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.