HOW ZONING SHAPES COMMUNITIES

THE GOOD, BAD AND HOPEFUL ASPECTS 

OF THE CENTURY-OLD TOOL THAT DETERMINES

EVERYTHING ABOUT THE PLACES WE LIVE, WORK AND PLAY

Salim Furth, senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, favors fair and predictable community benefit agreements. 

Rather than meting out contributions in each neighborhood, which can result in “zoning for sale,” he suggests a set payment charged to the developer and a menu of things a community can fund with it.

“New Rochelle, N.Y., introduced this approach, along with other innovations, to spark a downtown reinvestment surge that has funded tremendous city benefits,” Furth said.

“There is a fixed, predictable dollar value that developers must pay. 

Neighbors can then help determine where the money is spent: on parks, computer space, a community center.”

HOW ZONING SHAPES COMMUNITIES

THE GOOD, BAD AND HOPEFUL ASPECTS 

OF THE CENTURY-OLD TOOL THAT DETERMINES

EVERYTHING ABOUT THE PLACES WE LIVE, WORK AND PLAY

The entire architecture of how land use works contains a lot of local conditions.

“When spending political capital, we like to get the most juice for the squeeze. 

But we know the entire architecture of how land use works contains a lot of local conditions, so we have all these variances, special-use permits, special exceptions,” Salim Furth, senior research fellow, at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, said.

“Cities are super regulators, so everything is done by exceptions.

The developer knows to get a lawyer, give contributions and they get their exceptions approved,” he observed.

 “Council members love the political contributions flowing and they get some say in the development.

Even in very progressive cities, you end up saying ‘yes’ to very expensive housing and ‘no’ to more budget-friendly housing.”

 

HOW ZONING SHAPES COMMUNITIES

THE GOOD, BAD AND HOPEFUL ASPECTS 

OF THE CENTURY-OLD TOOL THAT DETERMINES

EVERYTHING ABOUT THE PLACES WE LIVE, WORK AND PLAY

The Montana governor convened a task force and several pro-affordable housing preemptive laws were passed with bipartisan support, which include:

Streamlining the subdivision process, especially by expanding exemptions from the state’s environmental assessment requirement.

Clarifying that cities can allow tiny homes.

Opening commercial zones to housing development.

Allowing duplexes anywhere that single-family homes are permitted in cities with more than 5,000 residents.

Formalizing planning procedures and requiring each city to enact any five out of a list of 14 significant pro-housing regulatory changes.

Limiting the use of design review.

Requiring municipalities to permit accessory dwelling units (ADUs) without parking mandates or owner-occupancy requirements.

HOW ZONING SHAPES COMMUNITIES

THE GOOD, BAD AND HOPEFUL ASPECTS 

OF THE CENTURY-OLD TOOL THAT DETERMINES

EVERYTHING ABOUT THE PLACES WE LIVE, WORK AND PLAY

Salim Furth, senior research fellow, and Eli Kahn, research assistant, at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, recently published a state legislature housing reform 2023 review.

It discusses bipartisan bills aimed at loosening zoning regulations to rein in local regulatory power.

For instance, “Montana has become the first red state to enact sweeping housing legislation to confront a cost crisis,” Furth said.

The review is available at

https://www.mercatus.org/research/policy-briefs/housing-reform-states-me...

HOW ZONING SHAPES COMMUNITIES

THE GOOD, BAD AND HOPEFUL ASPECTS 

OF THE CENTURY-OLD TOOL THAT DETERMINES

EVERYTHING ABOUT THE PLACES WE LIVE, WORK AND PLAY

David Morley, AICP, American Planning Association’s research program and QA manager, said the Post War/Baby Boom era created so many single-family-only communities, that any other density started feeling unnatural. 

He said over the past few decades, there is a growing awareness that communities need missing middle and affordable housing.

“One point I like to make in general is that a lot of zoning is antithetical to what communities need,” Morley said. 

“Zoning is a powerful tool. Why not use it to create more affordable housing than to use its power to keep more of the same, aka preventing it?”

HOW ZONING SHAPES COMMUNITIES

THE GOOD, BAD AND HOPEFUL ASPECTS 

OF THE CENTURY-OLD TOOL THAT DETERMINES

EVERYTHING ABOUT THE PLACES WE LIVE, WORK AND PLAY

Miami 21 is a famous citywide form-based code in South Florida. 

