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.”