Browsing by Subject "Zoning"
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Item Best practices in form based coding(2008-08) Grantham, Scott Wesley; Butler, Kent S.This report is an exploration of theoretical and applied aspects of form-based coding. First, it presents an in-depth look at conventional zoning, conditions surrounding its origins around the turn of the twentieth century, the system of legal precedents that supports zoning, the evolution of the zoning “toolkit”, and the scope of zoning policies which are prevalent today. Second, form-based codes are defined and differentiated from conventional codes as well as design guidelines. The organizing principles on which FBCs are based are explained and the components of FBCs are described. Issues and controversy surrounding FBCs are discussed. Third, diverse case studies from around the country are carried out in order to examine how form-based codes are developed and applied in various real-world contexts. Case studies are presented in two different tiers, primary and secondary. Primary case studies involve in-depth research, whereas secondary case studies receive a brief, overview-style treatment. Primary case studies are: St. Lucie County, Florida and Sarasota County, Florida. Secondary case studies are: Leander, Texas; Peoria, Illinois; Montgomery, Alabama; Arlington County, Virginia; Hercules, California; and Miami, Florida. Fourth, conclusions are drawn from the research and point towards best practices in form-based coding. The report concludes that form-based codes are not a cure-all, should be developed in the context of a visioning process, and should strike a balance in terms of regulation. Additionally, market factors play a major role. The high cost of coding is a major concern. Furthermore, code writers should be prepared to educate the public as part of their profession.Item Conditional use regulations on multi-amily housing and patterns of segregation in Auburn, AL(2016-05) Cleveland, Julie C.; Mueller, Elizabeth J.; Oden, MichaelThe U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) recently passed a new rule that requires entities that receive federal funding from HUD to take steps to “affirmatively further” fair housing. HUD’s new rule includes an Assessment of Fair Housing (AFH). One of the requirements in the AFH is to examine segregation and integration in the city and to determine if zoning and land use laws have contributed to patterns of segregation. This paper looks specifically at the city of Auburn, AL and its zoning and conditional use regulations on multi-family housing. It examines patterns of racial segregation and ways in which zoning and land use laws, specifically conditional use regulations on multi-family housing, have perpetuated segregation in the city.Item The effect of local planning actions on environmental injustice : Corpus Christi's refinery row neighborhoods(2015-05) Beeler, Melissa Morgan; Mueller, Elizabeth J.; Rawlins, RachaelPublic health problems associated with industrial and hazardous waste facilities seriously and disproportionately impact some communities more than others and have been the subject of environmental justice research for decades. This report aims to 1) evaluate whether and how local planning policies have contributed to a concentration of minorities and poverty adjacent to industry in Corpus Christi's north side, and 2) examine actions that planners and city officials could take to successfully mitigate environmental justice problems. City plans, reports and zoning maps relating to the north side were reviewed to understand whether the City has contributed to the neighborhoods' proximity to industrial sites. These documents suggest that city actions have had some role in the minority neighborhoods' proximity to environmental hazards, especially in the early years of planning in Corpus Christi. Lessons learned from these planning documents are discussed, as well as recommendations for future planning efforts in the north side.Item Fiscal impact analysis for a smart growth zoning strategy : a study of West Campus University neighborhood overlay district(2008-05) Cho, Kyusuk; Paterson, Robert G.This report reviews the cost of urban sprawl and shows the fiscal impact of smart growth. The report then focuses on the West Campus University Neighborhood Overlay (UNO) District in Austin, Texas, and it analyzes and estimates the fiscal impact on the City of Austin. Through fiscal impact analysis, it examines the contribution of the UNO District to the fiscal position of the City of Austin. As a result, this report gives the City of Austin fiscal reasons for redevelopment based on the smart growth scenario. This report begins with showing the cost of urban sprawl. Then, it reviews the history,principles, and policies of smart growth. The following section demonstrates the fiscal impact of smart growth. Lastly, the case of the West Campus area is examined by fiscal impact analysis. The result after the analysis shows the fiscal impacts on the City of Austin from both sides of budget, including expenditures and revenues. The revenues received from the residents of the area increased due to the sudden jump in property value, growth population, housing constructions, and mixed-use development. However, the costs also increased due to the needs for