Copyright American Planning Association Jun 2000Permitted uses.
Bainbridge Island, a 40minute ferry ride from Seattle, has revamped its zoning system so that housing and commercial development would cluster in its town center, next so its ferry dock.
Conditional uses.
Prohibited uses
Special uses.
Long lists of categories and nouns.
And the terms get debated, refined, interpreted, reinterpreted. If Jonathan Swift were alive and writing today, I'm sure he would have done a satire on land-use interpretations by government planners.
A substantial part of my planning career has been devoted to landuse regulations; writing them, administering them, and applying them. Even appealing them. I have helped craft codes in places as far flung as New York and Alaska, Kansas and Washington State. I have written complex, wholly new ordinances that establish entirely new directions, and I have finetuned amendments that adjust a small section of a code.
After all of this work, the countless meetings and hearings, and the hundreds of pages, I have reached what is, perhaps, a startling conclusion: We need to radically "dezone" our communities.
More than 20 years ago, the philosopher Ivan Illich made a bold proposal for "deschooling society." His main thesis was that an overly bureaucratized and institutionalized system was standing in the way of innovations in education. Likewise, I believe that we need to completely reexamine this basic tool of the planning profession.
Let me explain.
We still need regulations. But we need regulations that are more direct, more explicit, more qualitative in their intent, and much more concise.
What a mess
In many cities, land-use codes are a morass of lists, tables, diagrams, definitions, subsections, subparagraphs, cross-references, amendments, and footnotes. No wonder attorneys are hired to decipher (and debate) them. Worse, many codes rely on a sea of numbers (many of obscure origins) to produce high-quality development.
Often citizens and elected representatives are disappointed-and sometimes shocked-to find that what they thought would result in good development produced exactly the opposite: generic, bland, or offensive buildings, out of scale and context, adding little to the sense of place in their communities.
I would submit that most zoning codes are actually "qualityneutral"; that is, they have an equal chance of producing bad or good development. Most codes deal in quantities of things: heights, setbacks, coverage, lot dimensions, parking stalls, etc. And uses. God, those use charts!
Permitted uses. Conditional uses. Prohibited uses. Special uses. Long lists of categories and nouns. And the terms get debated, refined, interpreted, reinterpreted. If Jonathan Swift were alive and writing today, I'm sure he would have done a satire on land-use interpretations by government planners.
All the while we move toward a future that is full of continual change. What list does this belong on: a row of owner-occupied townhouses containing street-level commercial spaces with a large restaurant on the corner? Multiple family? Commercial? No fair saying "mixed use."
How about this? A warehouselike building with loading docks that one year contains a fabricating plant, two years later a restaurant brew-pub, 10 years later artist lofts? And what about a building that started out as a train station, was converted into a meeting hall, then was reconverted into office space?
One last example: A corner grocery is changed into an auto repair shop and then into an apartment building. Sound farfetched? All of these examples occurred within a few miles of my home.
Get with the program
Our economy is rapidly changing and evolving. The whole complexion of businesses is shifting. The baby boom generation is aging but choosing new lifestyles. We are seeing an influx of new cultures that do not have the same middle-class American values as previous generations. Yet we still use a tool developed at the turn of the last century to prevent steel mills and offal from encroaching on our homes.
Building technology has made huge advances in fire prevention, fire suppression, and ventilation. Yet the preface in most codes still includes a reference to the need for light and air, as if rooms were built at the bottom of light wells and fires still raged through blocks of tenements.
Twenty miles east of where I am sitting, the low-slung, brickclad 
Microsoft complex is nestled among trees and surrounded by park-like green space. Single-family houses are all around. Here is the factory of the future-and it looks like a pleasant high school, complete with a cafeteria and a commons.
A few blocks from my office is one of the finest, most expensive hotels in the city, and it contains one of the most prestigious restaurants. Concert pianists, corporate executives, and rock stars stay there. Most of the rooms look out on the storefront windows of an adult video store. In the windows are a clutch of Ken and Barbie dolls dressed in leather and engaged in some very out-of theordinary public behavior. A pretty sharp contrast. So, have property values declined or hotel patrons turned away? Hardly. The hotel is usually packed.
Two blocks south is a restored historic building that contains pricey condominiums. Right next to the entrance is a welding shop that occasionally sends sparks flying out the front door. Are the units lagging in sales? Nope. There is a long waiting list.
Much of what we have embedded in our codes speaks to fears that are far greater than the reality. It is time that we look to our codes, make them more current, more manageable, less exclusionary, less anal-retentive. And we need considerably more flexibility to create places that are diverse, sociable, and reflective of contemporary business and technology.
Giving it a whirl
Over the past five years I have had a couple of opportunities to put these ideas into practice. One place I worked is a small town, the other a large city. Both communities were willing to rethink what they need to move into the next century.
The first case was the city of Bainbridge Island. Located west of Seattle, on the west side of Puget Sound, this small, recently incorporated city is connected to Seattle's downtown bya40-minute ferry ride. The ferry makes Bainbridge Island an attractive option for people who work in downtown Seattle and want to live in a small town. And the town is booming, with a population increase from around 16,000 in 1990 to over 20,000 today.
The city's 1994 comprehensive plan was written to conform to the state's Growth Management Act. This meant that the bulk of new commercial and housing development would be fitted into the older town center next to the ferry dock. Policies envisioned a mixed-use, walkable center. In 1996, new zoning was developed to implement this goal.
