family and R2 with multiple units. And the and that overlaid with the the um homeowners loan corporation maps was a way to keep the R1 zone white because only white people could get loans through the federal government. And so by zoning something detached single family zone, you were essentially zoning it white only even though you didn't actually have the label on it. And that is true across the country. Herbert Hoover in particular when he was secretary of commerce uh in the early 1920s and then when he became president when he was secretary of commerce he um was on the advisory committee on zoning which actually developed a manual on why cities should adopt zoning. Um and then they actually created a model zoning law which is very much what was photocopied city by city across our United States. And he was a um you know this was the power of the southern democrats that were actually bringing segregation across the United States. And this information is from the book that I'm sure hopefully all of you are aware about this color of law by Richard Rothstein. and he goes into detail about the history of how this idea of detached single family zoning in particular um and the advent of the car and the the loans um took what in many places were actually desegregated areas and segregated them across the United States using um using the verbiage of detached single family zones rather than the verbiage of white only but that was the impact of it and so when you look across the United States Marcus can go to the next slide this these are some maps that were done by the New York Times that show the percentage of in different cities across the United States the percentage of land that's dedicated to detached single family homes only. And so historically these were areas that were bes had a huge impact on our on the development of our society on equity building for people. um as those you know when those sprawling areas were kind of higher um and are still um uh more higher higher appraisal appraisal values and so there's more equity in the homes and so another book um that's great this book know your price um Andre Perry from the Brookings Institute talks about how the different appraisal values of homes to this day the appraisal inst the appraisal industry is over 99% of appraisers are white to this day and they're appraising homes. There's proven data about approving homes in white homes at a higher value of than black homes and and uh majority black neighborhoods. And the equity issues um in in our in our society today that are still um the that uh black households still have a much lower financial equity than white households. And a lot of it has to do with this kind of segregation that started in the 1910s and 20s. Um and so that separation and then the separation of the car. And there was very much propaganda campaigns that that instit that kind of um uh um encouraged white flight. Um you know, buy your car, get your house in the suburban area and you know, move out move out of the dirty city. Um and all of this is part of that whole story. Dangerous city. Yeah. Exactly. Right. dirty dangerous. Um Karen, I think it's worth um just stopping for a second and looking in this at these maps and and acknowledging that the housing crisis that most cities large, small, anywhere in the country are facing today. I I at the CNU conference, I did a presentation and I stopped and asked how many of you are from a community where you have identified a housing crisis. you don't have enough housing and the housing is too expensive for the people who live there and who will live there. And just about everybody in the room raised their hand, you know. So, if you recognize that somewhere between 70 and 95% of the land in most cities around the country is zoned single family detached. um and the limitations on the cost and the high cost of providing single family detached housing even without the other financial constraints that were racially and socially driven. This is the direct result and this is why so many states today are going back and looking at their enabling legislation to rethink um what they allow and what they require of local governments um with regard to multif family. And we're not talking high-rise multif family. We're talking duplexes and triplexes and triplexes and and and quadruplexes. So it's really I mean this is the story of the roots of the housing crisis that we're experiencing in our country now. Yeah. And I think to the other points that were made right this this separation that was started by uklitian zoning you know has been detrimental to all of us right it was clearly detrimental to um people of color and their ability to generate wealth their ability to to um live in areas with good schools. Richard Rothstein wrote his book Color of Law after a career of trying to desegregate school and education and deal with the education gap. But it also has impacted the rest of us because of our, you know, two-hour commutes in a car every day and our ability, you know, to to, you know, all of what CNU is about, our ability to walk to school and walk to the grocery store and take transit to work um and live in a connected community. um and you know and things like they say that integrated schools are actually the best education across the board for everyone. That's been proven um and integrated living is the same and yet the vast majority of our country is not experiencing that um in all in in lots of different ways. So this has impacted everyone