Progressive zoning plans - not here

The city of Miami last night adopted a zoning code overhaul, called Miami 21. Here's the Miami Herald article on it. Why should folks around here care? Here's why:

The new zoning overhaul is what's called a "form-based code." Raleigh is about to write one. Cabarrus County already has one. So does Davidson. Miami is the largest city, so far, to adopt one, but Denver is likely to adopt its own comprehensive form-based code in a matter of months, says blogger Mike Lydon. It's an approach to zoning that many progressive cities are taking on. Should Charlotte?

A form-based code bases rules that govern planning and zoning on buildings' form, not their use. In other words, what goes on inside a building (residence? office? store?) is less important than how the building fits in with what's around it.

For instance, it says parking lots have to be behind new buildings, and the buildings have to sit at the sidewalk – which makes walking down the sidewalk more attractive, thus encouraging people to walk instead of drive.

Form-based codes also generally use an approach with a weird-sounding name that makes plenty of sense – a "transect." It means you look at which areas are intensely urban, or completely rural, or somewhere in between and design things such as streets, sidewalks, even storm water management, based on how urban or suburban or rural an area is. It prevents, for instance, plopping a highway designed for intercity travel (think I-277) into a dense urban core. To move traffic there, it would say, use a high-capacity boulevard. (Think Champs-Elysee.)

Just as important, when adopted, a form based code is a plan with teeth. It overlays the city's expectations for urban density or suburban density or rural density onto the whole jurisdiction, complete with the zoning rules that govern those areas. So the "plan" isn't just a guideline but is a legal requirement. Imagine that!

One of the leaders of Miami's effort was the dean of the University of Miami School of Architecture, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, a luminary in the New Urbanism movement.

Here's a link to the Web site for the code itself. And if it rains today and you're looking for some meaty reading, here's the pdf for the code itself.

Growing church vs. historic bungalows

It was easily the most interesting of the rezoning cases the City Council heard last night – and the one that brings up the trickiest issue of the evening: What rules, if any, should the city have to limit institutions that encroach into neighborhoods? And how do you deal with big ugly surface parking lots? They're not pedestrian-friendly, nor do they contribute to the much-loved-by-planners "vibrant urban village." They're also polluters, due to polluted storm runoff.

A church in the Wilmore neighborhood wants to expand and build a large new building and a big surface parking lot on a street now holding several historic bungalows. (By "historic," here, I don't mean designated landmarks or in a designated historic district, simply a neighborhood that dates to the turn of the 19th-20th century and has an ambiance akin to Dilworth, Elizabeth and Wesley Heights.) The church has said it won't demolish the five houses but will move them to other property it owns.

The matter was a public hearing on zoning case 2008-158. The council vote should come next month.

Several things made this an interesting presentation. First, the council chamber was virtually filled with members of the church, Greater Galilee Baptist Church, whose current sanctuary (shown above, photo courtesy of the church) is on South Mint Street at West Park Avenue.

Second, one speaker in favor of rezoning had a great line: "We, as people, are in noncompliance. With Jesus."

Yet opponents had some good points: Why should a church be allowed to remove five houses and put up a surface parking lot? As neighbor Chip Cannon put it, this would be putting "a suburban mega-church in the center of a small-scale pedestrian neighborhood."

Some political realities are in order. This church is African American. Two at-large council members are running for mayor and both want African American votes (though black candidate Anthony Foxx has an edge there). Among nine at-large candidates (for four slots), three of the four Democrats are African American. Two at-large incumbents – Democrat Susan Burgess and Republican Edwin Peacock – will have to vote on this petition. Burgess, in particular, will want as many Democratic votes as she can get in November. If she faces black voters' triple-shotting for the three black at-large candidates, she'll have a problem.

Another political reality: No one wants to vote against a church, especially an obviously growing church. Maybe they'd do that in some other city in some other state, but in oh-so-Christian Charlotte? Not on your (eternal) life.

Yet another political reality: How fair would it be to crack down on an African American church when Carolinas Medical Center has been allowed to devour vast tracts of Dilworth with, near as I can tell, hardly a peep of protest from the city? And the affluent and predominantly white Myers Park United Methodist plopped a surface parking lot (nicely landscaped, though) at the prime corner of Providence-Providence-Queens-Queens. No one told them, "No." (Note to out-of-town readers: That intersection is for real. Don't even ask.)

Final political reality: I chanced to be sitting near Planning Director Debra Campbell and asked if there were any zoning standards that said you can't put in a parking lot, and she said, only in the UMUD (uptown) zoning. I asked if planners had considered cracking down on surface parking lots in other zoning categories. She just laughed – heartily, I must add – and said, "No way."

The Central Avenue challenge

Wonderful discussion about retrofitting suburbia. If you haven't read the comments, I recommend them.

Retrofitting can be expensive for taxpayers, when a city has to build sidewalks, add storm drains and so on. The city's changes in recent years -- requiring sidewalks, better street designs, etc. -- help with new construction only. Even the city's admirable, if slow-moving, sidewalk-building gets at only part of the problem.

Most of the potential retrofitting happens as part of the natural economic evolution of a city: A business closes, another business buys the building and renovates it, or tears it down and build again. Or a business expands its building.

