Evolution of Form-Based Code
Ordinances pertaining to Zoning, Subdivision, and Land Development evolved primarily as text documents for over 50 years (1928 to 1978). With the advent of cluster development, Ordinances began to transform to depict place-making through sketches and photographs. Planning and design professionals became more concerned about the form of places and felt that illustrations would be more likely to promote new development modeled after the best practices of admirable places in the U.S. and abroad.
Practitioners who prepare Form-Based Codes like to be prescriptive and provide measurements, dimensions, and spatial clarity to promote the design of places. Street widths, block lengths, building frontages, sidewalk and crosswalk dimensions, and size thresholds for neighborhood and public spaces are graphically portrayed to insure that the built environment has the proportion, scale and size to be attractive, functional and desirable.
Form-Based Codes typically have an overall Regulating Plan to portray the layout of the place being “coded”. Sometimes this plan is referred to as a Development Strategy Plan or an Idealized Built-Out Plan, as seen in the TCA illustrations of Claymont in New Castle County, Delaware and Pine Hall, a Traditional Town Development in Ferguson Township, PA.
Excerpt from Pine Hall TTD Master Plan
The FBC has a plan for an interconnected network of streets, alleys, sidewalks, and crosswalks. The FBC provides specificity on Block Type, size, depth, and length, as well as Building Location, and Parking Location. The Form-Based Code also informs the Green Infrastructure of a site with a menu of opportunities for Public Space varying from plazas and squares to playgrounds and parks.
When compared to a conventional code without graphics and illustrations (i.e., text heavy), the FBC is more artistic, illustrative, pictorial, and diagrammatic. Drawings and images take the place of thousands of words.
For additional examples and to see TCA’s work in Form-Based Codes visit our website: www.comitta.com.
Green Innovations in Town Planning & Landscape Architecture
Since the 1860’s when Frederick Law Olmstead helped to design Central Park in New York City, thousands of town planners and landscape architects have helped to humanize the built environment. Following in the tradition of our forefathers, Thomas Comitta Associates, Inc. (TCA) has helped to advance the art and science of Placemaking.
TCA has collaborated to create spaces that are attractive, functional and desirable. We have promoted the general welfare of towns and townships, communities and cities, parks and playgrounds. We have helped to improve the self-esteem of communities that have fallen on hard times (such as impoverished boroughs, villages, and unincorporated places). We have helped to beautify streetscapes, landscapes, and hardscapes.
TCA is proud to announce that it will be sharing its more than 35 years of experience in its first publication “Green Innovations in Town Planning and Landscape Architecture”, expected in 2010. Green Innovations will profile the transformation of places and spaces that people inhabit in their “pursuit of happiness”. It will showcase what our forefathers have taught us, identify best practices in the Greening of America, and offer food for thought on overall Green Innovations in your neighborhood, community and habitat.
TCA receives ASLA Award
On March 6, Thomas Comitta Associates, Inc. and the City of Lancaster received an Honor Award from the American Society of Landscape Architects for their Urban Park, Recreation and Open Space Plan. This comprehensive document addresses the challenges of successful public space utilization, represents an effective private-public partnership to foster community participation and ownership, and exemplifies many attributes of Smart Growth. Its aggressive strategies guide future open space enhancements within distinctive City neighborhoods to encourage redevelopment, place-making, and connectivity of ‘green’ urban infrastructure. It recognizes that ‘green’ infrastructure benefits the City’s environmental quality, community health, and a sustainable economy through greater community investment.
How to be an effective Expert Witness
On many occasions (over 1,000), Thomas J. Comitta, AICP, RLA, ASLA, has been qualified by various judicial panels as an Expert in Land Planning. Since 1973, Comitta has appeared before governing bodies, planning commissions, zoning hearing boards, and courts to offer Expert Witness Testimony.
Lending the benefit of his experience to you, Comitta offers the following tips for being prepared:
§ Always use authoritative sources and have copies of the source material to hand out;
§ Interpret the sources in the context of the case at hand and in terms that the presiding officials can understand.
§ Provide brief answers to questions, then elaborate if necessary;
§ Do whatever it takes to be relaxed, comfortable, cordial, respectful, and informative;
§ Present information slowly, methodically, and with conviction- you are the expert!
§ Take notes on questions asked of you, think about the answers (briefly) before giving it.
§ Take a sip of water, retrieve a file, make deliberate and thoughtful movements that allow you time to think about your answers.
§ Look at the persons who will decide on the case. Direct your answers to them.
If the case is highly controversial and the opposing Attorney starts to raise their voice- REMAIN CALM. Take your time, ask for clarification, and try to maintain composure. If you do not know the answer, reply, “ I do not know” or “I cannot recall.”
If the Hearing will continue, offer to provide additional clarification at the continued date. Be friendly. Be helpful. Be yourself, but be prepared.
TCA’s Official Blog
Welcome to the new TCA Blog on all things Land Planning and Landscape Architecture. Here you’ll find staff reflections on our diverse experience in the world of town planning, landscape architecture, urban design, expert witness testimony, traditional neighborhood development (TND), Form-Based Codes (FBC), and much, much more.
We hope you find the information posted here useful, and that you will come back often. Also feel free to “Ask Tom” your questions regarding our areas of expertise, land use trends, or “how-to….”. We welcome your input and feedback.