Wisconsin implements TND codes

The nation’s broadest implementation of new urbanist zoning ordinances is underway in Wisconsin, where a 1999 smart growth law mandates that all cities, towns, and villages with a population of more than 12,500 adopt a model TND ordinance by January 2002. A team at the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Wisconsin Madison, led by Associate Professor Brian Ohm, is currently reviewing codes from around the country and drafting the model ordinance. The team is also drawing lessons from the development of Wisconsin’s only existing TND, Middleton Hills in Madison. The ordinance is conceived as an optional overlay district, but communities may elect to make it mandatory for all new development. Ohm says the model must be flexible enough to avoid becoming “overly intimidating,” and municipalities will have permission to tailor it to local conditions. “It will be set up to be more educational than prescriptive,” he says. Maryland enacts code legislation Municipalities in Maryland will soon have the option to adopt overlay zoning codes for mixed-use and infill development. The enabling legislation was recently passed by the state legislature, along with provisions for the creation of a statewide rehabilitation code. The Maryland Office of Planning has already written preliminary drafts of the codes and will develop a final model to be offered to communities by the end of the year. Municipalities are not mandated to adopt the overlay codes, but the state wants to sweeten the pot with some incentives, says Johns Hopkins, a Governor’s Policy Fellow at the Department of Housing and Community Development. Increased state funding for roads and traffic signals is one possibility, but the exact nature of the incentives is as yet unclear, Hopkins says. The same is the case for the developer incentives the department intends to include in the smart codes. The codes will allow for flexible lot sizes, building heights, and setbacks, and will provide flexible requirements for parking and roadway design. The rehabilitation code — a separate code for historic buildings — is modeled on New Jersey’s rehab code which has proven highly successful. In 1998, one year after the state implemented the code, the amount of money going to repairing existing structures in Trenton, Newark, and Jersey City increased by 40, 60, and 80 percent, respectively. “If we can achieve just a fraction of that, we’ll be very happy in Maryland,” Hopkins says. Orlando codes go by the wayside A city-wide TND overlay code has been under consideration in Orlando, Florida, for several years, but it now looks as if no new code will be adopted. Former Planning Director Rick Bernhardt pushed for this optional overlay code, and he and his staff wrote a draft in collaboration with Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company. The effort lost momentum after Bernhardt left the department for the private sector, but according to planner Rich Unger, the department is about to begin a process of incorporating parts of the proposed ordinance into the existing code. Such changes would be subject to a planning board review and approval from City Council. “We can accommodate a TND now if the developer wants it,” Unger says. “By refining the code we already have, we can get those who don’t want to do TND to do it anyway.” Unger notes that the city gets a lot of flak for its parking cap of 4 spaces per 1,000 square feet of commercial or office development. He suggests that one way to entice developers to improve the public realm is to waive the parking cap if buildings are brought to the sidewalk and parking placed behind. Gainesville ordinances Gainesville, Florida, has had three new urbanist ordinances on the books since 1998. The floating TND zoning district can be applied to projects from 16 to 200 acres with a minimum density of eight units per acre. The City has offered no incentives with the ordinance, and it has not been used yet. Planner Dom Nozzi says it may be too prescriptive and difficult to comply with, and adds that there is no strong political will to bring TNDs to Gainesville. Two other overlay codes have been more successful. The Traditional City ordinance covers downtown Gainesville, and the Central Corridor ordinance applies to major streets. Both require that buildings be built to the sidewalk and that parking be placed next to or behind structures. Nozzi says developers have raised surprisingly little fuss over using the new code, and the pedestrian-friendly design approach is spreading throughout the city. u