The city's passivity is hurting those small-scale opportunities all over town. Here are two examples, both a couple of years old, are the Bank of America branch at Kings Drive and Charlottetowne Avenue (a.k.a. the old Independence Boulevard), and the Bojangles at Third Street and Charlottetowne. Plenty of other examples abound all over the city, especially along the so-called International corridor of Central Avenue, between Eastway Drive and Eastland Mall.

That branch bank and the Bojangles are welcome businesses. I just spent a year in Massachusetts, suffering withdrawal from good fried chicken and biscuits, so believe me, I value Bojangles. The bank replaced one that was demolished for the Little Sugar Creek Greenway and was needed in the neighborhood.

BUT ... The two buildings -- not the businesses within, but the buildings and lot designs -- are awful for the location. They're suburban in design -- one-story buildings with deep setbacks from the street and huge parking lots out front. They're unsuitable for an in-town location, especially an area where other developers are trying to build more urban patterns. Those two small buildings should have helped with the urban retrofit of Midtown area, yet they didn't. Why not?

The city's old-fashioned zoning codes are to blame. Although I often praise the city's planners for devising a variety of urban codes in the past 10 or 15 years (MUDD, PED, TOD, etc.) those standards apply only to property that holds that zoning. If your property has the older, suburban-style business zoning (B-1 or B-2) you can build suburbia with no trouble from the city. You're virtually required to, in fact, because of the required setbacks and buffers. You have an economic incentive as well, because going through a rezoning costs money. Keeping your old zoning doesn't.

Plenty of other examples abound along Central Avenue. Small owners, small buildings, and old zoning codes add up to lost opportunities for small retrofitting steps over time.

If you're one of the hundreds of people deeply wishing to see a Central Avenue revitalization, you should push the city to change its B-1 zoning standards. I'm getting tired of visionary plans that don't address this issue. Central Avenue still looks like bedraggled suburbia because the underlying rules that govern building designs haven't changed under the old zoning that exists along Central Avenue. To change the way things look, change the rules that govern how things look.

(UPDATE as of 7:30 p.m.: Got an e-mail this afternoon that said the city had adopted a PED overlay for Central Avenue. If that's the case it would do exactly what I'm hoping for -- require more urban-style development. But I can't find it listed on the planning department's web page. Doesn't mean it didn't happen, but means I can't, tonight, confirm or deny it.)

And before you go off about how the city shouldn't set design standards, let me just open your eyes to the reality that B-1 zoning, which requires deep setbacks, is less favorable to property owners than a zoning that would allow them to build closer to the property line and cover more of the land with buildings and less with setbacks and buffers. If you're required to keep 35 feet of property vacant in front, you can't build as much income-producing square-footage as if you're required to keep only 15 feet of property vacant in front. I'm not proposing ADDING a lot of design controls, only altering the ones that already exist.

Charlotte pols lack guts?

It's obvious Charlotte-Mecklenburg isn't the only place slammed by growth that's outpacing its ability -- or at least its willingness to raise property taxes enough -- to pay for building the schools needed for all the newcomers.

A total of 46 -- FORTY SIX -- bills in the General Assembly would give local governments across the state new authority to levy taxes beyond property taxes. Other places want permission to enact land transfer taxes, which adds a fee to real estate transactions. Or they want permission to levy impact fees on new residential construction. Or they want permission to raise sales taxes to help pay for building schools.

WakeUp Wake County, a group that advocates more limits on growth, recently hired a well-known lobbyist to push a fee of up to 1 percent on real estate transfers. At least three Wake County legislators have sponsored bills to let Wake enact some new taxes, if voters approve.

What's Mecklenburg County asking for? Nada. Zip. Zilcheroonie. (OK, to be fair, I think they passed a resolution supporting an N.C. Association of County Commissioners' attempt to get broad permission for all counties. But that bill's going nowhere, and other counties have been far more assertive about asking the Leg for what they need.)

What's Charlotte asking for? Nada. (Nope, the city doesn't pay for schools. It does pay for road and street improvements made necessary by new development. Why not ask for an impact fee for street improvements?)

Here's a roundup story from the Raleigh News & Observer. It mentions the massive campaign being sponsored by the N.C. Association of Realtors, to "Stop the N.C. Home Tax."

How disingenuous. Let's see. Right now, school construction is paid for mostly through bonds or other debt, which is repaid with, hmmmm, let me get this right -- property taxes. So a real estate transfer tax -- which would apply to every transaction, not just homes -- is a "Home Tax." And the tax you pay because you own your home is NOT a "Home Tax"?

The thing is, when you ask representatives of the N.C. Association of Realtors, "Well, how do you propose that counties find money to build schools? Shall we infer that this means you support raising property taxes?" they just hem and haw.

Or, they say, governments should trim their budgets. Oh, for pity's sakes. That's like saying Americans should exercise more and watch less TV and parents should teach their kids better manners. In other words, yes they should, but they haven't done it yet and are most unlikely to do it in the future, because there's no way to make them.

Furthermore, I don't think county governments can cut enough to find the billions needed to build the schools they need. What are they going to do, stop paying for social services that they're legally required to provide? Stop running public health departments? People who say "just cut the budget" either don't know much about local government budgets or are among the tiny minority who believe that virtually no government services are really needed. And the majority of voters don't agree with them. Which is why it's hard for elected officials to cut services enough to find the money to build schools.

Why are Mecklenburg's local officials so much more passive about proposing impact fees or land transfer taxes than those in Wake? Any ideas?