public services.Item Parametric Urban Regulation Models for Predicting Development Performances(2014-12-23) Kim, Jong BumThis research developed and evaluated the Parametric Urban Regulation Model (PURM) to represent urban regulations in parametric Building Information Modeling (BIM) and assess the development performances of urban regulations prior to the urban regulation adoption. The PURM was formed with the Parametric Urban Design Model (PUDM), the Parametric Urban Design Model Object (PUDO), and the Parametric Urban Design Application (PUDA). The first contribution, representing urban regulation provisions in parametric BIM, was driven by parameterization of the urban regulation provisions with the PUDM and the PUDO. By using the parametric modeling within BIM technology, five types of PUDOs of Site, Block, Parcel, Building, and Parking were assembled to create the PUDM as a 3D urban regulation plan. The PUDOs and the PUDM visualized form implication of urban regulation provisions with the object geometry in parametric BIM. The second contribution, testing development performances of the urban regulation provisions, was devised to articulate the advantage of the urban regulation modeling in parametric BIM. The geometrical attributes of PUDOs were expressed with the parametric relationships, so the PUDM could present a range of regulation provision values. Once the PUDM was built in parametric BIM, an energy performance analysis could be performed. The PUDAs enabled the economic analysis based on the simplified pro forma estimation method. The third contribution, reducing ambiguity in interpretation of the urban regulation provisions, was experimented with an existing zoning regulation and 11 software prototypes of the PUDAs. Some associations among the provisions that can make the regulation interpretation complex were imbedded in the PUDAs so that a set of related provisions can be determined simultaneously. The environmental and the economic analyses made the relations among the provision values and the development performances explicit. In the long run, the PURM can achieve benefits in comparison to conventional methods of representing urban regulations. The development performances can be assessed in explicit and direct ways, which were often unforeseen and unintended in the current practice. The PURM can potentially contribute the new platform development that encapsulates the urban plan without a static regulation tool and that improves the quality of urban planning outcomes and development conceptualization.Item The relationship between school and city planning in the Austin-Round Rock MSA(2006-08) Fagan, Jill Marie; McMillan, Tracy E.This professional report examined the relationship between school and city planning in the Austin-Round Rock Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA). Six municipalities were selected for the study based on their type of locale: Large or Mid-size Central City, Urban Fringe of Large City, or Rural. Both elected or appointed and staff officials were invited to participate in an electronic survey. Through the survey, data was collected on the current interactions and communications between school and city planning officials. The survey also asked respondents their opinions on the desired relationship between school and city planning and the importance of various influencing factors on school planning. The data was examined by the size of the municipality and type of position held by the respondent to look for similarities or anomalies across the various classifications. The conclusions of this report provide recommendations for the desired relationship between school and city planning based on the survey conducted locally and the background information gained through research.Item Smart sprawl : an examination of successful conservation development ordinances and practices and recommendations for Central Texas(2008-05) McCarthy, Meghan Joyce; Paterson, Robert G.This report is not intended to argue how sprawl is to be stopped. Infill development is too limited to support the growth cities are expecting, and with a market of buyers who desire to live outside of the city and own a little piece of the country, can there really be an end to sprawl? Rather, this report identifies a method of sprawling smartly: conservation development. As an alternative to conventional subdivision, conservation subdivision developments perpetually preserve a significant portion— usually half—of the development site as open space. This report examines the conservation subdivision ordinances that municipalities have adopted as an alternative or, in some cases, to replace conventional subdivision regulations, and the strategies they exercise that affect a change in the way we sprawl.Item State of the practice : regulatory options for neighborhood protection from out-of-context infill residential development(2006-08) Eldridge, Roswell, active 2006; Butler, Kent S.; Paterson, Robert G.Successful residential infill is an important development model that benefits a community through reinvestment in older neighborhoods, retention of open space, and improved quality of life. However, local governments around the country are contending with problems created by infill homes that are incompatible with the existing neighborhood. This out-of-context