Imagine some ugly, underused street in your town, marked by drab buildings, wide streets, and forbidding expanses of parking lot. If you have to go here at all, chances are you’d prefer to drive. Now imagine it remade into a place where you’d actually want to walk or bike. There would be broad sidewalks, trees, and streetfront buildings with ground-level windows. There would be other people walking around too.
Articles
Feb 20 2012
How one city overhauled its zoning code while combining form-based and conventional elements.
Jan 2 2012
Form-based codes regulate high quality walkable urbanism but are also an inherently effective way to integrate sustainability features based on type and character of the community.
Aug 24 2011
Announcing two winners of the Driehaus Form-Based Codes Awards for 2011! The Development Code Rewrite of Livermore, California, and the Compact Communities Code of Lee County, Florida, are excellent examples of the gradual implementation of form-based codes at citywide and regional scales.
Aug 24 2011
Is a helpful review of the legal issues raised by form-based codes in New England, the author shows that it takes more thought and careful drafting to implement a form-based code through a statutory framework designed for a different regulatory approach.
Apr 9 2011
Form-based codes support the process of "blending density." They instigate contextual appropriateness at a lot, block, neighborhood and eventually a city scale, enabling the making of a comprehensive urban form and a rich public realm, project by project.
Apr 1 2011
A recent survey of US communities that adopted form-based codes shows that a municipality usually must do more than simply put a form-based code on the books. The code “is not a silver-bullet solution,” researcher Gina Macchiaroli says. “It’s one tool to creating a vibrant community. Political support is key.”
Jan 3 2011
Modern form-based codes began in small areas within larger zoning jurisdictions. We’re now learning the power of form-based codes much further up the scale with remarkable regional applications. They're rules that mitigate sprawl across large areas, creating new town clusters while conserving rural land at the developing edge of metropolitan areas.
Dec 22 2010
At best, design guidelines can recommend articulation and openings to the building’s facade. In contrast, form-based codes conceptualize a public realm by pulling together the individual elements: the diverse street types, variety of public and private open spaces, and contextual building types into a complete, cohesive, and memorable place.
Nov 29 2010
In a thoughtful essay, the mayor of a historic South Carolina city describes the damage done by sprawl, and the promise of form-based codes to help restore vibrancy to his city.
Oct 25 2010
Denver's planning manager Peter Park discusses the return of physical planning and the city's form-based code.