The Case for Change
In 1961, urban scholar Lewis Mumford wrote:
Under the present dispensation, we have sold our urban birthright for a sorry mess of motor cars…If we are concerned with human values, we can no longer afford either sprawling Suburbia or the congested Metropolis: still less can we afford a congested suburbia, whose visual openness depends upon the cellular isolation and regimentation of its component families…
Lewis Mumford, The City in History
By the time I began working as a municipal planner in Baltimore County four decades later, suburbia’s pathologies had attracted the attention of private and non-profit organizations, state and federal policymakers, and the public at large. I falsely believed the time was right to play a role in changing development patterns, and that a widespread embrace of the human scale was possible.
Within the Baltimore County Department of Planning, my criticism of regulatory reform to produce “better development outcomes” struck a nerve. Previously, the planning director had tasked me and another planner with writing new regulations I knew would be ineffective at best.
In July 2003, the department’s deputy director asked me to submit a proposal based on my ideas for regulatory reform to County Executive James T. Smith. These ideas served as the basis for a redevelopment policy that would introduce human-scale development into the distressed suburbs that ringed Baltimore City.
Learning that the County Executive had accepted the proposal, I felt elated. Legislation followed, which looked good on paper. In reality, however, I had become little more than a pawn in a bit of political theater. Municipal politicians and a few department heads simply co-opted my ideas for purposes having little to do with human-scale development.
Some twenty years later, in January 2023, I calculated the average walk score for a random selection of 50 newly built homes in Baltimore County listed on realtor.com. The average score was an abysmal 18 (i.e., entirely auto-dependent) out of a possible 100 (i.e., a walker’s paradise). The same calculation for 50 new homes approved by the Canadian planning department I’d worked for in Halifax NS provided an average score of just 8.5.
Most people have been saying for years that they prefer to live in walkable communities yet relatively little changes.
What Needs to Happen Differently
In a separate article, I describe the rule of perpetual urban sprawl and note that Gaithersburg, Maryland, was the first municipality in the nation to operate as an exception to that rule. Over the past three decades, Gaithersburg has consistently built places that produce walk scores in the “very walkable” range of 70-89.
Clearly, they’re on to something, but what? What specifically did Gaithersburg do differently?
This question has a two-part answer. There’s what they did, then there is how they did it.
What is to be done is the same regardless of whether your municipality is in Maine, Ohio, Ontario, or British Columbia. In order to consistently build at the human scale, a municipality must pursue four objectives, namely critical mass, strategic vision, clarity of entitlement, and design competence. What is to be done is the focus of this article.
How a municipality achieves these objectives may differ from place to place if for no other reason than state and provincial planning laws aren’t the same everywhere. This said, a municipality need not reinvent the wheel. A handful have established best practices that others can emulate and improve upon. The practices equate to the how and are the focus of separate articles such an assessment of Gaithersburg.
Determining whether a municipality is producing walkable, human-scale development is not a subjective exercise. The physical characteristics of quality, human-scale development are well-defined, and there are tools available to us to measure walkability analytically.
With all this in mind, let’s look at the four objectives. The order in which they’re presented below reflects the order in which objectives were achieved in Gaithersburg. It’s possible, however, for a municipality to pursue these objectives in parallel.
- Critical Mass
- Strategic Vision
- Clarity of Entitlement
- Design Competence
Objective #1: Critical Mass
Critical mass refers to the ability to assemble the right mix of people that gets a municipality to where it can build its first high-quality, mixed-use project whose walkability can be verified analytically. It’s about clearing away barriers.
What this means in practice is having local politicians, municipal planners, urban designers, and developers who are willing and able to work together to produce a walkable place that is embraced by the community and stands the test of time. It is first and foremost about creating places that compel people to walk.
In most municipalities, urban sprawl is the norm. And in these places, even a motivated developer will struggle to deliver a human-scale project because of the existence of regulatory barriers, financial barriers, and citizen opposition to moderately higher densities. These three categories of barriers stand between a developer and bringing a human-scale project to fruition.
The most effective approach to overcoming these barriers is to execute a design charrette as defined by the National Charrette Institute and described in a step-by-step guide published in 2017 titled The Charrette Handbook.
A design charrette represents a significant investment in a community. Done properly, a charrette can take months to prepare and will often run over five consecutive days. At its conclusion, a municipality has itself a buildable plan with urban design standards that have the buy-in of elected officials, planning board members, municipal department heads, realtors, bankers, developers, and most importantly, residents.
