Regulating land development to achieve community desires. (page 1 of 2)

In the past when most industry was noisy and dirty, zoning was employed to keep undesirable land uses away from the places where people lived. Today, many businesses are better neighbors and many people favor places where stores, services, and workplaces can be found closer to home. Mixed land uses have other benefits such as the reduction of car trips and lowered crime due to increased pedestrian activity. As more communities embrace new urbanism and smart growth development models, they are discovering that zoning is a poor tool for implementing such strategies. Primarily concerned with use and density, zoning is unable to proactively regulate urban form. Typological codes are a better way to predictably regulate the build-out of a community.

In some places, a given zoning designation can produce wildly differing results. For example, New York's R-6 zoning designation enables the construction of brownstones such as those found in Greenwich Village, or it can allow high-rise residential towers. Because both places have identical uses and densities, they fit the zoning. But they each suggest drastically different kinds of urban form. For this reason, citizens and innovative planning professionals are exploring alternative forms of design regulation.


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