One of the most frustrating aspects of many zoning systems is that it takes so long to get applications approved. While developers and builders often voice this complaint the loudest, it is important to remember that builders are not “those other guys” — it includes each of us when we want to remodel our homes or build an addition. But even neighbors who are not applying for approval often complain that zoning decisions take too long and that they are required to attend to attend too many meetings and hearings to ensure that their concerns or opposition are taken into account. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

[Read more →]

Oh, come on, now. That’s really going too far, isn’t it? Trying to link zoning with the Obama presidency – even if it is inauguration day? So what’s the link between local zoning and new Obama/Biden administration? Change, of course. In A Better Way to Zone I wrote about how we have gotten off track in zoning our American cities and the high price we are paying for our mistakes. Several of the themes in that book resonate with the kinds of change we need to see throughout our government and economy.

[Read more →]

The last three months have demonstrated just how closely Smart Growth and Sustainability are related. My last post was pre-Wall Street meltdown, but we now live in a new world – at least financially. If we’re smart we will give some thought to how our planning policies and decidedly “un-Smart Growth” have contributed to the financial crisis and what we can do to avoid a repeat in the future. Poor planning did not “cause” our current financial hardships, or course – part of the reason this crisis is so serious is that it was not caused by any one thing. But poor planning and land use controls did contribute to it.

[Read more →]

So what lessons does Bengaluru hold for urban planning and development in the U.S? The main one is that competition is coming. Not just competition for jobs and world trade – that was obvious long ago. I mean competition for the resources we count on to build and rebuild our cities and their infrastructure – steel, concrete, and petrochemical products.

[Read more →]

With prices falling, the housing affordability crisis must now be behind us – right? Wrong. In A Better Way to Zone I describe the housing affordability crisis as a structural problem of the U.S. economy and that is still true. Business cycles come and go, and this recession will in time bottom out and the housing economy will rebound. The long term effects may be a slight lowering of average housing prices – but not much, and not over the long haul. The key problem remains – the U.S. economy is simply not creating jobs that pay (on average) what it costs to build new housing (on average) and that gap continues to widen.

[Read more →]

Why is Jakarta booming? Well, like many Asian economies, Indonesia’s economy is growing – but not as fast as those of India or China. The real reason is urbanization. Indonesia is only 46% urbanized, compared to almost 80% for the world’s third most populous country — the United States.

[Read more →]

Form-based zoning is one of the latest examples of a popular planning idea. And it’s a really good tool in some circumstances. The basic idea is that zoning has gotten too pre-occupied with fine grained differences in land uses and has lost site of the “form” of development. The real issue may not be that the land use is inappropriate, but that the form of the building doesn’t fit in with those around it. Look around any dense urban area – particularly a downtown or a transportation hub – and you can find a very broad range of land uses. Offices, apartments, stores, condominiums, clinics, gas stations; how could any proposed use be inappropriate? This is an area where everything goes on. Clearly, zoning that focuses on acceptable land uses might be missing the point. But building a 15-story residential tower in a townhouse area, or a shoppette with parking in front right in the middle of a block of storefronts that you can enter right from the sidewalk – now that could be a problem. The new “form” could erode the character of the area and destroy the very things that make it desirable — a human scale, or walkability, or back yard privacy. Where an urban area has a definable character and form, form-based zoning may make a lot of sense.

[Read more →]

Zoning needs to do a much better job of living with non-conformities — buildings and uses that do not match the requirements of the zone district. Euclidean, performance, and form-based zoning all assume that it is only a matter of time until everyone conforms to the pattern — but history shows that it seldom happens. In the meantime, designing zoning around this false assumption can weaken neighborhoods and drive out the very uses and structures that give them vitality.

[Read more →]

The American Planning Association just celebrated its 100th annual national conference in Las Vegas. With over 6,000 attending the conference, planning is obviously alive and well in the U.S. — and zoning is still at the heart of the action. I just returned from the conference and noted that one of the featured tracks was “Zoning, Codes, and Ordinances”. This year APA featured 17 sessions on zoning-related topics.

[Read more →]

Zoning is here to stay. Almost all large American cities use some form of zoning to manage existing development and to guide new development. We’ve been doing it for almost 90 years and we’ve become more or less addicted to it.

[Read more →]