Though David Morley, AICP, American Planning Association’s research program and QA manager, notes that even form-based codes are hybrids, because while they encourage compact development and a mix of uses, they still regulate what uses can go where.

“The big whoopsie in zoning evolution is the way missing middle density has been erased from the landscape. In most places, it’s not allowed to happen,” he said. 

Missing middle refers to the range of housing that fits between single-family detached homes and mid-to-high-rise apartment buildings.

It includes townhouses, duplexes, triplexes and quadplexes.

PROUD TO BE A LEADER IN EDUCATING PLANNERS

ABOUT UNIVERSAL DESIGN AND AGING IN PLACE

I am gratified to be speaking on: Aging in Place: Universal Access Designs, at the 2024 Florida Planning Conference.

I spoke on a similar topic at the national conference of the American Planning Association two years ago.

I will be joined by acclaimed colleagues Laura Street, Associate State Director - Advocacy and Livable Communities at AARP, and David Haight, FAICP, LEED AP ND, Transportation Planner/Urban Designer, AtkinsRéalis. I am the nation’s leading Subject Matter Expert on creating a better built environment for people with disabilities. I give passionate keynote speeches and lead inclusive workshops and walking tours that focus on efficient, low-cost improvements that remove barriers to those who use wheelchairs for mobility.

HOW ZONING SHAPES COMMUNITIES

THE GOOD, BAD AND HOPEFUL ASPECTS 

OF THE CENTURY-OLD TOOL THAT DETERMINES

EVERYTHING ABOUT THE PLACES WE LIVE, WORK AND PLAY

Performance-based zoning came next, allowing a greater mix of uses and flexibility in development scale — in return for more open space or other benefits to the community where the development takes place. 

Bucks County, Pa., is known for its more comprehensive zoning ordinance, from that era.

Form-based codes address the relationship between building facades and the public realm.

Euclidean zoning, the name attached to decades of careful separation of uses, was countered in the early 21st century with the introduction of the form-based code. 

“A form-based code is a land development regulation that fosters predictable built results and a high-quality public realm by using physical form (rather than separation of uses) as the organizing principle for the code,” as defined by the Form-Based Codes Institute.

“Form-based codes address the relationship between building facades and the public realm, the form and mass of buildings in relation to one another, and the scale and types of streets and blocks.”

HOW ZONING SHAPES COMMUNITIES

THE GOOD, BAD AND HOPEFUL ASPECTS 

OF THE CENTURY-OLD TOOL THAT DETERMINES

EVERYTHING ABOUT THE PLACES WE LIVE, WORK AND PLAY

Post World War II, when more than 10 million G.I.s returned from the battlefields and car ownership was exploding — auto-oriented suburbs grew like weeds. 

“Zoning was following real estate development trends. Large-scale homebuilders covered a lot of ground. 

The financial industry wants certainty in what it is lending to, so single-family zoning blanketed the nation,” David Morley, AICP, American Planning Association’s research program and QA manager, said.

Critics taking issues with Post War development patterns appeared in the early 1960s. 

That is when the Planned Unit Development (PUD) came into favor. 

“It was an option for large-scale developers — saying you don’t have to follow the letter of the law and you can get a mix of uses,” Morley said. 

“That was the first seismic shift of the way zoning worked for nearly half a century.”

 

 

 

HOW ZONING SHAPES COMMUNITIES

THE GOOD, BAD AND HOPEFUL ASPECTS 

OF THE CENTURY-OLD TOOL THAT DETERMINES

EVERYTHING ABOUT THE PLACES WE LIVE, WORK AND PLAY

The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the right of municipalities to impose zoning, via the 1926 Village of Euclid, Ohio vs. Ambler Realty case. 

Even that landmark case cast aspersions on affordable housing, when Supreme Court Justice George Sutherland wrote “very often the apartment house is a mere parasite” on a neighborhood.

“Think of zoning as rationalizing where things go and protecting people from truly noxious uses. 

Today, it might be hard for people to remember how dirty factories were,” David Morley, AICP, American Planning Association’s research program and QA manager,  said. 

“Zoning descended from nuisance laws where cities said a slaughterhouse cannot be X number of feet from residences. 

They also grew to control separation between buildings, or building heights — to protect health, safety and welfare. 

