Sustainable Zoning: A New Imperative

By Contributing Writer, 1-31-07

Editor’s Note: James van Hemert is the executive director of the Rocky Mountain Land Use Institute at the University of Denver. In this guest column, Van Hemert writes about the power of zoning in achieving true “sustainability.” The Institute’s annual conference takes place March 7-9. Click here for more information.

I work in a Gold certified LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) ”green” building. We at the law school are so excited and proud about this that we mention it in our promotional brochures, announce it on our web site, give tours, and generally position it as a selling point for the school. We have non-toxic carpet, recycled materials, windows that actually open, waterless urinals, automatic lighting that turns off when you leave the room (most of the time, anyways), and a 40% savings in energy used for heating and cooling. We are comforted that we have done our part in saving the planet.

But there’s what we might call an inconvenient truth that everyone seems to ignore: the five story parking garage that is as large as the law school itself and filled with trucks, SUVs and fancy sedans. If we were to take an honest look at our collective ecological footprint—a metaphor to depict the amount of land and water a population hypothetically needs to support itself and to absorb its wastes—I am afraid we would find that our green building isn’t making as much of a dent as we might think.

The devastating consequences of climate change, the many risks inherent in over-reliance on fossil fuels, a wasteful global food system, an increasingly inactive and obese population, and the ongoing destruction of natural habitat—to name just my top five-- are emerging crises to which single, uncoordinated, and incremental solutions will be woefully inadequate.

It’s easy to be pessimistic about all this given the absence of serious national, state or regional land use planning regimes. But there is now an opportunity for local governments, with their zoning powers to promote public health, safety and welfare, to step up to the plate and help establish the incentives and regulations for sustainable land use.

Effective use of zoning for these ends does require a different approach. The Rocky Mountain Land Use Institute last year announced a sustainable zoning code initiative, and we are hosting monthly meetings to identify key sustainability issues and explore ways to address them in the land use regulatory process. It’s an inclusive and multi-disciplinary approach, and our goal is to have a model code widely available for local governments across the country.

Currently, all zoning approaches and standards fall short in addressing the full range of sustainability issues. Single use Euclidian zoning—zoning by exclusion and separation—has often had unintended consequences: in Phoenix, for example, it’s substantially contributed to desert consuming regional sprawl. Performance mitigation standards presume that most uses are acceptable, ignoring the possibility that no development might be the best policy in certain areas. Strong environmental, energy consumption and natural resource standards are almost completely absent from the heavily design focused Smart Code zoning model encouraged by the New Urbanist movement. And no American zoning codes comprehensively deal with food systems and urban agriculture.

Zoning styles of all flavors have too often been used to preserve the neighborhood for those who got there first and who now want to bar the door. They fear that the newcomers will raise the density (oh no, not more neighbors to get to know!) or add new land uses that would bring outsiders and traffic into the neighborhood.  They fail to appreciate or don’t care that these newcomers would enhance a vibrant urbanity and reduce urban sprawl. Local politicians are too often swayed by this incumbents club. The smart growth movement, which in theory favors higher densities and a greater mix of uses, is heavily influenced by those who wish to preserve the low density and single use status quo, resulting in many new developments that are too often nothing more than urban sprawl with pretty porches.

It need not be that way. Zoning is a powerful tool that can be used for almost any conceivable regulation that advances public health, safety, and welfare. From promoting locally owned business on Main Street, to protecting agricultural land; from mandating minimum densities to creating walkable neighborhoods; and from making development pay its own way, to preserving historic buildings.

Some communities are experimenting with innovative codes that begin to address discrete issues such as solar access in Boulder, Colorado, green roofs and storm water infrastructure in Chicago, and compact, mixed use, transit-oriented neighborhoods in Portland, Oregon. Vancouver, in B.C., Canada, began its journey in the 1960s when the multi-laned trans-Canada highway was stopped by citizens at its borders. Today, through policy and regulation, it has added 85,000 people, including young families, in its downtown core, creating the delightful problem of stroller congestion on the sidewalks. A sustained focus on sustainable practices and regulation has helped it become one of the most livable –- and sustainable—cities in North America.

In most cases, however, communities resort to cobbling together an incomplete hybrid zoning approach and affixing bandages over time to keep the system running. The City of Denver, for example, is undertaking the Herculean task of consolidating and updating its complex jumble of zoning codes and amendments so that the type of development the community wants to see happen—higher density, mixed use buildings of quality design along main thoroughfares—is actually easy to process and permit.

What we need is an innovative model zoning code with five key characteristics:

1. It must be comprehensive, covering all of these topics:

• Community character—land use density, uses, public realms, design
• Natural Resources and the Environment—ecological systems and wildlife habitat protection—water conservation Waste reduction and recycling
• Transportation and Mobility—all modes, choices for everyone, including pedestrians
• Safety and security—protection from fire and water hazards, crime mitigation
• Housing choices—jobs/housing balance, affordability, access
• Energy—production, distributed energy, and conservation
• Food systems—local supply, healthy foods, urban food production, agricultural land preservation

2. It must artfully and intelligently integrate natural and man-made systems;

3. It must be progressive, drawing upon useful features of other code types already proven and in use –e.g. in the areas of design, procedures, performance standards, incentives;

4. It must be based on a sustainable comprehensive policy plan and long term civic engagement; and

5. It must be tailored to local and regional climate, ecology, and culture.

We can rave about the latest sexy hybrid car and the new green building going up in our neighborhood. We can get jazzed about that cute neighborhood with porches and alleys. We can feel warm, green and fuzzy about our new open space preservation sales tax. But unless we comprehensively and aggressively use the tool of zoning to reshape our land use and transportation patterns, we are missing the mark.