um and in at lots of different levels and so that's where you you know form coding is part of the solution to that which we'll get to but a big piece of it um as Marta was saying is this idea of the miss what we call the missing middle housing the duplexes and the forplexes which are one way of opening up the detached single family zoning areas right so opening up the detached single family zoning to multiple units in the same kind of uh scale and form as the existing as the existing housing But that's on top of all the other things that form-based codes do, which are essentially um how you regulate for a mixeduse zone. I think many many cities have realized that single-use zones are not good for creating good city environments. And what they're doing is they just keep creating new mixeduse zones, right? So they'll keep their R1 zone and they'll keep their commercial zone, but now they keep adding all these mixeduse zones, but they don't have any way to actually regulate that because the conventional zoning is so based on a separation of use. Um and so cities are get getting larger and larger percentage of mixed use zones with no actual good way to zone for that. So we'll talk about all of that coming up. There's a really interesting um question regarding homeowners uh have who have most of their assets in their home and as a result of that worrying about the impact of reszoning uh on on that on the the value of their homes and being resistant to resoning. But um I I would like to I think um learn move and get into questions about formbbased codes and then we can come back to this question looking at the whole picture if that's okay. Yep. I I think yeah I think our discussion about formbbased codes might allude to to an answer to that question a little bit. Right. Right. So I want to acknowledge it and and we'll incorporate it in our comments down the road. Wonderful. Well, on that front, uh, our next question is, how do formbbased codes differ from Uklitian zoning? Karen, if it's okay, maybe you'll start, uh, the discussion about this. Yeah, happy to talk about that. Um, so, as we talked about, conventional zoning is about separation. The baseline, what the zone is actually labeled on is use. And so there's a residential zone, might be an R1 zone, a different residential zone, a commercial zone, an industrial zone, and everything is is separated, and it's separated by use. Um, and then secondarily, they'll start to add other regulations based on that use. Um, but those regulations tend to be um, uh, they're not prescriptive regulations, so they're kind of preventing, one of my favorite examples is a setback. So they'll say the building has to be at least 5 feet back from the right ofway, but it can be anywhere back. So the community has no way to understand where that building is actually going to land. You know, they just know that it's going to be at least 5 feet from the setback, but it could be five feet, it could be 20 feet back from the setback. So there's no predictability that comes out of the regulations. Density is another regulation that there's no predictability that comes out of it. In fact, um Tony Perez in our office talks about density as an output, right? We want a whole neighborhood to come out to a resultant density, but we don't want each every lot to have that ex exact density. Um, and so conventional zoning uses things like setbacks and density and um floor area ratio. Uh, FS, which again is unpredictable. A floor area ratio could have a floor area ratio of one means you could have a singlestory building that covers the entire lot or you could have a four-story building that covers a fourth of the lot or you could have a 16story building that covers a 16th of the lot. So again, there's no predictability. So conventional zoning separates by use, requires that you um have transportation between those different zones throughout your day. Um and then it doesn't do a good job of regulating actually what's going to get built. And what that leads to is then um the people will, you know, developers or builders will design based on the zoning what they think they want to build on that lot. And then the community comes back and says, "No, no, no, that's not what we wanted." And the developer says, "Well, but that's what I'm allowed to do by the zoning code." And the community says, "Well, yeah, but that's way too far back in the sidewalk and it's, you know, it's way too tall and there's not enough green space." And this unpredictability then leads to this discre need for the community to have a discretionary review process because they don't have any way to know from the zoning code what's actually going to get built. Um and so uklitian zoning has set us all up for failure. It's more expensive to build because the developers have to redesign over and over again because of the discretionary review process. The community has to stay involved on every project reviewing and checking. It's exhausting um to have to to have to do that. Um, and what gets built is not actually creating a place because it's so unpredictable. It's actually each lot is being designed separately and it's not contributing to creating a a a space um a place that we all want to live in. Um, formbbased codes really flip that on its head in multiple ways. And forbased codes, the idea of form-based codes are that our public spaces are shaped by our by our buildings. And so what a zoning code should do as representing the community is a zoning code should define