City Rules: How Regulations Affect Urban Form by Emily Talen

[tufsu1]

There is a bridge between dt and springfield..its called main st..

its a one-way bridge

[Tacachale]

I wish we wouldn't let this obvious troll continue to derail otherwise informative threads. I don't know if the book gets into it, but this sounds like a good case for adopting form-based code in cities that have faced these problems.

[icarus]

Back on the topic of how regulations affect urban form, the current municipal code including set back limits makes sense in a predominant portion of suburban car centric areas of town.

Maybe, just maybe, we should be looking at developing a downtown development zone with some appropriate modifications.  North Carolina, especially the areas around Charlotte and Raleigh-Durham, have done this to some good success. Its things like relaxing parking requirements in exchange for density of development or allowing developers to purchase credits.  The idea being to encourage dense infill development and promote mass transit in the core.  UNC students actually put together a great presentation related to gentrification(planned and inevitable) and planning for integrated affordable housing.

In other words, planning ...

[jcjohnpaint]

very interesting! 

[fieldafm]

Pieces of downtown already have a zero parking requirement.  Brooklyn and the State/Union corridor however could certainly benefit from further reducing parking requirements.

Its things like relaxing parking requirements in exchange for density of development or allowing developers to purchase credits. 

Adding an incentive zoning component for deviations requested within the Riverside/Avondale Overlay is something I have suggested many, many times.  This offers a specific path to request deviations based on the developer contributing to some pre-determined public benefit.

I had an interesting conversation today while speaking to a group on downtown revitilzation.  Some weren't too comfortable that I said I was not in favor of waiving ground level retail requirements for parking garages, despite the existing garages within downtown that have retail space presently sitting empty.

I used the Orlando example where the developer set back the parking garage to allow for future infill (in their case, apartments) when market demand warranted it as a good solution.  I mentioned that despite the short term difficulty in leasing the space, that building then becomes permanent dead space if retail provisions are not established when the garage gets built thereby adding to the long term problems downtown already suffers from. 

[HisBuffPVB]

City government should not be a hindrance to redevelopment, but should lead the way in cooperating. In the 80s, Springfield had a planning process with the AIA, the RUDAT, whose funding was paid for by city HUD(which no longer exists in the same form, however, there are still community development block grant funds that can be pay for those kinds of efforts). Oh well, that's a long time ago, and the people within the government who were sympathetic to redevelopment have long since moved on.

[icarus]

HISBUFFPVB.

The Historic Commission itself, City staff, is actually quite professional and very easy to work with. I think a lot of the feedback, mostly of the negative version, relates more to the input of the various community groups such as RAP. While the Historic Commission is not bound by the input or recommendations of these groups, they generally heavily weigh their input.

Yes, the Housing Department has changed in form and function since the 80s but community black grants are still available.  The available money for these grants and their allocation has become much more of a political process in terms of the amount of funds available to Jacksonville. A predominant amount of the money seems to be slated for neighborhood stabilization projects.Although, some funds are still doled out to CHDOs in the area fir new construction.

[thelakelander]

Back on the topic of how regulations affect urban form, the current municipal code including set back limits makes sense in a predominant portion of suburban car centric areas of town.

I don't think it makes sense in the suburban areas of town either.  That development pattern simply creates large areas of town that will never be able to generate the amount of revenue to the city that it takes to support them.  We're suffering now because of 50 years of subsidizing this unsustainable growth pattern.

Maybe, just maybe, we should be looking at developing a downtown development zone with some appropriate modifications.  North Carolina, especially the areas around Charlotte and Raleigh-Durham, have done this to some good success. Its things like relaxing parking requirements in exchange for density of development or allowing developers to purchase credits.  The idea being to encourage dense infill development and promote mass transit in the core.  UNC students actually put together a great presentation related to gentrification(planned and inevitable) and planning for integrated affordable housing.

In other words, planning ...

I'm a fan of going to a form-based code myself.......for the entire city. Btw, I'm planning to spend some time in Raleigh next week.  It's been a few years since I've been there, so I'll be interested to see the changes since then.