Land Use: Form Based Code

5 pieces of euclidian zoning

1. use
2. density
3. height
4. lot coverage
5. lot size

Euclidian: No sense form of form
separates uses

Performance Zoning: You can mix uses BUT trying to regulate the impacts of the land use. It doesn't tell you what the development is going to look like. Generally what happens is, "oh well, you can do whatever you want as long as the impact is not too bad."

Planned Unit Development: You can mix uses BUT they are project by project, they are a floating zone (in the text but not on the map) that can happen anywhere. No sense of form.

Form Based Code:
Prescriptive, not proscriptive

1. Regulating Plan
1. map of FBC areas: building types that are allowed in that area, building form standards,
   
2. Building Form Standards, height min & max, storeys, functions, alignment
   

How do develop a form based code:

1. Visioning process: Charrettes
   
2. Goals and Objectives --> put in the Comp Plan sections that involve mixing uses: Housing, Economic, Development & Community Facilities; also, the future land use map because it identifies areas where you want to use your form based code (how widely used is the form based code?)
   
3. Public Spaces: sidewalk width, street width/design, streets, trees, furniture, lamps
4. Administration: how you pick the applications and process them? Condition in zoning. Use Community Viz
   

Form Based Codes
Appearance over functions
Americans fear two things: density (crime, higher taxes) and sprawl
Design Review is typically found in historic towns and districts
Regulates the appearance of new buildings
form based codes have wider application and give predictability to the appearance of what will be built.

Development Review Process
Require developer to provide a 3-D presentation of what the development will look like and how it will fit into the surroundings
e.g. community viz
serves as a verification of the FBC

Key Features of a Traditional Zoning Ordinance

1. Uses allowed
2. Density
3. By right, special exceptions, conditional uses
4. height
5. lot coverage, FAR
6. Setbacks

Parallel Codes: combining euclidian and FBC
What's good about it is that it has both text and graphics

Urban transect Zone:

Form Based Zoning
How does it differ from Euclidian Zoning?
Why are environmentalists a problem?

Duany: The Difficulty
fear of development, sprawl, lack of trust in development
Environmentalists vs. new urbanists: density is the issue, so low density results
Enviros are not about "place making " but minimizing environmental impacts (ecological footprint--or so they think).

Duany II
Need for connected streets, avoid or minimize traffic congestion (not cul-de-sacs)
Inside Portland, OR UGB weak on design. So there is a lot of "constrained sprawl." Need for a FBC inside growth boundary.
The transect and transec-based zoning
T1-T6, but T-3 and T-4 can be problems


Transect:
What would you use a special district for: locally unwanted land use (LULU), industrial center

Seaside FL

1. Compelling urban design
2. Effective public process (buildable plan)
3. Better development regulations: simplyify or avoid case by case design review process and design review board decisions
4. traditional zoning is use-based: too many zoning categories (FAR not great)
5. New urbanists: for first, management of sites second, use and density third.
6. a pattern book (what is this?)

meisner park

Louisville KY

October 23, 2008

You're hired to update the zoning code! Now what?

1. Future Land Use Map (FLUM)
2. Make and "As of" date

• Non conforming uses are the exceptions to this date:

1. Preexisting uses
   
2. Cannot expand
3. if destroyed by flood of fire or other act of man or god, they either cannot be rebuilt or must be rebuilt by 6 months after the event (this is the choice of the community during the drafting of the code)
4. grandfathered uses
   

• tangent: how do you get rid of billboards? make an ammortization clause (must get rid of billboard in five years time)

When you revamp a zoning code expect...an increase in filed development plans--> people submit their development plans before the change in order to be reviewed with the past zoning code.

• Zoning tends to be forward looking rather than reactionar
• nuisance ordinances: mow your lawn or else

Rezoning process:
who initiates?

• Planning Commission
• Developer
• Concerned Citizens

What should you (the planner) consider?

• what does the comprehensive plan say?
• spot zoning
• major change to the neighborhood
• what is the current use and zoning?
• what is the proposed use and zoning?

