Form-based codes rise again

There are now 738 codes that meet the criteria for form-based codes, according to Emily Talen, Hazel Borys, and Matt Lambert, the team that keeps tracks of these codes on a website called The Codes Study. Of those codes, 439 are adopted. It's been a couple of years since the last update, when The Codes Study found 654 codes, 387 of which are adopted, in February of 2017.

There's been 52 new codes adopted in that time, and more proposed. It often takes years—sometimes five or more—to overhaul a zoning code using form-based standards. Given the number of codes in process, the adopted count likely will continue to rise in the next update. Many of the new codes are neighborhoods within cities, rather than citywide codes. Many of these codes will be used as templates to adopt in new neighborhoods.