Code aims to recreate ‘best places’

The Grand Valley Metro Council in Grand Rapids, Michigan, won the “best project” award from the Institute of Transportation Engineers Transportation Planning Council for a study that promotes form-based codes among governments in the Grand Rapids area.
The project was conceived by Jay Hoekstra, senior planner for the Council. He began by asking for nominations of individuals in the Grand Rapids area who know the most about urban design. Those individuals were invited to identify ideally planned spaces in the metropolitan area — “best places” that might be replicated throughout the region. A similar, smaller group narrowed the number of sites, which were identified according to their location on the Transect.

collecting data on good places
Another group of students, transit advocates, and planners assisted a Chicago-based consultant, Farr Associates, in collecting images and measurements of more than 40 of those places. Engineers from Meyer, Mohaddes Associates of Minneapolis found a range of suitable street types that could be matched to the building site types, “so it works together,” Hoekstra said.
With this material, Farr Associates devised a code that various communities in the Grand Rapids area can use as a template. It’s hoped that the project will lead to the use of traditional town and city forms such as main streets, village greens, and neighborhood centers. The code is to be printed in July and distributed to planning commissions in the area in late summer and in the fall. It provides standards that can be incorporated into local zoning ordinances, along with processes for determining the locations where those standards should be applied. Contexts — from regional  downtown to residential neighborhood — are linked to appropriate street standards.
Council staff will meet with planning commissions in the region to explain how the code can be used. Independently, the city of Grand Rapids has been working on a form-based code and is starting to hold public hearings on it. Hoekstra also noted that the Home & Building Association of Greater Grand Rapids “has a new urbanist subcommittee,” which has organized tours of developments that have some new urbanist traits. Among them are Cobblestone in Holland, Michigan, and Celebration Village and Cobblestone at the Ravines, both in Grand Rapids. Hoekstra added that a 2004 Zimmerman/Volk Associates study of “whether there is a demand for housing in new urbanist places [in the region] is having an impact.”