Zoning Codes & Ordinances

Introduction

Zoning codes and ordinances are important for preventing unscupulous people from building landfills next to schools, factory farms next to rivers, or loud factories or petrochemical plants next to neighborhoods. These aren't always perfect, and many are out of date, but we can work with scientists, communities, and politicians to create zoning and ordinances that protect us from polluters. 

"There are countless barriers to planning, designing, building, and enforcing compact, walkable communities. In many cases, many of these barriers stem from outdated zoning codes and ordinances, which make it illegal to create the type of thriving communities that residents and local leaders are seeking." - CNU: Project Code Reform 

Areas of Code Reform

Affordable Housing

"In communities across the country, too many people are enduring a housing crisis, where a dearth of affordable housing in high demand areas and a lack of diversity of housing within the marketplace have coupled to price many people out of housing that meets their needs and ensures their quality of life. In many cases, zoning reform can ease or even remove regulatory limitations that have contributed to this crisis by limiting where, what, and how much housing is able to be built."  - Congress for the New Urbanism: PCR Areas of Reform

Lighting Ordinances

Updated lighting ordinances can be paired with Dark Sky Initiatives, which help to reduce light pollution that negatively impacts human safety as well as wildlife. Reducing light pollution can reduce crime, save people money, and drastically reduce a community's emissions.

Downtown Redevelopment

"Most current zoning codes make it illegal to replicate a beloved street or neighborhood, hampering the ability for communities to develop more of the walkable, vibrant streets and neighborhoods that are the historic hearts of many cities and towns. Where communities seek to attract investment in their downtowns and adjacent neighborhoods, incremental reforms to their zoning codes can offer fundamental changes that will provide a significant impact on what can be built." - Congress for the New Urbanism: PCR Areas of Reform

Suburbs

"As baby boomers age and more of the millennial generation enters adulthood, an increasing number of Americans would like to live in more centrally-located, walkable environments, yet post-war auto-dependent development pattern exists in nearly every city and town in the US. These suburban landscapes epitomize what many communities have a desire to transform through incremental code reform, from places built for and accessible only by car, to walkable, vibrant, and distinct streets and neighborhoods."  - Congress for the New Urbanism: PCR Areas of Reform

The Project for Code ReformThere are countless barriers to planning, designing, building, and enforcing compact, walkable communities. In many cases, many of these barriers stem from outdated zoning codes and ordinances, which make it illegal to create the type of thriving communities that residents and local leaders are seeking. In response, CNU has developed the Project for Code Reform, providing tools and strategies for addressing a community’s most critical zoning code reform needs. To date, a limited number of cities have reformed their zoning codes, creating inequities between cities and towns with—and without—the resources to update their codes and create the regulatory foundation for diverse, vibrant places. The Project for Code Reform addresses this challenge in a variety of ways, from recommending state and local level incremental code reform, to providing training and education to local governments on alternate code methodologies including Form Based Codes, to disseminating information on coding successes and regulatory challenges. Through this program, CNU meets planners, mayors and council members, and planning commissioners where they are: politically, financially, and administratively. The Project's incremental approach enables jurisdictions to set their own pace for code changes, allowing them to prioritize their coding efforts, respond to the community’s vision and needs, and facilitate greater community learning and understanding. The Project for Code Reform supports, and is supported by, the work of its members to design, plan, and build more walkable urbanism. Matt Lambert, CNU National Board and Project for Code Reform Faculty member, says, “This programmatic work is exactly how the organization and its members should leverage each other’s strengths. Individual members cannot enact state-wide change, and CNU needs member code wrangling expertise.” Without the critical coding knowledge of members, and without the coalition building capacity of CNU, the spread of incremental code reform to every interested community across the country would be impossible. The program seeks to streamline much-needed code reform processes that will enable better built outcomes, providing communities with place-specific regulatory reforms that address the most problematic barriers first, build political will, and ultimately create more walkable, prosperous and equitable places. The resulting potential for sweeping reform directly responds to the pressing challenges cities face.

