[Durham INC] Beyond form-based code

Mon Aug 18 07:36:12 EDT 2014

I think the structure of our zoning code (area, form, performance, etc.) can be flexible, but Tom is right about keeping our eyes on the process.
I've been reading E.B. White's One Man's Meat, a collection of essays written for a magazine column between 1938 and 1943.  It's pretty comforting to read his thoughts on Nazism and Stalinism abroad and cynicism and defeatism at home in our time of Putinism and Caliphate-ism and ebola and all the rest.  Anyhow, one of the essays is a meditation on government/economic forms in which he says what the "common man" has always just wanted a "sense of participation."  Nazism and Communism offered the "participation" in the sense of being a particle in a powerful cloud.  Admittedly, traditional private enterprise, "our scapegrace yet beloved system of profit and spoils," didn't offer much in the way of participation (and modern global capitalism now just offers opportunities to participate in the downside of the economy (-:).  What White is skeptical about with the New Deal is that bureaucrats are now making some of the decisions, but what the "common man" is seeing time-consuming forms to fill out and people poking into his private business, but no new participation, leaving him "uncomfortable and suspicious."  
I think Durham's planners have been mostly OK, but also think the planning profession is moving in dangerous directions, based on the behavior of the consultant on form-based design in Chapel Hill.  Planning students are apparently being told that NIMBYs are bad, not learning that NIMBYs (such an ugly word) are mostly responding to BEARs (Build Everywhere Anything Rapidly).  Planning students are apparently being told that they will represent "the public" but, at best, they will represent "good design" because no number of earnest little meetings are going to give them the tacit knowledge that neighborhoods have about the details of a terrain.  They learn to get all huffy about the inefficiency of citizens coming in at the last moment with concerns, not apparently figuring out that citizens coming to them is a whole lot better than their joining Agenda 21.
So yes, by all means, look at performance standards might be used (tho we would have to be careful that we keep on the legal base for zoning, which is a policing power?), but it is probably more important to continue working on process and culture that brings out the most public participation.
Regards, pat

From: don.moffitt at gmail.com
Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2014 13:57:48 -0400
To: kjj1bg at yahoo.com
CC: mcclintock.julie at gmail.com; inc-list at durhaminc.org
Subject: Re: [Durham INC] Beyond form-based code

I love discussions! I hadn't thought about these issues, and they are definitely worthy of consideration. I don't know how other communities might have addressed them, but some issues--like affordable housing--are pretty clear up-front. Even now, some development requirements are based on performance standards. Road improvements, for example, are based on projected traffic counts. Typically the developer has a study done using professional engineers and best practices. NCDOT and our local transportation department review the study for accuracy, and base required improvements on the results of the study in combination with performance goals previously established. I could see a performance requirement--like job creation--being handled in the same manner. The inclusion of a certain amount of solar energy could work that way as well. And usually those items have to be done prior to the certificate of compliance being issued. No CoC, no occupancy and no revenues. That's a pretty big stick!

I agree--it seems like performance standards could be incorporated into form-based zones (and use-based zones as well).

Don

On Thu, Aug 14, 2014 at 1:14 PM, KJJarrett <kjj1bg at yahoo.com> wrote:

Zoning is arcane, and I don't understand it will. But with performance based zoning, what happens when the goals aren't met . . . . but the project has been built? Kind of like buying a car: The advertising at the dealer asserts that "this model gets XX MPH city/ XX MPH highway." But you know that in reality you'll never reach those numbers, the question is just how far off are the numbers. I'm skeptical of the performance-based proposal because when they've promised XX jobs, or low carbon footprint and they don't meet the standards, then what? Maybe this is why it has been dropped in many places where its been tried?

And how do their projections get double-checked? Because why would we trust the developer's studies or numbers without double-checking them? Are cities going to pick up that expense? I don't see that happening, which seems it would leave citizens with little to fall back on.

Finally--why couldn't there be a combination? I don't understand why LEED & carbon footprint requirements couldn't be combined w/form-based zoning.

Kelly J Jarrett

      From: Don Moffitt <don.moffitt at gmail.com>

 To: Tom Miller <tom-miller1 at nc.rr.com> 
Cc: Julie McClintock <mcclintock.julie at gmail.com>; inc listserv <inc-list at durhaminc.org> 

 Sent: Thursday, August 14, 2014 12:54 PM
 Subject: Re: [Durham INC] Beyond form-based code

Use based zoning, form based zoning, performance based zoning. Why is one inclusionary, another exclusionary? All of them are based on a zone, which is set in a legislative process--planning commission and governing body--with opportunity for public input. 

I didn't see "spaces not sprawl" in the article, and I can't figure out who the whore in the metaphor is. But I found this interesting:

"Planners started with a set of goals—a certain number of jobs, a certain number of homes including affordable homes, and critically, strict standards for a low carbon footprint. However developers achieve all that is their business."

Right now there's a case pending in front of the Durham Planning Commission where the discussion is performance based. It's near a transit stop, and from what I've heard the discussion centered around the need for affordable housing. That's performance, not use. 

Just as with form and performance based zoning, if a project meets use zone criteria the development is "by right", thereby seemingly excluding citizen participation to the same extent the other types of zoning would.

Don't get me wrong--I'm not ready to adopt performance-based zoning. I just think the article was interesting and the concept intriguing, especially for areas much like the one featured in the article--the ones around future transit stops.

Don

On Thu, Aug 14, 2014 at 8:55 AM, Tom Miller <tom-miller1 at nc.rr.com> wrote:

The complaint with performance based zoning is that it is exclusive.  It is the final step in cementing the idea that city planning is a conversation between developers and the city planners with no input from ordinary citizens.  It turns zoning from a public legislative idea into a permit process.  “If you can meet these criteria, you can do what you want.”  No review, no input.  Everything becomes of-right.  The process becomes an algorithm.  Usually so complicated that only the professionals and those who can afford to pay for them can be involved in a meaningful way.  No wonder it never got off the
 ground.  Dressing it up with fluff like “Spaces not sprawl” is just the new kimono on the very familiar practitioner of the oldest profession.

 Tom

From: INC-list [mailto:inc-list-bounces at rtpnet.org] On Behalf Of Pat Carstensen

Sent: Thursday, August 14, 2014 7:43 AMTo: inc listserv; Julie McClintockSubject: [Durham INC] Beyond form-based code

 There is "performance based zoning"  

http://www.citylab.com/housing/2014/08/braving-the-new-world-of-performance-based-zoning/375926/

 Of course, you would have to decide on what you want to accomplish.

 Regards, pat

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