But the concept of public welfare quickly got redefined as schemes for keeping land values high.”

HOW ZONING SHAPES COMMUNITIES

THE GOOD, BAD AND HOPEFUL ASPECTS 

OF THE CENTURY-OLD TOOL THAT DETERMINES

EVERYTHING ABOUT THE PLACES WE LIVE, WORK AND PLAY

In 1910, Baltimore passed racial segregation laws, prohibiting Black people from moving into white-majority areas and vice-versa. 

Other cities passed similar ordinances until 1917, when the practice of racial zoning was declared unconstitutional.

But exclusionary zoning continued class and other segregation. 

Berkeley, California’s Elmwood neighborhood adopted single-family zoning, “effectively setting up the area to exclude lower-income households into the present day,” according to Planetizen.

David Morley, AICP, American Planning Association’s research program and QA manager, further explains zoning as the tool that drives everything about your quality of life, but didn’t exist for all of civilized time till the early 20th century.

Morley said historians generally traced zoning back to keepers of posh shops on New York City’s Fifth Avenue, who feared garment manufacturers and their employees would ruin the commercial district’s exclusive experience. 

The city’s zoning code that went into effect was quickly copied by cities around the United States.

 

 

HOW ZONING SHAPES COMMUNITIES

THE GOOD, BAD AND HOPEFUL ASPECTS 

OF THE CENTURY-OLD TOOL THAT DETERMINES

EVERYTHING ABOUT THE PLACES WE LIVE, WORK AND PLAY

Zoning reform can help solve the housing crisis while promoting transit; walkability; mixed-use; mixed-income communities; and communities that protect nature, control sprawl and address climate change.

Planetizen.com credits social reformers in the early 1900s for giving birth to zoning “as a tool to exclude undesirable uses (such as noxious industrial facilities), reduce urban congestion, protect public welfare, and prevent the spread of slums.”

Its research further states that zoning’s ugly side is its use “as a tool to maintain racial homogeneity and exclude ‘undesirable’ residents, sometimes outright banning specific ethnic groups, thus institutionalizing housing inequality.”

 

 

 

HOW ZONING SHAPES COMMUNITIES

THE GOOD, BAD AND HOPEFUL ASPECTS 

OF THE CENTURY-OLD TOOL THAT DETERMINES

EVERYTHING ABOUT THE PLACES WE LIVE, WORK AND PLAY

The zoning code. 

Amended, revised, sometimes more than 100 pages.

The vast majority of people have never looked at one. 

But zoning codes impact where we live, how we get around, how tall our buildings become, who are our neighbors and how many parks we have.

On the good side, zoning is the reason you don’t live next to a slaughterhouse, steel plant or other noxious activity that produces noise and foul and dangerous smells to the air. 

On the bad side, it is why so much of America is segregated — by race and income — a result that widens the gap between haves and have nots.

And why people who feel they are always in their car, feel that way for good reason.

IF YOUR COUNTY DOESN’T WORK FOR EVERYONE, IT WORKS FOR NO ONE

SHAMEFUL THAT BROKEN ELEVATORS DESTORY RAIL TRANSIT ACCESS 

FOR WHEELCHAIR USERS FOR MONTHS TO YEARS

It is incredibly embarrassing when your county is hosting a nationwide conference of transportation officials -- but your rail lines have had elevators out for years and some will not be repaired till 2025.

While co-leading a tour and meeting with friends, dozens of top tier planners complained about the broken elevators and the devastating impact on people with disabilities.

They were attending the nationwide National Association of City Transportation Officials hosted by Miami-Dade County.

Lack of planning ahead for maintenance and glacial pace of repairs - -is a black eye for a city that could have shined while hosting NACTO.

Please, County mayor and commissioners, stop treating people with disabilities like second class.

MIAMI-DADE ANIMAL SERVICES IS A DISASTER

THEY MAKE IT IMPOSSIBLE TO ADOPT A CAT

By now I have invested two hours at Miami-Dade Animal Services and cannot wait behind 10 fresh people deep in the line for service – even though the left hand/right hand total failure between front desk and cat cages keys lady caused me to need to pick again.

Miami-Dade Animal Services has robbed me of half a working day and despite my valiant efforts, incompetence has prevented me from petting/bonding with a single cat.

Callousness and unequaled incompetence has left me with zero desire to ever visit again.

I have taken in dozens of street cats.

