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SmartCode is a unified land development ordinance template for planning and urban design. Originally developed by Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company, this open source program is a model form-based unified land development ordinance designed to create walkable neighborhoods across the full spectrum of human settlement, from the most rural to the most urban, incorporating a transect of character and intensity within each. It folds zoning, subdivision regulations, urban design, and basic architectural standards into one compact document. Because the SmartCode enables community vision by coding specific outcomes that are desired in particular places, it is meant to be locally calibrated by professional planners, architects, and attorneys.
The SmartCode is not a building code. Building codes address life/safety issues such as fire and storm protection. Examples of building codes include the International Building Code (IBC), International Residential Code (IRC), and International Code Council (ICC) documents.
In the discussion of Smart Growth as an alternative to urban sprawl, one key aspect often overlooked is the currently prevailing system of community development codes and standards that by design, whether intentionally or not, have promoted subdivisions and strip malls. To change these community settlement patterns to allow for land conservation and to promote traditional patterns of hamlet, village, town and city, new codes are necessary. The most comprehensive example of a code designed for this purpose is the SmartCode as described below.
Model Code – The SmartCode is a model code, with metrics designed to create a generic medium-sized American city structured into walkable neighborhoods. The model code is freeware, a template meant to be locally customized by professional planners, architects, and attorneys.
Form-Based – The SmartCode is a form-based code. Conventional Euclidean zoning regulates land development with the most emphasis on controlling land use. Form-based zoning has been developed over the last twenty years to overcome the problems of sprawl created by use-based codes. Form-based zoning regulates land development with the most emphasis on controlling urban form and less emphasis on controlling land uses (although uses with negative impacts, such as heavy industry, adult businesses, etc. are still regulated). Urban form features regulated under the SmartCode include the width of lots, size of blocks, building setbacks, building heights, placement of buildings on the lot, location of parking, etc.
Unified Land Development Regulation – The SmartCode is a unified land development code that can include zoning, subdivision regulations, urban design, signage, landscaping, and basic architectural standards.
Walkable Neighborhoods – One of the basic principles in the SmartCode is that towns and cities should be structured as a series of walkable neighborhoods. Walkable neighborhoods require a mix of land uses (residential, office, and retail), public spaces with a sense of enclosure to create “outdoor rooms”, and pedestrian-oriented transportation design.
Rural-Urban Transect – The zones within the SmartCode are designed to create complete human habitats ranging from the very rural to the very urban. Where conventional zoning categories are based on different land uses, SmartCode zoning categories are based on their rural-urban character. All categories within the SmartCode allow some mix of uses. SmartCode zoning categories ensure that a community offers a full diversity of building types, thoroughfare types, and civic space types, and that each has appropriate characteristics for its location.
Though version 9.0 is only 50 pages, the SmartCode may replace conventional zoning, subdivision, and design regulations, making walkable mixed-use development legal by right.
The first city to adopt a SmartCode as a mandatory overlay for its downtown was Petaluma, California, in June 2003. The City of Miami adopted an exclusive citywide SmartCode in October 2009 and implemented it in May 2010. It is known as Miami21. It was calibrated by Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company. Cities that have adopted SmartCodes as a parallel option to their conventional zoning include Gulfport, Mississippi, Pass Christian, Mississippi, and Montgomery, Alabama. In addition, scores of private traditional neighborhood developments (TND) have been permitted under transect-based codes that are essentially the same as Article 5 of the SmartCode.
The SmartCode also includes additional supplementary “modules” with specialized techniques. The SmartCode Sustainability Module was introduced by Jaime Correa from Jaime Correa and Associates, in the City of Miami; the SmartCode Light Imprint and Drainage Module was designed by Tom Low at the Charlotte office of Duany and Plater-Zyberk; the Environmental Standards Module has been produced by Doug Farr, in Chicago. Other Modules include: Natural Drainage Standards, architecture/lighting/sound and visibility and Hazard Mitigation Standards.
