Seattle's Zoning Futures— Retaking the Lead Chuck Wolfe, U.W. planning professor & blogger thinks Denver may have stolen Seattle's message. Truth is, a whole lot of places in addition to Denver have stolen Seattle's message and the worst part is that ordinary people no longer have any idea what Chuck is talking about. The by now, overly complicated interface between urban design and zoning is addressed in the attached files that Google insists on alphabetizing, but nonetheless are easiest to understand if reviewed is the following order: 1. Zoning in Context, Plain English adjunct to the Team 3 presentation Sept. 24, 2009 to the Planning, Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee of Seattle's City Council. Three different teams were requested to partially test the proposed update of the lowrise multifamily code. The zones tested failed. To see for yourself—see the archived meeting video at the Council's website. http://seattle.gov/council/clark/2009townhomes-mcuvideos.htm 2. Other Places Update, a list of places known, as of this writing, to have stolen Seattle's message, including how the contexts noted in the Zoning In Context file are being applied. 3. Citywide Design Guidelines, March 30, 2010 Nissen comment letter on the City's Update review draft. The goals have never been more elegantly expressed: "Fitting comfortably with the existing fabric, standing the test of time, and a common language," yet the road to hell is paved with the stuff. Actual fruition depends upon details, fair application, and the growth of citizens, not economies. Flash: Sacramento, not Seattle, was first to borrow the phrase "urban village" from Herb Gans' The Urban Villagers, 1962/1982 (see http://books.google.com/ ). Seattle's 1994 contribution was making it a strategy for sustainablity. Here is how Sim Van der Ryn in his 1986 Sustainable Communities, a New Design Synthesis for Cities, Suburbs, and Towns G explained then Governor Jerry Brown's urban village plan for Sacramento: "Conservation meant more than simply saving a few worthy buildings.... to fit meant that buildings contributed to a coherent whole rather than standing autonomously. It meant that they must maintain the scale and intensity of the place rather than constantly redefine the neighborhood." | Cascade, the village     |