I fund cat rescue on three continents.

I am the perfect candidate to address the crisis that Miami-Dade has with animals in need of homes.

But I will not be able to keep cats from being lonely or euthanized.

Not until Miami-Dade County leadership fixes its nightmarish Animal Services process.

I leave -- after being blocked by incompetence -- the Miami-Dade Animal Services house of horrors crushed, spirit broken. 

None of the more than half dozen cats that I tried to will leave to a good home -- because this facility is run by uncaring workers.

 

 

MIAMI-DADE ANIMAL SERVICES IS A DISASTER

 THEY MAKE IT IMPOSSIBLE TO ADOPT A CAT

I’m still at Miami-Dade Animal Services and praying to get past the incompetence to rescue a cat.

I select yet another cat to try to adopt.

It pays to take lots of photos of the cat’s code number, as incompetence will deny your first several choices.

10 minutes to see the cat cage woman.

The same woman who told me I had no choice in the matter of bonding with the cat she (and she alone) deemed unadoptable.

This time, my fourth or fifth choice of a fur baby is smiling and mewing at me.

My heart melts.

Then the cage area woman says he has a return to owner order and I’m out of luck.

If Miami-Dade Animal Services staff could take two minutes to update info on the cages, would-be adopters wouldn’t get their heart broken time and time again.

MIAMI-DADE ANIMAL SERVICES IS A DISASTER

THEY MAKE IT IMPOSSIBLE TO ADOPT A CAT

Now 90 minutes into my visit to Miami-Dade Animal Services, I am led back and a woman tells me the cat I picked is sleeping and mean.

I say I’ll decide.

She refuses to let me see the cat.

I go back, but even though it is 100% Animal Services’ fault, I go to the back of the end of the line again.

20 minutes to wait for the cat with the infection.

Now I’m told it also has FIV and I cannot have.

 

MIAMI-DADE ANIMAL SERVICES IS A DISASTER

THEY MAKE IT IMPOSSIBLE TO ADOPT A CAT

An hour after arriving at Miami-Dade Animal Services, I finally get to the adoption counter.

I find out my first choice is FIV positive and they will not adopt that cat out to a home that has another cat. I have a cat.

It would take two minutes to print out this info and put it on the cage – so I wouldn’t get enamored with a cat I cannot have.

There will be many heartbreaks that could be avoided by taking all of two minutes to update information on cats in the cat adoption zone.

I am told my second choice has a respiratory infection and I cannot touch another cat after him, so I should pick another cat to see first.

I share my third pick.

They tell me that cat is available.

MIAMI-DADE ANIMAL SERVICES IS A DISASTER

THEY MAKE IT IMPOSSIBLE TO ADOPT A CAT

I enter Miami-Dade Animal Services and look at some cats through the glass.

I fall for a few.

I take pictures of the data card next to them.

I got to the desk labeled adoptions.

I get some annoyed looks, then hear a number called.

I realize I was standing in a line that went by number called.

But unlike a grocery store deli, there no little machine from which to grab a number.

You have to talk to a lady. She wanders off frequently, so I had no way of knowing that I could not take my place in line without her interviewing me and printing a ticket.

 

MIAMI-DADE ANIMAL SERVICES IS A DISASTER

THEY MAKE IT IMPOSSIBLE TO ADOPT A CAT

Miami-Dade Animal Services is an unmitigated disaster.

It’s a pretty building and modern facility.

Any semblance of competency and care is an illusion.

I went to adopt a cat.

There is about one half as much needed parking, because it’s in the middle of nowhere, miles from fixed rail transit.

Google Maps shows it would take 2 hours of multiple bus transfers to get there from my Little Havana home less than 10 miles away.

I wait 20 minutes for a parking space.

PROUD TO JOIN RAISSA FERNANDEZ TO HIGHLIGHT UNIVERSAL DESIGN DURING A NACTO WALKSHOP TOUR OF LITTLE HAVANA

THE EVENT WAS PART OF DESIGNING CITIES 2024: MIAMI-DADE

I was thrilled to join Raissa Fernandez of Healthy Little Havana for a tour highlighting walkability, transit and mobility for all this week.

It was part of the National Association of City Transportation Officials annual meeting, hosted in Miami this year.

The NACTO Designing Cities Conference brings together 1,000 officials, planners, and practitioners to advance the state of transportation in cities across North America.