1. A piece of land is zoned R-1 and you want to change it to R-3, what do you do?

• Change the zoning map
• change the FLUM

2. You want to allow daycare facilities on R-1 properties. What do you do?

• Change the text in the form of an Amendment

The Re-zoning Process
1.Quasi Judicial

• findings of fact

2. Elected officials make legally binding decisions
3.Why is it a good/bad thing to go to court?

• it can set a precedent
• it is expensive and can engender lots of bad feelings

4. Re-zoning

Typical Rezoning Proposal

• Single to multifamily
  
• Residential to mixed use
• Agriculture to single fam res
• Ag to industrial
• Commercial to industrial

Conducting a Hearing

• Be respectful
• No more than five minutes from applicant to summarize case
• No more than three minutes from members of the audience (state name and residence)
  
• Tape record the meeting
• Warning--> end the meeting when there if the civility of the discourse declines.
  

Why is zoning poorly used (obviously this question is influenced by T.D.'s opinion)?

• Rigid separation of zoning
• Uniform setbacks
• municipal attorneys are afraid of takings challenges
• farmers and land speculators
• hunt for property tax base/fiscal zoning (zoning with community revenue in mind)
• often inconsistent with Comprehensive Plan

T.D. spent the rest of class showing pictures and going over the test (which he handed back).

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Zoning

What?

1. Regulate land use
2. Uses, density, height, setbacks, bulk coverage (FAR – floor area ratio)

• Have to watch how all these things interact (i.e. FAR can be effected by height limits)
  

Where?

1. LA pre WWII, NYC
2. Euclid versus Abler Realty 1926

• Zoning is okay under police power to protect health, welfare, and safety

• Euclidian Zoning

- separation of conflicting land uses

*common criticism to Euclidian Zoning is that you come up with cookie cutter style of development, 1960s cookie cutter development without sidewalks

3.Standard Enabling Act

- property values

Why?

1. Separation of conflicting land uses
2. Property values
3. Health, safety, welfare issues
4. Implement the Comprehensive Plan
5. 
   

How (hybrids)?

1. Map (developed from future land use map) and text
2. Identify zones (R, C, M, P, I) and districts within the zones (R-1, R-2, R-3)
1. Permitted Uses (by-right)
1. Single family – R-1

Go to these entities to get a permitted use:

Zoning Administrator (in smaller community)

Planning Commission (in larger city) to a staff person

1. Gives out Zoning permits
2. Rules on zoning questions
2. Special Exceptions Uses
1. Want to allow it to happen, but set certain standards on that use
2. i.e. in an R-1 district and want to put Daycare in home, must have a maximum number children allowed
3. Conditional Uses – i.e. maybe churches in an R-1 district
4. Not permitted – (if it is not mentioned in the permitted use, special exceptions or conditional use, it is not allowed) ie. Industry in residential neighborhood
3. PUD planned unit development, came about in the 1960s as a way to have negotiated mixed use

• Negotiated among developers and community through the planning commission

• Could have a floating zone in order to work a PUD

4. Overlay zone – shown on the zoning map and in effect creates a double zone

• Often used to protect environmental concerns (such as steep slope or flooding)

• Stricter provisions of overlaid zone and zone it is laid onto takes precedent

5. Performance Zoning: impacts, trees, berms, noise

• Hard to write accurately

• Elements can be written into an ordinance

6. Form Based Codes

• What is the built environment going to look like

• Because typical land use zoning does not give you an idea of what development is going to look like

*these techniques can be used to clean up the mess that 50 years of suburban development has caused. Planners will now spend their careers trying to correct.

Who?

1. Planning Commission – has ultimate responsibility
1. Staff and/or consultants
2. Perhaps a developer

Zoning Board of Adjustments (3 people, appointed)

• special exceptions
• appeals
• variances
1. physical
2. use – absolute no-no according to Daniels, has been used as a way to get around the planning commission and just use the zoning board of adjustments – should instead get a re-zoning of the property – could also be seen as spot zoning which is favoritism and will not hold up in court (spot zoning is illegal)

Exam

Some short answers (9)
Long answers (3)
Essay

Content: Water supply, water quality, air quality, something on climate change, CHAPTER 2, understand how all of this environmental planning relates locally to the comprehensive plan.

