Thank you for publishing Andrew, I’ve been looking forward to you writing about adaptive code. This would be a huge improvement over modern zoning if implemented!
A few additional thoughts
- The multiplier would facilitate growth best if tiers responded to building code necessities. So multiplier jumps once you move from residential to commercial building code (above 3 stories in CA), and jumps again or becomes unlimited once you hit an average for height requiring all Type I or IV construction (above 8 stories in CA). Some of these building code rules may change in ways that require adaptation (cross-laminated timber makes type IV construction in the 8-20 story range increasingly feasible) but general principal still stands
- Political incentives make me think this will be about as successful as form based codes unless transects are defined at the state level, Japanese gov style. “Different communities are free to define transects that fit the way they want to evolve” sounds nice in theory, hard to imagine most communities defining transects in a way that actually facilitates development on their own. Political incentives too bad, planning profession too broken. Different states can still come up with their own transects (keep feds out) and there may be room for variation in local implementation
One challenge I’m chewing on: I’m reluctant to reward neighborhoods that have especially restrictive zoning with the most incremental growth. Would be nice (though politically unrealistic) to have some sort of redlining or housing covenant factor that boosted the multiplier in historically segregated neighborhoods
I love your first point, a really great code would link together the transitions in the building code with the transitions in the development code to make the progression to higher levels of development seamless. That’s a great observation, thank you!
On the political incentives, I’m a bit ambivalent. I think states might have a big role to play in establishing the core idea, that properties have a right to change, and the city ordinance can’t be to freeze things in place. If we were successful at establishing that, then local control might still be okay. In fact I think it could possibly be a politically winning compromise, a way to preserve some local control (which is popular) while removing the status quo of “nothing is allowed.” But I agree the politics are hard and I really don’t know how the arguments would play out in different places.
On the third point, you may disagree with me on this, but I would caution that I don’t think we’ll be successful if we try to punish exclusionary places for their past exclusion. I deeply understand the moral outrage that places have been allowed to use mandatory luxury to lock out anyone below them on the SES ladder. But I think the most effective movements for change are focused on moving forward together in a positive way, working around opposition, or finding some compromise that still represents progress. It’s hard, maybe even distasteful, but I think it’s the way to win one battle at a time and ultimately improve life for all of us.
Eh I actually agree with you on my own third point being politically impractical and unproductive to go around pushing for. UC Davis Law Professor Chris Elemendorf has argued zoning reformers will actually be most effective if they leave the most exclusionary areas alone to avoid the strongest pushback. I wouldn’t go quite that far but there isn’t a sustainable political path to change that involves punishing anyone
re State vs local control, I’m hopeful different states take different approaches so we can see what works well and is politically acceptable—laboratory of democracy and whatnot
Thanks, Andrew. This is very interesting food for thought. I'm curious about the administrative side of this. I can imagine the first objection being that plan review becomes a lot more complicated when you have to review every project differently based on what the adjacent properties look like.
I've never felt that difficulty of implementation per se was a good reason not to do something, but it's an argument that would need to be addressed.
I appreciate you bringing this point up. Agreed that difficulty isn't a reason to outright deny an idea, but it does need to be considered or the goal of spending up approvals may not be achieved for lack of proper resouricing. That said, my initial reaction to the Parameterized approach is I don't think it would be that difficult depending on the structure (there seemed to be opportunity to gradients of complexity). At a basic level, it would be some pretty quick math. I also felt like it may provide more flexibility over time than the transects in that as each property redeblvelops it will gain height from the precious development which has gained height from that property before....I think this really supports the idea of incrementalism with having to go through periodic transect updates and adjustments. Perhaps a little more organic over time. A whole that would be worth exploring would be how to allow properties to tlretain gains in height and other standards when they combine and this costume their neighbor.
Thanks Spencer! That’s where I think the quantized version might be more feasible. You wouldn’t really need to analyze the surrounding properties, they’d already be classified, so you’d just know that all adjacent properties are T3 therefore you can build up to T4.