Healthy Little Havana is a local nonprofit that actively co-designs -- with other residents and partner organizations--  a dynamic Community Action Plan that addresses the root causes of poor health and health inequities. 

Currently HLH focuses on: housing, healthcare access, education to employment, and food and public space.

Led by Raissa, our tour had more than two dozen top professionals from across the U.S.

We highlighted:

Sidewalks too narrow for people with disabilities – that ironically cover more than a city block adjacent to the accessible entrances to a city services center and performing arts hall.

The three-lane, one-way couplets (Flagler westbound/SW 1^st Street eastbound, SW 7^th Street westbound/Calle Ocho eastbound) that are very dangerous to cross for people with disabilities, children and elderly residents.

The lack of shade canopy in East Little Havana. The transit stop where the group joined the tour – has zero shade despite hosting two (bus and trolley) major transit shelters.

The threat of over development that is both robbing Little Havana of its rich architectural heritage, but also shrinking the supply of affordable housing in one of the most rent-burdened cities in America.

LISBON, PORTUGAL

 PEACE GUARD LISBON

Shepard Fairey’s Peace Guard Lisbon mural is a faded, but still striking, piece. 

Fairey’s subject holds a gun with a flower in it, a symbolic reference to the Carnation Revolution in Portugal.

Named for the demonstrators who placed carnations in the muzzles of guns and on the soldiers' uniforms, the 1974 military coup and civil resistance campaign transitioned the country from a dictatorship to a democracy.

LISBON, PORTUGAL

TROPICAL FADO IN RGB TONES

OzeArv’s 2021 Tropical Fado in RGB Tones is an explosion of color on Rua da Graça.

A face gazes out through a halo of plants and animals expressed in the street artist’s signature style.

LISBON, PORTUGAL

 NATALIA CORREIA MURAL

This is a close up of the Natalia Correia mural on Rua Natalia Correia at Rua Da Graca, Sao Vicente, Lisbon, Portugal. 

Poet, author and National Assembly member — she championed arts and culture + human and women's rights.

LISBON, PORTUGAL

 SÃO VICENTE

Leafy streets, modest apartments, affordable restaurants, mom and pop shops, local bakeries, street art, tiled facades and excellent transit define Graca, Sao Vicente, Lisbon, Portugal.

LISBON, PORTUGAL

BELA LISBOA

The view from Miradouro da Graca (Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen).

The view takes in magnificently preserved buildings, the blue waters of Rio Tejo and Almada on the horizon.

LISBON, PORTUGAL

 ICONIC, POETIC LISBON

If poetic Lisbon could be summed up in one image, this might be it.

Historic tram winding through narrow street in Sao Vicente past azulejo adorned buildings on the way through the city core to Prazeres.

U.S. PREMIER OF DISABILITY POSTIVE DOCUMENTARY

I’M HONORED TO BE IN THE FILM: “MARK – A CALL TO ACTION” 

I'm proud to share details of U.S. premiere of the documentary that features me as our nation's preeminent Universal Design expert. 

Mark--A Call to Action debuts June 19 at Bryn Mawr Film Institute. 

Every mayor, planner, architect, engineer & urban designer can learn from this film.

It is NOT simply a disability film.

It is about what great things a person with a severe disability can achieve -- when the built environment is inclusive.

Director Ron Small's film chronicles the life and work of scholar/activist Dr. Mark Bookman, who improved the lives of disabled people from the U.S. to Japan.

The late Bookman created a legacy that inspires others to plan for and create a world where no one is left behind.

https://tinyurl.com/4vjyeb2z

LISBON, PORTUGAL

 SAO VICENTE

Why do we love Lisbon?

Look at this night shot in Sao Vicente.

There are endless alleys and historic buildings to give a Medieval feeling among modern transit and amenities.

LISBON, PORTUGAL

 BECO DO ROSENDO

Beco do Rosendo in the central Lisbon Santa Maria Maior neighborhood. 

Lisbon must have thousands of alleys and narrow staircases.

At first, at night, they feel a bit foreboding. Soon, you realize they are a way of life.

LISBON, PORTUGAL

B-MAD ART DECO

Spectacular grille and decor at Berardo - Art Deco Museum (B-MAD). 

The Art Deco museum in Lisbon also displays Art Nouveau pieces, in an historic tiled mansion.