how the buildings as private buildings should shape our public space. And I describe it as our streets. The buildings are essentially the walls of our of our streets. They're the walls of our public space. And so what form is codes are most concerned about is the form of the building and how it shapes our public space. And what happens kind of behind that kind of front facade of the building is is less important. And so the most important thing rather than the use in uklitian zoning and forbased coding, the most important thing is the form of the building as it shapes the public space. Um and then and then secondary things come in. Use can still be important. You don't want heavy industry in your downtown, right? But it becomes much less critical and much more flexible because buildings you want to build buildings to last for a long time and that that use might change over time. So there'll be some looking at use. Um, but really what you're doing is shaping the form. And what that does in addition is it creates a predictable process for the community. The community comes together and says, "This is what we want our place to be." You know, we want it to be a walkable neighborhood. We want it to have little shops and um within walking distance and we want to be able to walk to school and we want to be able to support transit. So they the community comes together and visualizes what they want the public space to be and then the formbbased code writes regulations to make sure that buildings that that are built conform to that public view and they're very predictable regulations. So for example the setback that I talked about earlier instead of having an unpredictable setback we might have a build to line or a maximum setback you know one. So basically the building has to be built at this line or it can't be built any further back than 5t from the sidewalk. So the community, it's predictable for the community what's going to get built. Um and the same thing with height and width of buildings, um depth of buildings. The the regulations are really are primarily about the form where the parking can go so that um the buildings are shaping the public space and the parking isn't kind of bleeding away from the public space. Um and so um those regulations are predictable regulations and what that does is it enables the community to come together proactively instead of vision and then they say they invite developers and builders in. Anybody that wants to build what we've asked for come on in. And then the developers can come in and know that as long as they adhere to those regulations then they're going to get sign off. And so it's more affordable. It's quicker for the developers. They don't have to carry land costs for as long. So, it's a way to build more affordable housing by getting rid of or minimizing discretionary review. It's um the the community can come together in a proactive process and a positive process to vision and not have to check every project that comes through afterward because they can trust their zoning code. Um and so it's a much better community process. It's helps with affordability because it helps minimize discretionary review. Um, and it actually shapes better places, which is what the the key piece, the connection to CNU. I clearly could talk about this for hours, but I'll stop there. That's a good start. Marcus and Mar, I want to add anything. Yeah. Do you want to add anything on that? No. Well, I guess the only thing I'll add to kind of reinforce that um you know, even when I teach, I always I always talk about precedent and this idea of thinking about the city as a formal construct rather than a using construct because uses change um as markets and other humanmade things change. uh but these sort of formalbased principles are are universal and I think uh precedent has has proven that you know this uklidian movement is you know still you know around a hundred years old or so right but we've been building cities for millennia right based on these sort of basic universal principles that I think formbbased codes are trying to uh uh bring in a more codified way into the 21st century right the sort of taking the best principles of what we've been doing as human beings for the, you know, last 1500 2,000 years or or so. And and and really sort of making that a system that can fit really anywhere. And and this has nothing to do with style. I want to add that this is more about the sort of formal principles of how the buildings relate to each other and the spaces they create as a byproduct. Right. I think you're right. And I think I think it's worth saying um that uh you know formbased codes are not the right fit everywhere. Um and there certainly is a place in this country for single family detached housing neighborhoods. We have some beautiful traditional neighborhoods. Um and probably a form-based code is not um is not necessarily applicable there. form-based codes are designed to create walkable uh typically mixed use communities of a certain size and scale um or a certain scale that is more human and and a certain context and in those places or or this is to answer a question about whether these are formbbased codes continue to be a bespoke exception or I'm distilling it or whether in fact it's becoming more common. Um, and uh, I would say that in the six years that I've been at the formbbased codes institute, I've seen a much broader awareness and acceptance or desire to have formbbased codes as they've become more common and