Virginia
Tech’s New Metropolis Lecture Series
Old
Town Alexandria Campus, Urban Affairs and Planning Program
Planning the
Bottom Line
A New
Approach to Smart Growth and Local Economic Development
A Discussion
with Peter Katz, Thursday, November 8th, 7:00 to 8:00 pm
Although Smart Growth and New Urbanism have become accepted
as preferred models for the making of more sustainable places, the methods
typically used to regulate such development often deliver outcomes that are
very different from what planners and community stakeholders envision.
Use-based zoning, as its name implies, inherently tends to separate land uses.
It focuses on quantitative measures such as units per acre, or FAR (the ratio
of interior floor space to site area), with little regard for the more qualitative
aspects of a development.
Form-based coding, a promising new approach, works well in
the hot spots where development pressure and a strong market justify a high
level of professional design attention and citizen engagement. It works less
well in places where citizens are not involved and where land values are low.
In such places there is typically little pressure for the redevelopment of
existing urbanized land. In an attempt to secure new revenue, such communities
often approve low density, low value, suburban-style development that is
unlikely to pay back the municipality’s costs to accommodate such development
and service it over the long term.
Peter Katz, our featured speaker, has been at the forefront
of recent planning innovations such as the New Urbanism, Form-Based Codes and
now linking urban design and development regulations to the emerging discipline
of fiscal impact analysis. He will share insights and strategies about how new
planning and development models—especially those that are structured around
public transit— can achieve greater equilibrium between municipal costs and
revenues.
For the past six years Katz has worked on the front lines of
regional and local planning with Sarasota County, Florida and Oceanside, California,
ensuring that local development policies and proposals address market demands,
create livable communities and balance budgets.
Before working in local government, Katz was the founding executive
director of the Congress of New Urbanism, and later was a co-founder of the
Form Based Codes Institute. In the early 2000s he was an adjunct professor in
Virginia Tech’s department of Urban Affairs and Planning and a resident of
Alexandria, Virginia.
Katz returned last year to the Washington, DC region, to serve
as director of Arlington County’s planning division, an agency that is known
for its exemplary Smart Growth development. He has since returned to
consulting, providing services to a range of local and national clients. As
part of his presentation, Katz will share his impressions of current
development practice in several Northern Virginia communities along with other
examples from around the United States.
Thursday, November 8th, 7 to 8
pm,
School of Policy and
International Affairs
Urban Affairs and Planning
Program
Virginia Tech
1021 Prince Street, 3rd floor
Alexandria, VA
Contact: Tina Whaley,
Metropolitan Institute
703-706-8100
twhaley@vt.edu
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