PRECISE/CONCISE/ACCURATE

Environmental Planning: October 14: WATER POLLUTION

Water Pollution

1. 40% of the nation's water ways are impaired (you can't swim or drink from them)
1. 20% improvement from before the clean water act
2. Public health threats
3. Increasing costs of clean up
1. almost always cheaper to avoid the pollution in the first place than to allow the pollution and pay to clean it up
4. Stormwater runoff
1. point (factories, sewage treatment) vs. nonpoint (can't pin it down) sources
2. non-point is 70% (the bigger problem)
3. cities--> combined sewer overflow (becomes point)
4. agriculture

3 kinds of pollution

1. physical
1. erosion
   
2. biological
1. bacteria
   
3. chemical
1. PCBs, PCEs
2. Nitrates and phosphorus are the two big ones know as NUTRIENT POLLUTION
1. Organic vs. Inorganic
2. nutrients are necessary for growth, but too much washes off and gets into groundwater. eventually it will cause algae bloom (a problem).
   E.G. CHESAPEAKE
3. when the blooms die they sink and suck up the oxygen resulting in HYPOXIA--the absence of oxygen E.G. GULF OF MEXICO (mississip holds all the agricultural runoff and dumps it)
   
4. Ground water
1. hard to clean up
2. recharge/filter issues
3. 
   
5. Surface
1. easy to pollute
2. moving (aerate)
3. wetlands/filter/buffer
4. temperature: if it is warmer it is not going to filter as easily (it is worse)
5. dissolved oxygen (when there is enough aeration the fish can breath. algae eats this up. fish die)
6. BOD: Biological Oxygen Demand, how much oxygen is being used and how much oxygen the water can hold. Measure of ability of wildlife to assimilate waste.

FIX

Clean Water Act 1972

1. Permits: NPDES--> original thinking was that we would eliminate all discharge into the water system, Administered by EPA
   
1. Permit contents:
1. what and how much you are discharging
2. five year permit
3. case by case
1. extremely difficult to determine the health of the watershed
4. point sources
5. Confined Animal Feeding Operation's have to have NPDES permits
6. Phase I and Phase II
1. for construction sites greater or equal to one acre.
2. silk fences
3. ponds
7. SPDES permit (speedies)
1. if EPA doesn't want to do it they can hand it to the state
2. Section 208
1. grants for sewage treatment plants; $ billions of dollars. they are now 30 years old.
3. Section 404
1. Wetlands
1. Army Core of Engineers-Permitting
2. How do you define a wetland?
1. one of the most controversial things in the last five years
2. land owners don't want their land to be a wetland because it is much more difficult to develop
4. Section 319
1. Non Point
5. Section 303(d)
1. every two years the state is supposed to send the EPA a list of impaired waters
2. TMDLs-->total maximum daily load
1. EPA ignored it for 22 years
2. National Resource Defense Council sues EPA
3. TMDLs are so much better because it is an assessment of what the WATERSHED can hold and still meet Class A and Class B water quality standards
1. figure out major pollutants in waterway
2. allocate an amount to each polluter
3. STATE's responsibility
1. the EPA can step in and do them...if they want

PROBLEM BETWEEN THE SCIENCE AND THE LAW

1. What is an estuary: it is where freshwater and saltwater meet
1. they clean freshwater
2. they create a very specific habitat for shellfish and mollusks
3. major breading and feeding ground
1. E.G. THE CHESAPEAKE

SLIDE SHOW

With more vegetation (sponging) you will have lower peaks

Los Angeles River

604 B state water quality planning and assessment grants. Can be used for monitoring water (TMDLs)

Three levels of treatment:
Primary: removes solids and some nutrients from the water. Primary treatment remoces about 60% of solids, which contain most of the chemical and biological contaminants in sewage,a dna third of the inorganic nutrients
secondary: uses chemical and bio treatments to break down organic matter and remove chemicals, Secondary treatment is the minimum treatment now required under the CWA for potable water, and nearly all municipal treatment plants treat sewage this level. Not two thirds of all US residents are served by secondary sewage treatment plants
Disinfection
after secondary treatment the treated water is disinfect with choline flouride or ozone to kill bacteria
Tertiary treatment is mainly use when the reviving body of water has a very high quality. One type is tertiary treatment is membrane filtration in which traps contaminants yet allows water to pass through. Tertiary treatment removes virtually all contaminants, including suspended and dissolved solids, chemicals, and pathogens. It is the only process that is effective in removing parasites such as cryptospiridium. Wastewater that undergoes tertiary treatment is generaly safe for drinking and swimming.