This public, participatory design process—which involves exhaustive stakeholder analysis and outreach—produces not only buy-in, but also superior outcomes in terms of urban design and market feasibility.
In most municipalities, a design charrette would be key to establishing critical mass. It gives community stakeholders a first set of results on the ground that everyone can point to and say, “We want more of that.”
Objective #2: Strategic Vision
Strategic Vision refers to a municipality publicly and unambiguously stating that it will pursue human-scale development and halt the expansion of auto-dependency. This statement of intent is a succinct, stand-alone policy document clarifying the benefits of the human scale relative to auto-dependency. It is an umbrella policy under which sit master plans shaping development and public infrastructure decision-making.
Importantly, this vision is in line with climate research consistently showing building at the human scale is preferable to building high-rises that maximize emissions or the continued expansion of auto-dependency that can’t be greenwashed with EVs. Over 60% of climate emissions tie back to municipal decisions, in terms of what and where things get built. The credibility of any municipal climate action plan rests on the embrace of human-scale development.
Establishing this governing vision can come before, during, or after the process of establishing critical mass.
Objective #3: Clarity of Entitlement
Clarity of entitlement refers to a municipality’s ability to move a developer through a time-efficient, transparent approval process culminating in the approval of a human-scale project. Simply put, it’s about giving a developer the legal right to build on a piece of land.
Any entitlement process is a product of two interrelated sets of regulations. First, are the development review regulations specifying the path to approval. Second are the zoning regulations that specify—among other things—building appearance, location, and use.
These regulations can be unnecessarily complex and burdensome. And typically, they’re written in ways that ensure urban sprawl remains the norm.
Pointing out the need for regulatory reform is nothing new. For over two decades, organizations such as the Form-Based Codes Institute (now part of Smart Growth America) have pressed for such reform. Regardless, the rule of urban sprawl still prevails.
As I’ve written separately, my experience with regulatory reform as a municipal planner was not a positive one. In Baltimore County, I conceived of a redevelopment policy to incentivize the creation of human-scale development. I then witnessed how organizational dysfunction and the political process could co-opt a good idea, dilute it, and ultimately render it impotent.
The lesson here is that land-use reform alone is not the answer. It is, however, a mandatory part of the solution.
Clarity of entitlement implies incentivizing developers to consistently build walkable communities, which deliver many advantages over urban sprawl. The objective here is to put in place development regulations that make human-scale development the path of least resistance.
Development regulations fall into one of two categories: as-of-right and discretionary.
As-of-Right Development for the Human Scale
With as-of-right development, a developer has the automatic right to build on land in his possession so long as his plans satisfy a set of highly prescriptive zoning regulations. Depending on how a municipality writes its regulations, they produce either urban sprawl or human-scale development.
A form-based code is a kind of prescriptive regulation that’s ideal for producing human-scale development. It’s not the only prescriptive approach out there, but it’s the most prominent, and it’s produced results.
Form-based codes are more concerned with the physical form of buildings and less concerned with building use. Importantly, they embody urban design principles that prioritize the pedestrian experience as shaped by streets, sidewalks, trees, parks, buildings, and more.
Arlington, Virginia, provides a widely regarded example of how a form-based code is created and used effectively. The municipality conducted a multi-day design charrette to produce its Columbia Pike form-based code. With this code in place, developers have over the past two decades been steadily transforming large swaths of strip development into a viable, human-scale urban environment. The intensity of urbanism in the Columbia Pike corridor is like what you find in Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia neighborhood.
With as-of-right development, a municipality’s development review staff handles plan review and approval. A form-based code that’s well-written and illustrated removes the ambiguity of what is required. A developer understands that if his plan meets the code’s requirements, he can expect it to be approved automatically.
Discretionary Development for the Human Scale
With discretionary development, things work a bit differently. Here, zoning regulations provide for more flexibility in human-scale (a.k.a., mixed-use) design. For example, the same discretionary mixed-use zone definition could be applied to parcels in two different locations in a municipality. Two different developers could move forward with separate plans having unique, context-sensitive designs in terms of layout, housing mix, commercial mix, parks, and more.
Unfortunately, this scenario is rare. Many municipal regulations have at least one discretionary zone definition. Often, it’s called a Planned Unit Development (PUD) zone. Generally speaking, however, PUD zones are only used to entitle conventional suburban development or high rises.
