Form-based code
Form-Based Codes foster predictable built results and a high-quality public realm by using physical form (rather than separation of uses) as the organizing principle, with less focus on land use, through municipal regulations.
[1] Form-Based Codes are a new response to the modern challenges of urban sprawl, deterioration of historic neighborhoods, and neglect of pedestrian safety in new development.
Tradition has declined as a guide to development patterns, and the widespread adoption by cities of single-use zoning regulations has discouraged compact, walkable urbanism.
Form-Based Codes are a tool to address these deficiencies, and to provide local governments the regulatory means to achieve development objectives with greater certainty.
The Laws of the Indies, promulgated by the Spanish Crown starting in the 16th century, established some basic urban form requirements for colonial towns in the Americas.
Baron Haussmann, appointed by Napoleon III to oversee the redevelopment of Paris in the 19th century, stipulated precise ratios of building heights to street widths; disposition and sizes of windows and doors on building facades; consistent planting of street trees; and standardization of material colors to bring unity and harmony to the public environment.
And a planning profession that in recent decades has focused on policy, neglecting design, encouraged an abstract intellectual response to problems that are largely physical in nature.
But their design regulations were not mapped to parcels or streets in advance, so lacked predictability of outcomes; TND ordinances proved to be an instructive effort, but showed few results.
The first serious attempt at creating a modern form-based code was done in 1982 to guide the development of the Florida resort town of Seaside by the husband and wife design team of Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk.
A significant code for a major urban arterial, the Columbia Pike in Arlington County, Virginia, was adopted in 2003 (Ferrell Madden Associates).