First the town center was divided into seven sectors, each reflecting a different historical pattern and role within the community. But rather than make everything mixed use, the new zoning districts allowed much more residential than commercial. This sent out a clear message about preferred building types. An older street containing 19th century houses was protected from an onslaught of larger, bulkier buildings, and new development had to borrow forms, rooflines, and details from older houses, even if the uses were commercial.
At the outset, we wanted to keep the regulations simple-in part so that both citizens and small builders could understand their intent. A few basic numbers were used, including building height, floor area ratio, and minimum (and maximum) parking ratios. For each district, allowable FAR was weighted in favor of residential to ensure mixed use, whether horizontal or vertical.
Building heights were generally kept under 35 feet, but a 10foot increase could be obtained if parking was placed undergroundout of sight. Minimum parking ratios were set much lower than those in the previous code, and maximum ratios were sec lower than the market would normally require-in order to encourage the use of transit.
Finally, all of the basic standards were placed in one chart so that almost everything relevant to development potential could be found easily. A supplemental, illustrated document contained easyto-read design guidelines that addressed the architectural form and proportions of buildings.
The upshot
Much development has taken place since the new code was adopted. New housing has been built throughout the town center. New offices have gone up. New banks and retail stores have been constructed. A large complex containing movie theaters and restaurants hugs the street edge with canopies and windows, atypical of most recent buildings of this type. (The complex is controversial, however, because of its size and somewhat ungainly appearance.)
A village-like grouping of buildings contains retail, offices, and housing, along with a waterfront promenade. It respects its context by echoing the form and materials associated with a nearby former boathouse. More recently, the city opened a new city hall that reflects the townscape principles embodied in the new code. It fronts on the street, with a small forecourt; all of the parking is located in the back. And the parking is designed around a central square that can be used for the weekend farmers market.
All of these projects reflect five important ideas that are missing in most conventional zoning codes. These are: respect for small-town scale and proportions; a close relationship to the street to ensure the continuity of the townscape; the mixing of different uses, both stacked and proximate; minimum intrusiveness from parking; and a variety of attractive and accessible public spaces.
Fixing patchwork
Tacoma, Washington (pop. 150,000), also undertook a dezoning. The city had a downtown area that had languished for years, despite the robust economy of the Puget Sound region.
Tacoma wanted a new downtown plan that would reflect the investment being made in light rail, as well as other public improvements and cultural facilities. Its approach was to attract private investment, particularly in dense urban housing. In 1998, the city council adopted a revised building code that encouraged midrise housing; it needed a new set of land-use regulations to address a broader, strategic vision.
In addition, the city had set up a development authority to help the city's formerly industrial waterfront make a transition to mixed uses and cultural attractions. This agency had been successful in getting the federal court system to adapt the historic Union Station. It had sponsored the construction of a new State History Museum. And it had persuaded the University of Washington to convert a collection of old loft-style warehouses into a new branch campus. But it had not attracted any complementary private investment, A new regulatory approach was seen as one way to appeal to the development community.
The existing code governing downtown was a patchwork of numerous districts, special districts, and overlay districts. So thick were the multiple layers that it was almost impossible to read the zoning map. Even more impenetrable were the dozens of pages of text, with references, lists of uses, and uneven design standards.
In the process of redoing the code, we took an approach similar to zero-based budgeting. Nothing was assumed; the code was rebuilt from the basics up.
What evolved
Four districts were eventually established, each allowing a broad mix of uses, but each with a somewhat different emphasis. The district called "commercial core" emphasized high-rise commercial development. The downtown residential district focused on midrise housing. The downtown mixed-use district stressed public and civic uses, but allowed housing and commercial development. And the warehouse residential district emphasized the conversion ofold factory and warehouse buildings into housing.
As with the code for Bainbridge Island, Tacoma's essential development standards were kept to a minimum: floor area ratio, building height, and minimum/maximum parking ratios. And again, everything was placed in a single table for easy readability. A short list of basic design standards was established for all districts.
In contrast to the Bainbridge Island code, Tacoma's design standards and guidelines were incorporated into the code itself. Everything was carefully worded to reduce the need for interpretation.
The entire land-use code fit on nine pages (excluding sign regulations), and downtown policies were kept to a handful of pages as well. In other words, the bible for downtown development fit on less than 20 pages.
As this code was being drafted, presentations were made to numerous individuals and groups: neighborhood organizations, business associations, corporations, banks, and development companies. Some adjustments and additions were made in response to comments, but it took less than six months to overhaul the entire code.
Two important things were achieved in the process: The public could grasp the intended new vision for downtown, and the real estate industry was primed to develop.
Several important development projects have begun to take shape under the provisions of the new code since its adoption at the end of 1999. A mixed-use office/retail complex has been proposed for a key gateway parcel. A mid-rise residential development has been proposed for the north end of downtown, and a similar project is being put together for the central area. A privately funded museum is pursuing development of a site at the south end. Several owners of the old brick warehouse buildings are pondering their conversion to loft housing. Finally, the city is working with a developer on the codevelopment of housing and commercial uses as a part of its new convention center.
These examples prove it is possible to drastically reshape our landuse regulations. They can be made clearer, simpler, and more effective. This long-standing tool of public planning isn't just a figment of the 20th century; it is a key to the future.
Mark Hinshaw is the director of urban design at LMN Architects in Seattle.
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