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Code -Ready ustainable Planning: <br />Reducing the Gap Between What <br />Plans Say and What Codes Do <br />By Douglas Farr <br />(n a time of tight municipal budgets, planning is under pressure to prove that plans <br />produce short- and long-term benefits. <br />In addition, there are growing expectations <br />that planning has a central role in addressing <br />urgent societal issues related to sustainabil- <br />ity, such as active living and obesity, mobility <br />choice and auto dependence, and climate <br />change mitigation, resilience and adaptation. <br />Together these dual trends of low budgets <br />and high expectations exert pressure on the <br />practice of planning to focus on more effec- <br />tive implementation of ever -more -precise <br />outcomes. In order to help planners and code <br />writers respond effectively to these trends, <br />this article focuses on reducing the gap be- <br />tween what plans say and what codes permit <br />and require —the realm in which plan effec- <br />tiveness often breaks down. <br />THE CURRENT GAP BETWEEN PLANS <br />AND CODES <br />The relationship between plans and codes <br />got off to a rough start. Burnham's i9o9 Plan <br />of Chicago, tong regarded as the model of a <br />comprehensive city plan, referenced neither <br />subdivision nor zoning codes. As most plan- <br />ners know, such codes were first enabled and <br />widely adopted by municipalities long after <br />Burnham's death in 1912. The Burnham plan <br />was widely copied as a model of effective plan- <br />ning despite not relying on codes for its imple- <br />mentation. However, this disconnect between <br />plans and codes was flagged as a concern very <br />early on. Harland Bartholomew, the first full- <br />time planner employed by an American city, <br />was among the first prominent planners to see <br />the benefits of plans -code coordination. As one <br />of the authors of the Standard Zoning Enabling <br />Act (SZEA) of 1926 he wrote, "Zoning is an es- <br />FiscY O <br />WE of WORD <br />'5JSTNNAaLE" rH C> I8 <br />AsA PETONTAGtCc <br />ArcVC 8Yaax- <br />SaRai Gera€ 1424,16 <br />0-00bolx <br />21©9: Kt S ZATENCES APE ? ? ? ? <br />REPEALED Ot+ERAIW aVER. ? <br />Iox- <br />206I: "SusTnNPEIC OCOYRS FN <br />r% • AvER 4X Cr Ott. PER SCE; <br />2036: '50AINFEL" OCCURS <br />AN ROME CC= PER t 1f li <br />PRESENT DAY <br />(%O " t9so 2000 2o20 tt0 2060 2o00 <br />YEAR <br />Tit *r 1 ' IS OsISUSIMASLE. <br />sential part of the city plan and ought never to <br />be considered separately" (Knack et al. 1996). <br />Despite this vision of a plan -code unity, <br />the final language in the zoning enabling leg- <br />islation established a relatively weak connec- <br />tion between the emerging fields of planning <br />and zoning: "Such (zoning) regulations shall <br />be made in accordance with a comprehensive <br />plan ...." In legal terms, "in accordance <br />with" is much less precise and rigorous than a <br />more muscular phrase such as "in strict con- <br />IOO 211A 2140 <br />xkcd.com <br />formity with." Lawsuits brought by real estate <br />interests that were denied permits over the <br />last 90 years have defined the elasticity of the <br />allowable legal gap between plans and codes. <br />Given that this relatively weak language first <br />appeared in the third and final draft of the <br />SZEA and that the Standard City Planning <br />Enabling Act wouldn't be written until two <br />years later in 1928, planners should probably <br />be thankful that a legal connection was made <br />between plans and codes at all. <br />ZONINGPRACTICE 8.13 <br />AMERICAN PLANNING ASSOCIATION )page 2 <br />