more popular. And as people recognize that the market wants to have more of these kinds of places, not everywhere all the time, but it really is a a an urban fabric type of urban fabric that many more people want and that it goes very closely handinand with the need for um more and more affordable housing because of foreignbased codes. And this is really sort of the the crux and the purpose of uh this conversation is formbased codes are really um intended to uh create more housing options of different sizes. And so it is one of the reasons why we're seeing more communities explore and turn to formbbased codes. Awesome. Well, we had this ask in the chat um and it's also one of our prepared questions which is can you give any examples uh from your work and also just talk about how formbbased codes influence the physical and social landscape from from Cape South Africa. Wow. Amazing. Great. Um Marcus, I think we actually Karen and I and possibly you put in some examples of uh formbbased codes in places where um uh where they're being used to achieve other policy objectives as well. This is a um project that I've been working on for about a year and a half in the north end neighborhood of Newport, Rhode Island. The North End neighborhood is a low and moderate income neighborhood in this otherwise very wealthy and exclusive city. And um there are being some infrastructure uh changes. the highway ramp is being removed that's opened up this neighborhood uh to be more accessible to the rest of the city and also um to be sort of identified as the city's last most developable area. And so the city developed a small area plan um called the North End urban plan where um they identified this area as a place for new investment and new kinds of business opportunities and new housing. Um and the the residents of the neighborhood were able to um the the were able to uh include in that plan some provisions that uh emphasize their need for uh the residents need for housing a more affordable housing, housing affordability, more community engagement and more and higher quality public spaces, whether they were civic spaces or parks. But in fact, when the zoning ordinances were written to implement that plan, um those uh amendments that the residents achieved uh getting into the north end urban plan were not reflected as specifically as they would have liked. So, um we've been working with them using not a whole formbbased code but formbbased standards um and to propose amendments to um the existing adopted ordinance for the city. And the residents were recently successful in getting their amendments adopted. And the three areas where um they really focused on amendments that were resident driven were rather than having a zoning ordinance that says every parcel must set aside 5% of it of the land for open space end of discussion. they were able to introduce a zoning amendment that some of the language was drawn from other formbbased codes that talked about where that space would be located um which was not indicated on the original zoning map. um and what what that zone what that uh open space would look like that there would be different kinds of open space that each type of open space would have certain characteristics that the that would serve the community in a certain way. So it was much more specific, much more focused to what the communities wanted. They also added some incentives on housing affordability that had to do with sort of adding an additional story in exchange for housing a uh afford market rate housing affordable housing and what that space would look like and how it fit into the community. And then ultimately they also uh tighten the language on community benefits agreements and who would be involved in negotiating them which is something um that the development of form-based codes uh is places a lot of emphasis on as Karen mentioned earlier is having the community participate in designing the vision and then writing the ordinance to design the vision. So to to implement the vision. So that's an example of one that is not sort of your typical place that you think of when historically when you think about formbbased codes, but it there are formbbased code standards that were added to the zoning ordinance by the community residents. So and and I think we have another slide with another example from Cincinnati. Um there you go. Yeah. So, I can jump in and I'll try to answer some of the questions that have come up in the Q&A about how this is getting adopted and what are some strategies for both getting uh council members on board but also getting the public on board. I'll try to address this um kind of get at some of all of those. So, this is a code that we did actually almost 10 years ago for Cincinnati and the reason that I wanted to show this has to do with that kind of adoption process. So, a couple of key features that we did. So when we wrote the the formbbased code for Cincinnati, it was we were actually writing it at the same time that they were actually cleaning up their conventional code zoning code. So this didn't actually replace their conventional zoning code. It actually sat alongside it as a parallel zoning code. And um the the images in the top left, some of the initial analysis that we did that I think is really important when you're looking at uh doing form-based coding is um the two maps on the top left. The first one on the front looked at the center type. So all of those circles are essentially five minute walking radius um