Commercial brings two problems: impermeable roofs and parking

Bringing Back the Chesapeake Bay:Environmental Panning Challenges and Opportunities

Lots of Ag, lots of forest,
The bay is most of maryland
48 rivers, 100 smaller rivers, 25 miles wide, 200 miles wide OBVI vulnerable to lots of non point pollution

shallow depth makes it difficult to flush out pollutants, the sun can much more easily warmed up.

excess nutrients cause algae blooms
submerged vegetation is key for fish
turbidity of the water also blocks sunlight to the vegetation
basics--> the veg is dying.

bivalves filter water--> oysters ROCK because of this

Primary Pollution Threats to the Chesapeak

• Nitrogen
• Sewage Treatment Plants
• Fertilizers on lawns and farms
• manure from livestock
• on-site septic systems
• cars and trucks
• acid deposition
• Phosphorus
• Urban Stormwater Runoff
• Put on plants around streets
• Detergent
  
• Toxics--Factories and Stormwater Runoff
• Sediment

2004

• The U.S. EPA includes the Chesapeake Bay on its list of impaired waters.
• The states bordering the bay must draft and implement plans to improve the water quality by 2010. Otherwise, the EPA will draft a TMDL plan for the plan.
• A low oxygen dead zone (hypoxia) in 40% of the Bay
• Loss of underwater grasses
• high turbidity
• rivers leading to Chesapeake a prob
• Susquehanna (headwaters in Oswego): most endangered river--American Rivers.org

Recent Land Use Change

• We found that rates of change across the Chesapeake Bay watershed are comparable to what has been observed in the Washington, DC area. Between 1990 and 300, there has been a 61% increase in developed area.

Eight Main Efforts

• Urban Storm Water Management
• BMP on Farms and Construction to minimize soil Erosion/Nutrient Loading
• Stream buffers with Trees
• Wetlands Restoration
• Reduced Use of On-Site Septic Systems
• Point Source Reduction
• Land Preservation
• Land Use Planning for Compact Growth

Marylands Smart Growth 1997

• Priority Funding Areas
• Live near your work program
• job creation tax credit
• brownfields redevelopment
• rural legacy program

Flush Ta
Maryland must upgrade 66 sewage treatment plants
MD households must pay $2.50 a month if on central sewer or $30 a year if using on site septics - pay for $750 million in bonds
Must reduce effluent from sewage treatment plants to 3mg/liter of Nitrogen and .3 mg/liter of phosphorus

Problem is that the Chesapeake is being impacted by the Sesquehana.

Chesapeake Bay Commission

• formed in 1980
• Maryland, Penn, Virginia
• legislative arm is the commission and plays and advisory role to legislatures
• 1600+ governments
  
• instrumental in Chesapeake bay agreements '83, '87, 2000.

CB AGREEMENT 2000

• super aggressive
• 50% reduction in nitrogen and phosphorus loadings
• permanent preservation of one-fifth of the land in the Bay watershed
• 8.5 billion over 10 years
• CBC said $18.7 billion

Maryland's Water Quality Protection Efforts
Farmland Preservation Program 1977
Critical Areas Law, 1984
Forest Conservation Act, 1991
ReLeaf Program, 1996
STATE PLANNING ACT, 1992
Tributary Teams, 1993
Storm Water Management Guidelines, 1983, 2000
Smart Growth Legislation, 1997
Smart Growth
Flush Tax s. Ethonol production

Design Guidelines for Smart Growth

• Density, walkability, mixed uses
• mass transit
• greenspace
• historic preservation and adaptive reuse
• brownfields
• infill
• smart codes