It might even be viable to do it with just the classification of the subject property itself… but I think discontinuities are more difficult that way. If you have a vacant lot, what level is it? Or if you have one old building that’s already higher intensity than everything around it… should that be redeveloped even higher, or should we prefer to wait until more of the surrounding context has matured?
It’s interesting, and I hope that what happens is we can find communities willing to try variations on this and see what works best.
How about also allowing any existing development to be replicated? In so many neighborhoods there are existing buildings, often small-scale multi-family buildings, that are now outlawed thanks to zoning.
This is something that I actually wrote a zoning code (really, a UDO) to do last year, although with a twist: while my code uses a quantized approach (similar to the New Urbanist transect, but with T1 removed and the lines around T2 and T3 drawn differently to fit better with construction realities as far as I can grasp them), instead of allowing the next transect wherever the current one appears to be "filled out", I require that certain thresholds of public infrastructure be met before buildings can conform to the prior transect. (This is done to avoid issues where your zoning permits buildings that can't be built because of insufficient hydrant capacity or would overwhelm the people-conduits they sit on. Reductio ad absurdum example: you can't permit the Empire State Building to sit at the end of a 500' dead-end alley with an equally dead-end 4" water main as its only water supply.)
This is something that I actually wrote a zoning code (really, a UDO) to do last year, although with a twist: while my code uses a quantized approach (similar to the New Urbanist transect, but with T1 removed and the lines around T2 and T3 drawn differently to fit better with construction realities as far as I can grasp them), instead of allowing the next transect wherever the current one appears to be "filled out", I require that certain thresholds of public infrastructure be met before buildings can conform to the prior transect. (This is done to avoid issues where your zoning permits buildings that can't be built because of insufficient hydrant capacity or would overwhelm the people-conduits they sit on. Reductio ad absurdum example: you can't permit the Empire State Building to sit at the end of a 500' dead-end alley with an equally dead-end 4" water main as its only water supply.)
Thank you for publishing Andrew, I’ve been looking forward to you writing about adaptive code. This would be a huge improvement over modern zoning if implemented!
A few additional thoughts
- The multiplier would facilitate growth best if tiers responded to building code necessities. So multiplier jumps once you move from residential to commercial building code (above 3 stories in CA), and jumps again or becomes unlimited once you hit an average for height requiring all Type I or IV construction (above 8 stories in CA). Some of these building code rules may change in ways that require adaptation (cross-laminated timber makes type IV construction in the 8-20 story range increasingly feasible) but general principal still stands
- Political incentives make me think this will be about as successful as form based codes unless transects are defined at the state level, Japanese gov style. “Different communities are free to define transects that fit the way they want to evolve” sounds nice in theory, hard to imagine most communities defining transects in a way that actually facilitates development on their own. Political incentives too bad, planning profession too broken. Different states can still come up with their own transects (keep feds out) and there may be room for variation in local implementation
One challenge I’m chewing on: I’m reluctant to reward neighborhoods that have especially restrictive zoning with the most incremental growth. Would be nice (though politically unrealistic) to have some sort of redlining or housing covenant factor that boosted the multiplier in historically segregated neighborhoods
Thank you for the feedback, Jeremy!
I love your first point, a really great code would link together the transitions in the building code with the transitions in the development code to make the progression to higher levels of development seamless. That’s a great observation, thank you!
On the political incentives, I’m a bit ambivalent. I think states might have a big role to play in establishing the core idea, that properties have a right to change, and the city ordinance can’t be to freeze things in place. If we were successful at establishing that, then local control might still be okay. In fact I think it could possibly be a politically winning compromise, a way to preserve some local control (which is popular) while removing the status quo of “nothing is allowed.” But I agree the politics are hard and I really don’t know how the arguments would play out in different places.
On the third point, you may disagree with me on this, but I would caution that I don’t think we’ll be successful if we try to punish exclusionary places for their past exclusion. I deeply understand the moral outrage that places have been allowed to use mandatory luxury to lock out anyone below them on the SES ladder. But I think the most effective movements for change are focused on moving forward together in a positive way, working around opposition, or finding some compromise that still represents progress. It’s hard, maybe even distasteful, but I think it’s the way to win one battle at a time and ultimately improve life for all of us.