centers throughout the city. And the city of Cincinnati had all of these great little kind of little main streets or little like corner stores or little existing centers because it used to be they were all the street car centers, you know, from the 19s, 1920s. And so we went and identified, well, where are all of the walkable centers in the town? And those became kind of the basis for where the city might start adopting the formbbased code. The second piece we did, the map behind that is then we identified for those neighborhood centers the degree of change that they were interested in. Were they interested in maintaining what was already there? Were they interested in evolving what was there into something a little bit more walkable that needed some help? Or were they interested in really transforming that area and might be a transform from a strip mall from a suburban strip mall area into a walkable center? And so those two bits of information helped us identify where to focus the efforts so that the the conventional zoning could still apply to what is essentially all of the remaining light yellow and these centers would be where that they would look at applying the formbbased code. The second piece that was really important is that we wrote the formbbased code with the in an intense public process but we did it without mapping it. We did it by studying all of these different centers and looking at all of the different forms and places that existed in the city. And we created a pallet of zones that would cover essentially the vast majority of those types of places. And so we ended up creating a pallet of zones. I don't remember how many there were, you know, maybe seven or eight different zones that would essentially kind of cover what would be needed to zone to to have a formbbased code for each of these neighborhood centers. And then that pallet of zones, you know, which we tested with the community that kind of would be a good pallet for the whole city was then mapped neighborhood by neighborhood. And so the maps across the bottom are four the first four neighborhoods that were done as part of that initial process. And so each neighborhood then basically had this pallet of zones to work from and then they had their neighborhood map and then they went in and they mapped those zones, you know, to how they thought it would most apply by visioning their neighborhood center. and then if needed they could tweak the zones individually for their neighborhood center as needed. The the reason that this is really important is because it enabled the city and the people in the city and the politicians in the city to think at a higher level about the types of places that exist in the city and the types of places that they want to create without having to look at individual pieces of property and get involved in the politics of reszoning individual pieces of property. Because as soon as there's an individual property owner that's looking, is this zone going to apply to this piece of property? The politics start flying, right? And that slows down the process. And this question about how do we make this happen more quickly? You know, this is really needed. We're really focused at Opticost on how do we how do we increase the impact and get this done more quickly? And so this is one of the ways that we found is really important is to is to get people out of individual pieces of property to be able to think holistically about the city and how the places work and then do the mapping in a neighborhood by neighborhood type of way. Um and then and then the politics of the Cincinnati to be truthful are you know the vice mayor um who or she was mayor Roxan Kwalls was really the champion of this proc process right and then when her group kind of fell out of favor after this after this was passed then fewer additional neighborhoods got zoned but the zon but the zoning code is still sitting there so that as kind of the politics or the neighborhoods or any neighborhood that wants to apply any neighborhood can apply to have essentially a sharet or um a design process for their neighborhood and the zone is there ready to kind of eb and flow with the politics or the you know whatever is going on with the community as they need it. And so this idea of this kind of parallel code and being able to map it as needed to to neighborhoods that want it also helped with this like not forcing it on everybody. It's kind of the neighborhoods that elect and each of these four neighborhoods at the start um actually elected you know basically bid to do it. And then there's a little piece of equity in here which is two of the neighborhoods were historically disadvantaged neighborhoods and the city paid for the shet and the mapping process for those two neighborhoods and those two were prioritized by the city. The other two neighborhoods were wealthier uh wealthier neighborhoods and those two neighborhoods had to come up with their own funding to get it. So they brought equity in by kind of how they chose which neighborhoods to start with as they're doing this mapping process um was one of the ways that they brought it in. So we are actually using this now. We've used it in other in other places and we're actually using it now in California um for the entire county of Marin County which is just north of San Francisco which is very much an anti-change anti-density um kind of area. But in California, the state is coming in and saying everyone has to do their fair share to build more housing