No small plans and regulations

[Catrin]

It seems that APA has been remiss in truly looking at new ways of regulating land development. I've watched the posts on this site simultaneously pounding on sprawl and condemning new urbanism. The old "I hate sprawl AND high density" complaint. However CNU (congress for new urbanism) is aggressively searching new ways to regulate land use (as opposed to defending the pro sprawl regs that we all complain about) The new regulations have been referred to as "Transect". I have been following transect zones through CNU and recently ordered an ordinance sample. Is anyone else looking at these, and is APA doing anything (in the same vein) that we as planners can get excited over?

I started to post this in the land use section but I believe that it begs the question…are we (or APA) doing ANYTHING to improve the "Big Plan"?

 

[Cardinal]

Good comments. I think it is fair to say that most of us are constrained, but doing what we can within the regulations we have. This may mean re-writing them to incorporate the new ideas, or experimenting within the flexibility offered through PCDs or PUDs. I would love to know what you come up with in your work. Keep us posted.

 

[Lee Nellis]

As someone who has spent a large part of his career working on at least one new way of regulating development (performance-based approaches), I think that -- while it is essential to understand and be able to use all of the tools, conventional and innovative -- the real issue is not new ways to regulate, but better ways to understand land use change and the accompanying issues. If you persuade a community to change its way of looking at the issues, that community will begin using better tools. APA has, sporadically, published lots of information on innovative land use regulations, but has never in all the years (28+) I have watched, been willing or able to suggest a new way of seeing the issues.