SmartCode Resources and Education
A Few of the Calibrated SmartCodes
SmartCode Providers
Urbanism Resources
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Smart growth is an urban planning and transportation theory that concentrates growth in compact walkable urban centers to avoid sprawl. It also advocates compact, transit-oriented, walkable, bicycle-friendly land use, including neighborhood schools, complete streets, and mixed-use development with a range of housing choices. The term "smart growth" is particularly used in North America. In Europe and particularly the UK, the terms "compact city", "urban densification" or "urban intensification" have often been used to describe similar concepts, which have influenced government planning policies in the UK, the Netherlands and several other European countries.
In urban planning, zoning is a method in which a municipality or other tier of government divides land into "zones", each of which has a set of regulations for new development that differs from other zones. Zones may be defined for a single use, they may combine several compatible activities by use, or in the case of form-based zoning, the differing regulations may govern the density, size and shape of allowed buildings whatever their use. The planning rules for each zone determine whether planning permission for a given development may be granted. Zoning may specify a variety of outright and conditional uses of land. It may indicate the size and dimensions of lots that land may be subdivided into, or the form and scale of buildings. These guidelines are set in order to guide urban growth and development.
DPZ CoDesign (DPZ) is an architecture and town planning firm based in Miami, Florida, founded in 1980 by the husband-and-wife team of Andrés Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk. The firm advocates for New Urbanist town planning in the United States and other countries, having completed designs for over 300 new and existing communities. In addition to Duany and Plater-Zyberk, DPZ's partners include Galina Tachieva, Marina Khoury, Senen M. A. Antonio and Matthew J. Lambert.
New Urbanism is an urban design movement that promotes environmentally friendly habits by creating walkable neighbourhoods containing a wide range of housing and job types. It arose in the United States in the early 1980s, and has gradually influenced many aspects of real estate development, urban planning, and municipal land-use strategies. New Urbanism attempts to address the ills associated with urban sprawl and post-Second World War suburban development.
Land use planning is the process of regulating the use of land by a central authority. Usually, this is done to promote more desirable social and environmental outcomes as well as a more efficient use of resources. More specifically, the goals of modern land use planning often include environmental conservation, restraint of urban sprawl, minimization of transport costs, prevention of land use conflicts, and a reduction in exposure to pollutants. In the pursuit of these goals, planners assume that regulating the use of land will change the patterns of human behavior, and that these changes are beneficial. The first assumption, that regulating land use changes the patterns of human behavior is widely accepted. However, the second assumption - that these changes are beneficial - is contested, and depends on the location and regulations being discussed.
Seaside is an unincorporated master-planned community on the Florida Panhandle in Walton County, between Panama City Beach and Destin. One of the first communities in America designed on the principles of New Urbanism, the town has become the topic of slide lectures in architectural schools and in housing-industry magazines, and is visited by design professionals from all over the United States. On April 18, 2012, the American Institute of Architects's Florida Chapter placed the community on its list of Florida Architecture: 100 Years. 100 Places as the Seaside – New Urbanism Township.
Andrés Duany is an American architect, an urban planner, and a founder of the Congress for the New Urbanism.
Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk is a professor at the University of Miami's School of Architecture and an architect and urban planner in Miami, Florida.
Subdivisions are the act of dividing land into pieces that are easier to sell or otherwise develop, usually via a plat. The former single piece as a whole is then known as a subdivision. Subdivisions may be simple, involving only a single seller and buyer, or complex, involving large tracts of land divided into many smaller parcels. If it is used for housing it is typically known as a housing subdivision or housing development, although some developers tend to call these areas communities.
Floor area ratio (FAR) is the ratio of a building's total floor area to the size of the piece of land upon which it is built. It is often used as one of the regulations in city planning along with the building-to-land ratio. The terms can also refer to limits imposed on such a ratio through zoning. FAR includes all floor areas but is indifferent to their spatial distribution on the lot whereas the building coverage ratio measures building footprint on the lot but is indifferent to building height.