Street Design

"While most streets today are engineered to prioritize vehicles, cities and towns must respond to the demand for more inclusive modalities and rapidly advancing transportation technologies. Central to successful urbanism is the relationship between street design and the land use that surrounds the street, and so reforming zoning codes is a fundamental step in achieving context-specific street design and establishing more walkable, bikeable, accessible, and transit-ready communities."  - Congress for the New Urbanism: PCR Areas of Reform

Historic Preservation

Most cities and towns want to protect their beloved local collections of historic buildings, civic landmarks, and street patterns. Incremental code reform can be a critical tool, when the pressure of economic opportunity, the complexity of existing regulations, and the demands of state and federal requirements threaten the ability to effectively protect what makes a town or neighborhood unique while still encouraging and supporting the best interests of the entire community."  - Congress for the New Urbanism: PCR Areas of Reform

Stormwater Management

"Best practices for managing stormwater start with where and how a city or town grows and develops. This is particularly important, whether seeking to reduce development costs to achieve more affordable housing and greater housing diversity or seeking to retrofit a sprawling suburban landscape into a more human-scaled and auto-independent urban environment, and code reform measures to preserve open space and encourage growth in already-developed areas can make an major impact." - Congress for the New Urbanism: PCR Areas of Reform

Roofing Codes

Blue and green roofs can help reduce the impact of storm water on our environment, our drinking water, and flooding. Technology for both types of roofing are available world wide, but not everywhere has updated regulations for their design or legality.

Water-Wise Gardens & Landscapes

Many places have very outdated rules about landscaping appearance, tree placement, and species. By updating non-science-based rules we can protect our environment, use less resources, and enjoy prettier, more natural landscapes. Some of these rules should also look towards reintroducing native species, while abolishing the transport and sale of invasive species, which prose many threats including the ability to clog waterways and increase flood risks.

Rain gardens can look a little scraggly at times, but they are very helpful to biodiversity, pollution reduction, flood reduction, and clean air. 

Xeriscapes are generally rocky landscapes with native grasses, wildflowers, and other types of plant. Even cold climates have their own xeriscape-friendly plants, which are drought resistant and hardy, reducing water demand throughout the year. This type of garden may be particular useful where droughts are more frequent.

In some locations rain harvesting is illegal, however the future of our water security and flood prevention may rely on equitable changes being made to these policies.

Building Codes

"Building codes usually come up in the context of safety – a properly constructed building can help prevent injury or death from fires, earthquakes, and extreme weather. But they’re also essential for reducing energy costs and cutting dangerous pollution, and major opportunities to update codes and leverage their climate solution potential are just around the corner.

Building codes governing energy-related components, such as insulation requirements and wall thickness, generate significant savings for residents and businesses. Today’s codes provide 30% more energy savings than codes from a decade ago, and residential and commercial building energy codes are projected to save $126 billion in cumulative energy costs between 2010 and 2040, while avoiding the emissions equivalent of 245 large coal-fired power plants.

State and local governments have the power to maximize this potential by determining which codes are adopted and enforced, thus deciding if new buildings will support an electrified and decarbonized future. ..." - Forbes: Building Codes: A Powerful Yet Underused Climate Policy That Could Save Billions

Roofing Codes

Roofing types and features can have a massive impact on local and nearby flooding, water pollution levels, heat island effect, and internal building temperatures. In some countries eco-friendly roofing never went out of style, while others (often those that went through colonization) lost their traditions and now rely heavily on roofing that causes more problems than good. Reviewing and updating roofing codes to include the following would be a useful step in combating a variety of pressing issues.

Blue roofs have the same kind of impact on water quality and flooding, but may not help with the other issues unless combined with green roof components.

Green roofs can help prevent water pollution and reduce flooding, while reducing a community's heat island effect, air pollution, even reversing biodiversity loss.

Solar roofs can provide energy for buildings and vehicles. The space between the panels and the roof can crease shade and airflow, reducing the indoor cooling costs, even without making actual power.

Solar water heaters can provide important energy-saving and money-saving benefits, but they haven't caught on in all countries equally.

Solar panels and green roof design can be combined to help cool roofs so that the panels work more efficiently.

White roofs or pale roofs help reflect sunlight back into space, instead of absorbing massive amounts of heat energy the way dark and black roofs do. This can reduce heat island effect while cutting cooling costs for people inside.

Additional Topics for Reform

Production Caps

As we seek to reduce the impact each of our communities, companies, sectors, and countries contribute to issues including pollution and climate change, it makes sense to consider cures for the primary driver of these issues: overproduction.

Plastic

For pollutants such as plastic "Every year without production caps makes the necessary cut to plastic production in future steeper—and our need to use other measures to address the problem greater." - The Only Way to End Plastic Pollution is by Limiting How Much Plastic We Produce 

Resources

Organizations

North America

USA

CATS is committed to transect-based environmental and land development principles that encourage the following outcomes:

Grants & Funding