Eh I actually agree with you on my own third point being politically impractical and unproductive to go around pushing for. UC Davis Law Professor Chris Elemendorf has argued zoning reformers will actually be most effective if they leave the most exclusionary areas alone to avoid the strongest pushback. I wouldn’t go quite that far but there isn’t a sustainable political path to change that involves punishing anyone
re State vs local control, I’m hopeful different states take different approaches so we can see what works well and is politically acceptable—laboratory of democracy and whatnot
Thanks for writing and engaging!
Thanks, Andrew. This is very interesting food for thought. I'm curious about the administrative side of this. I can imagine the first objection being that plan review becomes a lot more complicated when you have to review every project differently based on what the adjacent properties look like.
I've never felt that difficulty of implementation per se was a good reason not to do something, but it's an argument that would need to be addressed.
I appreciate you bringing this point up. Agreed that difficulty isn't a reason to outright deny an idea, but it does need to be considered or the goal of spending up approvals may not be achieved for lack of proper resouricing. That said, my initial reaction to the Parameterized approach is I don't think it would be that difficult depending on the structure (there seemed to be opportunity to gradients of complexity). At a basic level, it would be some pretty quick math. I also felt like it may provide more flexibility over time than the transects in that as each property redeblvelops it will gain height from the precious development which has gained height from that property before....I think this really supports the idea of incrementalism with having to go through periodic transect updates and adjustments. Perhaps a little more organic over time. A whole that would be worth exploring would be how to allow properties to tlretain gains in height and other standards when they combine and this costume their neighbor.
Thanks Spencer! That’s where I think the quantized version might be more feasible. You wouldn’t really need to analyze the surrounding properties, they’d already be classified, so you’d just know that all adjacent properties are T3 therefore you can build up to T4.
It might even be viable to do it with just the classification of the subject property itself… but I think discontinuities are more difficult that way. If you have a vacant lot, what level is it? Or if you have one old building that’s already higher intensity than everything around it… should that be redeveloped even higher, or should we prefer to wait until more of the surrounding context has matured?
It’s interesting, and I hope that what happens is we can find communities willing to try variations on this and see what works best.
How about also allowing any existing development to be replicated? In so many neighborhoods there are existing buildings, often small-scale multi-family buildings, that are now outlawed thanks to zoning.
Absolutely, that’s implicitly part of this in my mind but you’re right it should be explicit.
This is something that I actually wrote a zoning code (really, a UDO) to do last year, although with a twist: while my code uses a quantized approach (similar to the New Urbanist transect, but with T1 removed and the lines around T2 and T3 drawn differently to fit better with construction realities as far as I can grasp them), instead of allowing the next transect wherever the current one appears to be "filled out", I require that certain thresholds of public infrastructure be met before buildings can conform to the prior transect. (This is done to avoid issues where your zoning permits buildings that can't be built because of insufficient hydrant capacity or would overwhelm the people-conduits they sit on. Reductio ad absurdum example: you can't permit the Empire State Building to sit at the end of a 500' dead-end alley with an equally dead-end 4" water main as its only water supply.)
This is something that I actually wrote a zoning code (really, a UDO) to do last year, although with a twist: while my code uses a quantized approach (similar to the New Urbanist transect, but with T1 removed and the lines around T2 and T3 drawn differently to fit better with construction realities as far as I can grasp them), instead of allowing the next transect wherever the current one appears to be "filled out", I require that certain thresholds of public infrastructure be met before buildings can conform to the prior transect. (This is done to avoid issues where your zoning permits buildings that can't be built because of insufficient hydrant capacity or would overwhelm the people-conduits they sit on. Reductio ad absurdum example: you can't permit the Empire State Building to sit at the end of a 500' dead-end alley with an equally dead-end 4" water main as its only water supply.)
Apologies for the quintuple(!) post, Substack kept throwing what I thought was an error message about my profile needing updating.