The street hierarchy is an urban planning technique for laying out road networks that exclude automobile through-traffic from developed areas. It is conceived as a hierarchy of roads that embeds the link importance of each road type in the network topology. Street hierarchy restricts or eliminates direct connections between certain types of links, for example residential streets and arterial roads, and allows connections between similar order streets or between street types that are separated by one level in the hierarchy By contrast, in many regular, traditional grid plans, as laid out, higher order roads are connected by through streets of both lower order levels An ordering of roads and their classification can include several levels and finer distinctions as, for example, major and minor arterials or collectors.
The urban-to-ruraltransect is an urban planning model created by the New Urbanist Andrés Duany. The transect defines a series of zones that transition from sparse rural farmhouses to the dense urban core. Each zone is fractal in that it contains a similar transition from the edge to the center of the neighborhood. The transect is an important part of the New Urbanism and smart growth movements. Duany's firm DPZ has embodied the transect philosophy into their SmartCode generic planning code for municipal ordinances.
Coving is a method of suburban planning used in subdivision and redevelopment of cities characterized by organic lot shapes and home placement along meandering setbacks. When combined with a new form of street patterns, lot area is increased and road area and length is reduced – a demonstrated average 25% compared to conventional suburban platting. Coving is used as an alternative to conventional urban "grid" and suburban land development layouts in order to enhance curb appeal, eliminate monotony, reduce costs, such as road surfacing and street length, while increasing the amount of land available for construction. What makes coving so unique is that it gains its efficiency by increasing instead of decreasing existing regulatory minimums.
A Form-Based Code (FBC) is a means of regulating land development to achieve a specific urban form. Form-Based Codes foster predictable built results and a high-quality public realm by using physical form as the organizing principle, with less focus on land use, through municipal regulations. An FBC is a regulation, not a mere guideline, adopted into city, town, or county law and offers a powerful alternative to conventional zoning regulation.
I'On is a mixed-use New Urbanist Traditional Neighborhood Development (TND) style community located in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, United States just northeast of Charleston. I'On was one of the earliest full-time residential New Urbanist communities developed in the US.
Traditional Neighborhood Development (TND) refers to the development of a complete neighborhood or town using traditional town planning principles. TND may occur in infill settings and involve adaptive reuse of existing buildings, but often involves all-new construction on previously undeveloped land.
SouthField is a form-based code planned community located on the former South Weymouth Naval Air Station in South Weymouth, Massachusetts. It is a 1,400-acre (6 km2) site 12 miles (19 km) south of Boston that overlaps three towns: Weymouth, Abington, and Rockland. Developed by LNR Property Corporation, SouthField will contain 2,855 housing units and up to 2,000,000 square feet (186,000 m2) that include single-family homes, apartments, and townhouses. The site will also have up to 1.7 million square feet of commercial development, a 45-acre recreational facility, an 18-hole golf course, walking trails and 1,000 acres of undeveloped land.
Zoning is the process of dividing a municipality into separate districts, or zones, upon which differing regulations, typically regarding land use, are applied. In the United States, zoning includes various land use laws enforced through the police power rights of state governments and local governments to exercise authority over privately owned real property.
Preservation development is a model of real-estate development that addresses farmland preservation. It shares many attributes with conservation development, with the addition of strategies for maintaining and operating productive agriculture and silviculture, often in perpetuity. A preservation development is a planned community that allows limited, carefully designed development on a working farm, while placing the majority of productive land under a system of easements and community governance to ensure a continuity of farming and environmental stewardship.
Jeff Speck is an American city planner, writer, and lecturer who is the principal at the urban design and consultancy firm, Speck & Associates. He has authored or co-authored several books on urban planning, including his 2012 book, Walkable City: How Downtown Saves America, One Step at a Time. He is an advocate for New Urbanism and more "walkable" cities and has given TED Talks on the subjects.