Land Preservation

• 15% inside the watershed is preserved
• preserve another 330,000 acres by the year 2020

Shortcomings

• County zoning varies considerably
• need better control of onsite septics
• lack of growth boundaries
• more mass transit
• growth tracking
• lack of regional government: There are 1650 local governemnts with the bay watershed, each with their own planning and zoning powers, subject to some state regulations

Good things
priority funding area
land preseration
bmp
watershed approach

Class notes/October 7

pick a water project or water situation
explain what the problem is and SWOT
what solutions have been tried
what do you recommend?
10 page double spaced.

Miami is a soul source aquifer
Florida has 5 water management districts
South Florida buys up a fair amount of land to try to restore the system.
Regional management districts are autonomous.

Lots of local shortage issues projected all over the country

Tampa
Seawater desalination plant

SAFE DRINKING WATER ACT 1974 and amendments

purpose: to reduce contaminants in public drinking water supplies
the act enabed the EPA to:

1. set national ddrinking water quality standards,
2. require water quality monitoring, water treatemnet, and the public reporting of contaminants in drinking water systems
3. fund source water protection programs to protect watersheds, aquifers, and wellheads, from potential contamination and
4. band the underground injection of hazardous wastes

Safe Drinking Water Act

• The EPA has the authority to regulate some 170,000 public water systems that provide 90% of the nation's drinking water. It is the responsibility of these systems to provide and adequate water supply of potable water to meet the present and projected future needs in the communities they serve.
• This acts as an incentive for private water departments to expand (bad idea)

SDWAII

• Public water systems also include more than 100,000 noncommunity water systems serving at least 25 people daily for six months or more a year primarily at larger business, recreational, and public sites and buildings.
• Only private water systems serving fewer than 25 people are not regulated by the EPA. Owners of individual wells supplying homes and small businesses need to test their own wells.

The SDWA established mandatory maximum contaminant levels for 90 drinking water contaminants (risk based standards)
The EPA also set secondary standards on heavy metals,
....

Surface Water Treatment Rules

• Nearly all communities that rely on surface water or surface influenced groundwater must filter and disinfect their water before it is distributed (except NYC)
• These new standards have resulted in many smaller communities abandoning their surface water or surface water influenced sources and seeking out new groundwater sources, to avoid the costs of building a filtration plant.

Wellhead Protection and Sourve Water Assessment and Protection

• The wellhead protection program requires each state to develop a program to protect the areas for community water supplies
• States must also develop source water assessment and progtectionprograms that address not only the well head areas but entire watersheds. SWAP programs require states to assess both surface and groundwater drinking water sources that serve public water systems.
• SWAP plans must include strategies for source water protection, including purchase of land or conservaiton easements and the implementation of wellhead protection ordinances and other land use planning techniques to signify limit new development and other potential sources of contamination near water supplies
• The EPA may designate a groundwater supply as a sole source aquifer for a city or area. If a federally funded project has the potential to pollute a sole source aquifer, the protect must undergo a stringent review.
• Setbacks (wetlands and streams, floodplanes)
• Future Infrastructure Needs
• The reauthorization of the Safe Drinking Water Act in 1996 included 9.6 billion in EPA grants to state and local governments and public water systems States have used the drinking water state revolving fund
  
• In 1997 the EPA estimated that community water systems would require investments of 138 billion between 1994 and 2014 to meet SDWA requirements for water quality.

Enforcement

• Most states have primary enforcement authority for the Safe Drinking Water Act. But the EPA has the power to enforce the ACT if a state does not to a proper job of enforcing the ACT states mus:
• maintain an inventory of the public water systems
• conduct sanitary surveys of public water systems
• collect annual compliance reports from public systems
• certify lab testing of public water quality
• ensure that new or modified systems comply with the state drinking water regs
• require public water systems to keep records and report violations
• assess fines for violations
• require emergency response plans for public water systems
• certify operators of public water systems.

You see with all of the Acts that there isn't a consistent level of regulation and enforcement across states.

Nitrates--> New Baby Syndrome