Regulating land development to achieve community desires. (page 2 of 2)

Some urban designers use regulating plans and typological codes to control the urban form of their projects. Typological codes describe neighborhood components such as buildings, streets and open space types. The regulating plan or map shows where the components are placed. Unlike typical zoning practices, typological codes allow the designer to specify the various "types" of buildings, streets and open spaces that will be featured in the plan. After the street network has been laid out, each parcel and thoroughfare in the plan is assigned one of the selected types. Public buildings such as churches, libraries and city halls are often not coded, since these "object buildings" are meant to stand out as special within the urban fabric.

While some building types lend themselves to certain uses–for example, shopfront buildings work well for retail, and bungalows work well for residential–other building types are quite flexible in their use–a townhouse, for example, can accommodate a wide spectrum of residential, retail, workplace, and institutional uses. The objective is to create a setting that accommodates diverse uses over time, but is highly specific in terms of physical form. In this way citizens can regulate issues of use and form separately.

The plan at right is keyed to a code that specifies the building and street types in a proposed community. These images can be found in The New Urbanism, Peter Katz, 1994, McGraw-Hill. Typological codes specify the overall building "envelope" including key dimensions and the siting of buildings in relation to nearby streets, sidewalks, alleys and adjacent buildings.

In the interest of making the information as accessible as possible, typological codes are presented in diagrammatic form. They are purposefully lean, concentrating on those issues that most affect the basic layout and functionality of neighborhoods. The approach is different from "guidelines" which generally focus on details of architectural aesthetics, landscaping, and material. These latter issues may be included in a separate architecture and landscaping code.

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