To my knowledge, Gaithersburg is the only North American municipality (out of thousands) that has used discretionary mixed-use zones to produce human-scale development and halt the expansion of auto-dependency. I explain how Gaithersburg broke the rule of perpetual urban sprawl in a separate article. For our purpose here, I’d like to briefly summarize best practices based on thirty years of entitling human-scale development in Gaithersburg.
- Create a handful of discretionary mixed-use zone definitions to handle different development contexts. Gaithersburg created three. One is for a small historic commercial district. Another is for a large commercial corridor. And a third for mixed use throughout the rest of the municipality.
- Consider creating a mix of discretionary and as-of-right zone definitions. Gaithersburg did not do this, but they certainly could have created a form-based code for either their historic commercial district or their commercial corridor, as both areas are smaller than Arlington’s Columbia Pike corridor (for which there is a form-based code).
- Use design charrettes as input for discretionary zone definitions. Separate design charrettes preceded the creation of each of Gaithersburg’s mixed-use zone definitions.
- Apply mixed-use zone definitions to parcels throughout the municipality based on analysis done during master planning. Gaithersburg does this in an innovative way.
- And finally… Write mixed-use zone definitions in such a way in order to:
- Clarify the zone’s unique purpose and intended use.
- List the specific objectives that the zone aims to achieve in terms of the human scale design. A design charrette would produce the urban design principles relevant to the zone’s intended function.
- Respect existing suburban residential development.
- Integrate the development review regulations into the zoning regulations.
- Strive for simplicity and elegance in language and structure.
- Require the applicant to explicitly state how the plans being submitted are in line with the zone’s purpose and specific objectives.
Gaithersburg held its first design charrette in 1988. At that time, it was indistinguishable from many other suburban municipalities across the country. In 2022, Forbes rated Gaithersburg the 7th-best place to live for families.
For over 30 years, clarity of entitlement and a sincere focus on quality of life have made a visible difference. Gaithersburg has incentivized higher-caliber developers to expand walkable, human-scale development in an otherwise auto-dependent landscape. The quality of the walk you experience in Gaithersburg’s Watkins Mill Town Center, or Downtown Crown, shares more in common with parts of Montreal’s Le Plateau neighborhood than it does with the suburban world many of us came of age in.
A final note about discretionary zoning. The inherent flexibility of this approach means there will be negotiations taking place between the developer and municipality.
The initial design is left to the developer’s discretion. What’s ultimately approved is at the discretion of municipal regulators. Who exactly is involved in the plan’s review and approval will vary by state and province. Typically, it’s going to be some combination of municipal planning staff, an advisory planning board, and the municipal council.
Objective #4: Design Competence
Design Competence refers to a municipality’s ability to consistently make the right decisions regarding human-scale design. If a municipality cannot make the right decisions, critical mass, strategic vision, and clarity of entitlement are irrelevant.
There are overlapping considerations for as-of-right and discretionary development.
With as-of-right development, municipal planning staff are the principal actors regarding design competence. They’re deciding whether the developer’s plan satisfies the prescriptive zoning standards that mandate human-scale development. They’re the individuals who possess a solid understanding of the design concepts at the heart of the regulations shaping development. These regulations would either be a form-based code, as seen in Arlington, VA, or conventional zoning that includes design standards of the sort found in Portland, ME.[i]
With discretionary development, the approval process will differ by state and province. Let’s consider a scenario that’s common to municipalities on the East Coast.
Here, municipal planners would receive a development proposal and work with the developer to align the plan with the intent of the discretionary mixed-use zone. Staff then make a written recommendation that’s reviewed by the planning board (appointed by the council) in a public hearing. At the hearing, board members consider testimony from the planners, the developer, and the public. They then approve or reject the developer’s plan and provide a rationale for the decision. The board sends its recommendation to the municipal council, which also holds a public hearing and makes a final decision. In this scenario, planning staff, planning board members, and the council all must possess design competence.
Regardless of whether we’re talking about as-of-right or discretionary development, the origins of widespread design competence within a municipality would typically be a design charrette. The process can be used as a starting point for creating either a form-based code or a well-crafted discretionary mixed-use code of the sort that has been used successfully in Gaithersburg for nearly thirty years.
[i] In Portland, “minor” development (e.g., 1-4 residential units) are handled by staff and do not require planning board input. Major developments (e.g., 50K square foot commercial building) require planning board review.