because the housing crisis, we need three and a half million new homes in California in the next 10 years. I mean the crisis is just out of hand. And so the county of Marin and the cities in Marin are realizing they have to find a way to accommodate new housing and low-rise missing middle housing is a way to fit it into their existing single family neighborhoods um without kind of changing the scale you know all over the neighborhoods that they don't want to. So it's a way of kind of keeping that scale and form of the neighborhoods but allowing more people to live there and able to build more housing. And we're doing the same thing. We did a zoning code and we've created a template, a set of zones by looking at the entire county and doing it with all of the planning directors of all of the cities. So, there's been this education process that all of the city planning directors have been involved in to talk about what the zoning should look like to create this zoning template and then each individual city is deciding whether or not to use that template and adopt it. And so, I think four have been adopted. I don't know the numbers. A few have been adopted already. A number of them are in the process of adopting it. So the template's been created, the planning directors have all been part of the process to develop it. They're all, you know, um, mostly bought into it, they at least understand it. Um, and so this education, this kind of buy in and then the mapping can be done individually. And I think it it gets at kind of this issue of kind of there's lots of conversations around like state power and local power and local control and, you know, neighborhoods still wanting to be able to control what's getting built there. And this this way of kind of doing, you know, being able to step outside of the individual properties and map uh and create the zones that are going to apply based on the way that the um the the types of places that they want to have and then do the mapping in smaller areas and adopting the zoning code in smaller areas is turning out to be quite effective. Um so that's one way that we've been looking at it and as part of that the education for the planning directors, the education for the council members kind of as part of the process you know again that education can be holistically about the types of places we want to create um rather than kind of individual property what's going to happen on this individual property and that's kind of further on down once more people are kind of understand and are excited about the possibilities of the formbbased code. Um, and in that case, it's actually objective design standards, which is a feels like a West Coast thing, but they're really focused on getting rid of discretionary review on the West Coast because it's been used to prevent development. Um, and it's essentially a form-based code tweaked um to make sure that none of it's discretionary. So, yeah, I'll stop there because we've got um lots more to cover, but um I'd be happy to talk more about kind of different ways we're looking at getting buy in and getting enthusiasm. Um, and I'll just wrap up by saying I think the whole missing middle housing movement, the whole reason we created that uh term that my partner created that term and that we've uh advocated for it is again about understanding that we can still have low-rise walkable, lush, wonderful, beautiful neighborhoods that enable more people to live in it and it actually makes it better for all of us. And so the missing middle housing piece is actually a um it's an advocacy movement for how can we house more people and bring in more housing that's more attainable to people. And so it is about that communication strategy. Great. Yeah. So we're going to stop at one. So we have about 10 minutes left. So kind of the last prepared question I wanted to ask and this was mainly for Marta was just can you tell us a little bit more about the mission of the formbbased codes institute and how does it carry this mission out? Sure. No, I'd be happy to do that and in fact um Marcus I think I have a slide that has the mission written. So um the uh form-based codes institute was uh established as a independent organization a small nonprofit about um in 2005 so about 17 years ago and at that time people like Karen and Marcus and and many others who were both in the public and private sector were working uh on zoning and really felt that um and were working as a part of CNU and saw that there was a need for a group of people to come together to um promote the understanding and adoption of formbbased codes and so that was the primary mission and they developed classes which we continue to teach today and uh and served as a forum for discussion around forbased codes and also um began an award program where once a year the formbbased codes institute would recognize um a uh an adopted formbbased code that was exemplary and and could be held up as a as a model for others. And we continue to do that. Um the the s most significant program that we've added in the last few years is our technical assistance program called um codes for communities where we work with individual uh communities or um a group of communities on um auditing or reviewing the foreignbased codes and helping people understand uh what formbbased codes are. But a few years ago, the steering committee um for foreignbased codes, which both Karen and Marcus serve on, recognized that um while I wouldn't say that the the original mission