Agenda - Planning Commission - 01/31/2013 - Special

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AS i< TH E AUTHOR JOIN US ONLINE Go online during the month of November to participate in our AbouttheAuthor "Ask the Author" forum, an interactive feature of Zoning Practice. Norman Wright, AICP, is the director of development services for Norman Wright, AICP, will be available to answer questions about this article. Go to the APA website at www.planning.org and follow the links to the Ask the Author section. From there, just submityour questions about the article using the e-mail link. The author will reply, and Zoning Practice will post the answers cumulatively on the website for the benefit of all subscribers. This feature will be available for selected issues of Zoning Practice at announced times. After each online discussion is closed, the answers will be saved in an online archive available through the APA Zoning Practice web pages. Columbia Tennessee. He holds a master's degree in City and Regional Planning from Clemson'University. His recent work in- cludes writing the first adopted plan under the Partnership for Sustainable Communities and the first citywide form -based code fora major town in Tennessee. His writings have been published in Practicing Planner and Planning. The author extends his appre- ciation to CharlesMarohn, Peter Katz, Steven Price, and the firm Moule & Polyzoides for their contributions to this article. Meanwhile, the other major concern voiced by project opponents related to potential parking shortages —that greater housing density would attract more resi- dents and more demand for parking spaces. The community's opinion was that the pro- posed development did not have enough parking spaces to serve its clientele and that all parking should be self-contained within the property. Shared parking or on -street parking was apparently not sup- ported by the community. Thus, the solution in Iowa City was to require more parking spaces for multifamily uses. This standard creates a disincentive for future develop- ment, but in cases where new development does occur, the existing neighborhood fab- ric may be disrupted by large parking areas. COMPATIBILITY 1S THE REAL ISSUE There was an online petition titled "Save the Red Avocado," a reference to the restaurant that was demolished to make way for the proposed four-story development. The peti- tion is a beautiful, heartfelt entreaty from many residents who love this portion of the city. The second line in the petition's nar- rative goes to the heart of all anti -density arguments: "The proposed new develop- ment building's size, height, and residential density are incompatible with the residential character of the neighborhood." But in doing so, this same statement points to the real limitations of density regu- lation. In any instance where the density of a given area is subject to change, the concerns that surround that change are not focused Q An example where density is the least of the issues at hand. Incompatible development takes many forms, and it is the form itself that makes it so harmfuito its surroundings. on the plain, numerical shift from three units per acre to five units per acre. They aren't even a concern of multifamily housing ver- sus single-family housing. The true focus of such concerns relate to compatibility, or the perceived impact a proposed change will have on the existing character and form of its surrounding area. In the December 2010 issue of Zoning Practice author Bret C. Keast, AICP, offered the following description of community charac- ter: "Community character is based on the relative balance of design elements. This means that, within reason, development may have different uses, mixed housing and building types, varying densities, and differ- ent lot and street patterns while being of the same character." In his article Keast makes a convinc- ing argument that focusing on community character can lead to much greater success in realizing the desired future of a commu- nity. As he points out, land use and density do influence traffic, parking, and utility capacity, but these characteristics don't adequately capture the concept of character. Best of all, the concept of "character" and "compatibility" is just as tangible and eas- ily measured as density and land use when proper form -based elements are applied. With such analysis, an area's character can be boiled down to the physical composition of its built environment. Suburban areas can be recognized not solely for the presence of single-family homes on quarter -acre lots, per se, but rather as a collection of buildings set on lots with moderate setbacks, consistent building heights, porches facing the street, and so forth. These physical characteristics are what people use to interpret an area as being a neighborhood versus a downtown. And these characteristics can be defined in ZONINGPRACTICE 11.12 AMERICAN PLANNING ASSOCIATION I page 3