development threatens the character of many older neighborhoods and often causes strong resident opposition to any new construction, to the point that some governments have imposed building moratoria to block all projects. Contextual infill standards and neighborhood conservation overlays are two regulatory tools that jurisdictions can use to guide infill construction that protect community character and reduce neighborhood opposition. In this report, the author provides a survey of how communities currently use these approaches and provides an assessment of their success at promoting compatible development in different infill scenarios.Item Study for application of Form Based Code (FBC) to Seoul(2015-05) Kim, Changhwan, M.S.C.R.P; Paterson, Robert G.; Jiao, JunfengThis report seeks to improve Seoul's existing urban planning system through the elements and practices of current Form-Based Code (FBC) in United States. Because Seoul's planning system has similar problems with the conventional zoning practice that the FBC purposes to overcome, the FBC practices in US provides meaningful examples that could help make Seoul's planning system more organized and sustainable. First, this report presents definitions, purpose, background, basic principles and elements of the FBC, and then explores expected benefits and criticism that has emerged from various reports and publications. Second, the Miami, Florida and Denver, Colorado FBC cases are analyzed and assessed to examine its real impact and implications for a citywide FBC adoption. The conclusion of this study provides what should be considered important to an FBC and how to apply an FBC to Seoul, and conclusion of this study.Item The Coordianted Decentralized Paratransit Sysyem: Design, Formulation, and Heuristic(2012-07-16) Shen, Chung-WeiThis dissertation investigates the different organizational structures of paratransit services that cover large regions. A paratransit service is demand-responsive, shared-ride transit service using vans or small buses. It is characterized by the use of vehicles that do not operate on a fixed route or a fixed schedule. The paratransit route and schedule are arranged from a user-specified origin to a user-specified destination, and at a user-specified time. To retain productivity by focusing on shorter trips within a denser area, some larger systems have outsourced operations to more than one contractor, with each contractor responsible for the service zone to which their vehicles have been assigned. This service design is called a "zonal structure" or a "zoning approach." The zoning with transfer system coordinates vehicles' schedules at various transfer locations. The schedule coordination of inter-zonal mechanisms of transportation likely reduces trip costs by increasing the ridesharing rate and lowering the number of empty return miles. This study first presents the exact formulation for a coordinated decentralized paratransit system in order to compare its productivity and service quality with independent decentralized and centralized strategies. The formulation is then proven to work correctly, and the results of the computational experiments of small scale instances are shown to demonstrate that the proposed coordinated system is superior to independent decentralized systems in terms of passenger miles per vehicle revenue mile. In the second section, this study develops an insertion-based heuristic method in order to compare the performances of different operational designs when applied to a large-scale system. In an experiment utilizing Houston's demand-responsive service data, we compare the productivity and service levels among three organizational structures: zoning with transfer, zoning without transfer, and no-zoning designs. The results indicate that zoning with transfer can provide significant benefits to paratransit operations that manage zoning structure; however, the no-zoning strategy used by Houston METRO (a relatively low-density region) performs better on average in terms of efficiency. This study concludes that the zoning with transfer method can be proven to be a productive organizational structure.Item The zoning change process in Austin, Texas(2008-05) Blunt, John Wallace; Butler, Kent S.The purpose of this report is to analyze the zoning change process in Austin, Texas. The report examines Austin's type of city government followed by an overview of zoning in the United States and Austin. The report chronicles the evolution of the Austin Tomorrow Comprehensive Plan and the Neighborhood Planning Area during the time period 1979-1997. Since 1997, zoning change protocol has become intertwined with neighborhood planning such that both must be discussed in detail. The extreme real estate cycles from 1982 to the present are also discussed. Economic conditions played a key role in the slow enactment of neighborhood planning in Austin. The report examines the jurisdictional boundaries of Austin and the governmental bodies charged with hearing zoning cases. After discussing the motivations of the market participants seeking zoning changes, the report analyzes four case studies to illustrate the basic types of zoning cases today. Finally, the report draws conclusions and offers suggestions for improving the efficiency and fairness of the zoning change process in Austin, Texas.Item