Form-Based Codes

This page provides the reader with information about form-based codes -- land development codes that create great places.

• FORM-BASED CODES INSTITUTE is a professional organization dedicated to advancing the state-of-the-art in form-based land development codes. FBCI provides beginning and advanced courses in form-based coding and sponsors annual code awards with the sponsorship of the Richard H. Driehaus Charitable Trust.

• Place Making With Form-Based Codes, article by Mary E. Madden and Bill Spikowski, published in the September 2006 issue of Urban Land, copyright 2006 by Urban Land Institute

• SAMPLE CODES: Four form-based codes are available here for review. Three are written as "mandatory codes"; two are implemented by municipal assignment of new zoning districts while the third requires rezoning by rural landowners if they choose to develop their land. The fourth requires rezoning to allow denser mixed-use infill than would otherwise be allowed. Each code is written to be fully integrated with the remainder of the land development codes for these communities.

• FORT MYERS BEACH , FLORIDA -- This is an excerpt from the zoning chapter of the Fort Myers Beach land development code, adopted in March 2003. This code uses a mixture of form-based and conventional zoning districts; it refers to the form-based districts as "redevelopment districts." Features of this code include mandatory design standards (not guidelines) for all commercial buildings; a new form-based zoning district for downtown; and all zoning districts use a streamlined method of assigning land uses as described in Tables 34-1 and 34-2. This code was drafted by Spikowski Planning Associates with assistance from Dover, Kohl & Partners.

Entire Land Development Code is available by clicking here.

Plans on which this code is based:
Fort Myers Beach Comprehensive Plan
Old San Carlos / Crescent Street Master Plan

Contacts:

 

• ST. LUCIE COUNTY, FLORIDA -- A new form-based code has been adopted for a 28-square-mile area just beyond the urban fringe of the city of Fort Pierce in northern St. Lucie County, Florida. This effort is the result of a "Towns, Villages, and Countryside" (TVC) master plan prepared for St. Lucie County by the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council in 2004.

  The TVC plan combines agricultural preservation and limited development. Existing development rights can be exercised only by concentrating them in new town or villages, each to be surrounded by continued agricultural activity.

  These regulations provide a form-based code to implement this master plan. The code contains several features of interest to practitioners. First, unlike most form-based codes, it is being adopted prior to the physical design of individual villages. The code provides explicit standards for each village, including minimum percentages of the land that will remain as "countryside" and assignment of the developable portion of each village into zones based on an urban-to-rural transect. A regulating plan for each village must identify specific transect zones and assign allowable street types and lot types in accordance with standards in the code. Each regulating plan is subject to approval by the Board of County Commissioners through a PUD-like rezoning process.

  This plan and code received the annual Award of Excellence from the Florida Chapter of the American Planning Association in 2006. The code received one of the inaugural Driehaus Form-Based Codes Awards from the Form-Based Codes Institute in 2007.

  Code documents:

  • Final code, Ordinance 06-017 as adopted by the Board of County Commissioners on May 30, 2006 (with scrivener's error corrected by Ordinance 07-041)
  • May 30 draft, for May 30, 2006, public hearing before the Board of County Commissioners
  • May 15 draft, for May 15, 2006, public hearing before the Board of County Commissioners
  • March 31 draft, for April 12, 2006, public hearing before the Planning & Zoning Commission
  • Chart identifying changes between January 30 and March 31 drafts
  • Earlier draft dated January 30, 2006
  • Form-based code summary sheet

  Plan on which this code is based:

  Details are available from the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council.
  
  Contacts:

Marcela Camblor Urban Design Coordinator Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council 301 East Ocean Boulevard, Suite 300 Stuart, Florida 34994 (772)221-4060 phone (772)221-4067 fax

Bill Spikowski Spikowski Planning Associates 1617 Hendry Street, Suite 416 Fort Myers, Florida 33901 (239)334-8866 phone

Milt Rhodes and Victor Dover Dover, Kohl & Partners 1571 Sunset Drive Coral Gables, FL 33143 (305)666-0446 phone

 

• SARASOTA COUNTY, FLORIDA -- A new form-based code was adopted by Sarasota County, Florida, in August 2007; click here for details.

 

• CAPE CORAL, FLORIDA -- This a proposed code completed in 2003 for downtown Cape Coral. Three new form-based zoning districts are created (Core, Gateway, Edge) to implement the design concepts in the Design Downtown Master Plan by Dover, Kohl & Partners. In this code, permitted uses are listed in the conventional fashion to mesh with the city's existing code. This code also includes mandatory design standards (not guidelines) for all new buildings. This code was drafted by Spikowski Planning Associates and Dover, Kohl & Partners. A significantly modified version of this code was adopted by Cape Coral in November 2006

Plan on which this code is based:
Design Downtown Master Plan

Contacts: 

Suzanne Kuehn, Executive Director Cape Coral Community Redevelopment Agency P.O. Box 150027 Cape Coral, Florida 33915-0027 (239)574-0401 phone

Bill Spikowski Spikowski Planning Associates 1617 Hendry Street, Suite 416 Fort Myers, Florida 33901 (239)334-8866 phone

Margaret Flippen and Amy Groves Dover, Kohl & Partners 1571 Sunset Drive Coral Gables, FL 33143 (305)666-0446 phone

 

• PRESENTATIONS:

  -- CNU XVI, Congress for the New Urbanism, Austin, Texas, April 3-6, 2008. Presentation slides: Form-Based Codes: Alternative Typologies and Techniques;  Form-Based Code Organizing Principles

  -- "Innovative Urban and Rural Planning," sponsored by Center for Public and Social Policy and Florida Institute of Government at Florida Gulf Coast University, December 1, 2007. Course flyer; morning slides (urban); afternoon slides (rural)

  -- "Creating Urban Form: Conventional and Form-Based Codes" -- part of "Raleigh's Designing a 21st Century City" lecture series, delivered on November 6, 2007  --  Bill Spikowski's lecture slides available here  Also:  streaming video of lecture (scroll down to Channel 11 Programs -- 21st Century Lecture Series: Creating Urban Form -- then click on "Video")  Also available on DVD (no charge for single copies); send requests to bill@spikowski.com

  -- Presentation by Bill Spikowski to CNU XV congress in Philadelphia PA on May 17, 2007 -- handout available here

-- Presentation by Bill Spikowski to AIA conference in Washington DC - Communities on the Line: Transit and the Design of 21st Century Communities - October 8, 2005 -- handout available here

-- Presentation by Bill Spikowski to the San Felasco Section of the American Planning Association in Gainesville on September 28, 2005  

copy of slides	"Retooling Planners" by Kaizer Rangwala
newspaper article: Keeping a community's vision	FBCI / Virginia Tech course announcement

-- Presentation by Bill Spikowski to the Calusa Chapter of the Florida Planning & Zoning Association in Fort Myers on April 29, 2005 -- handout available here

-- Presentation by Bill Spikowski to the Florida Chapter of the American Planning Association in Gainesville on October 14, 2004 -- handout available here