was no longer needed, that everybody understood and had adopted formbbased codes, that there was a much broader understanding of of the value of formbbased codes. Um and uh so as the formbbased codes institute became part of a larger organization called smart growth America, we began to rethink what the mission of the organization was. And a year ago, the steering committee adopted this new mission, which is um to advance zoning reform through the use of formbbased codes uh that empower communities to achieve their vision of livable places, healthy people, and shared prosperity. And by adopting that new mission, there was a recognition that by scaling up the impact of and the adoption of formbbased codes that cities could really use these codes to accomplish um other policy objectives like racial equity because of the emphasis on diversity and inclusion in the development of the codes and the implementation of the codes. Um but also climate resilience because there are things about formbbased codes that promote better and more uh resilient land use um and healthy communities also because formbbased codes um encourage uh a mix of transportation options including walking and biking and access to transit. So, um really now the mission is to use all of those programs, our education program, our um technical assistance program, our awards program, our advocacy program to really promote understanding and the use of formbbased codes as a way to accomplish broader policy objectives. And that's why um we adopted this new mission statement and that's how we use our programs. that Newport, Rhode Island is one example of how we've we've promoted uh zoning reform uh through form-based standards to uh promote in this case racial equity and inclusion. Um I don't know Karen and Marcus as steering committee members, anything to add about that? So, we've had some great questions and I think maybe um I'm looking to see I know we have uh people from outside the US who have asked about um the application of foreignmbbased codes. I know that uh in the past FBCI has worked on formbbased codes in um they they tend not to be sought out as much in Europe because so many of the cities in Europe uh were designed before the car the advent of the car and so a lot of the uh European cities already have the kind of walkable mixeduse form at least the centers of these cities that um that uh are um that that formbbased standards are intended to accomplish. Um however, I've seen a lot of interest from uh places like India where they have a much more centralized planning system and uh they I know that the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development in India has uh promoted the use of formbbased codes. And I also see a question about Canada. Um, and I appreciate that we a couple of years ago before the pandemic, we uh offered one of our classes in uh Montreal and uh we were going our 2011 class which is our urban design class and uh our designing with formbbased codes and our goal is to bring our third class um our FBC 301 which is adoption and administration to Montreal or Quebec in the fall. But in the meantime, recently the Canadian Institute of Planners asked us to do a um a webinar very much like this one, but with other folks from Canada. I know that um Ottawa, the planning director in Ottawa joined us because they're working on a foreignbased code and the city of Laval um has recently adopted a foreignbased code which is in the Montreal metropolitan area. Um and we've followed up with some articles in a couple of the um Canadian planning magazines about formbbased codes. So I think there is a growing a growing interest there. Um and also part of that question is how do you introduce formbbas based codes more smoothly and my experience has been through sessions like this but with a lot more visuals. Um I think uh formbbas based codes and the results of formbbased codes are intended to be um uh are are are very much designbased and therefore the kinds of visuals I've done a lot of presentations that show differences between ukidian codes and formbbased codes um using images and visuals and so I would encourage you to uh reach out to firms like Marcus or Karen or the formbbased codes institute. Um and uh to really demonstrate because it is a lot of an education process there. We found one of our classes we always have a a a segment on misconceptions about formbbased codes. Um because there do tend to be a lot. I know um we've had some questions about architecture and formbbased codes and maybe if we have time I'm not no we don't I was going to say Marcus can certainly answer that question but um but a lot of it is educating your decision makers your your developers and designers your architects um so with that it is one o'clock and uh Lauren and Rob I want to thank you for inviting us to uh this conversation it's been very satis satisfying. CNU has always been a great part partner for FBCI and um you know I hope we'll we'll have opportunities to do others. Thank you very much and thank all of you for for joining us and Lauren I'll hand it back to you. Wonderful. Yes, and thank you to Marta, Marcus and Karen. This was an excellent discussion. Uh there will be a recording available uh within the next 24 hours on cnu.org or and you should also be receiving a link via email. Uh, thank you for joining us. Thank you for all the wonderful questions and we will hopefully see you at our next on the park bench. Thanks everyone. Thank you. Bye bye everyone. Bye.