FORM, Character and Context in Jefferson County, Kentucky

Form, Character and Context Based Planning in Louisville - Jefferson County

The county's population is projected to grow by 67,000 between 1995 and 2020 and an additional 59,000 housing units are expected. There is a recognition in the community that having this development occur in a compact, sensible, sensitive way would be far better than if it occurred in our current sprawling, land consumptive pattern that results in high infrastructure costs. New development since 1980 has averaged slightly over three units per acre.

Basic decisions need to be made in order to ensure that new development is done in a way that:

• respects and reinforces existing communities;
• creates new communities that are livable, vibrant, diverse and sustainable;
• protects and enhances natural resources;
• reserves adequate land for future parks and open space needs as well as future economic development needs;
• ensures the wisest investment in infrastructure;
• respects the investment of all land owners;
• creates an attractive business climate;
• considers the overall cost of development to the community as well as to developers.

Growth that accomplishes this does not happen without planning. Indeed, it will not happen if Jefferson County grows as it has in the past 30 years. There is a growing dissatisfaction and unrest with the way development is happening in Jefferson County. Evidence of this is sprinkled throughout the media, public hearing testimony, neighborhood association newsletters, and the birth of new community alliances.

How the community's vision is implemented

Form Districts = Great Community

For example, form districts will encourage well-designed, livable communities that accommodate appropriate densities to support efficient public transportation, reduce traffic congestion, improve air quality, preserve adequate parkland to meet the open space needs of the county's residents and ensure that adequate suitable land is available for future economic development.

What is Community Form?

Louisville and Jefferson County's history is reflected in the diverse patterns of development we find in our community today. Grid streets were laid out in downtown Louisville and in early communities like Portland, Shippingport, Middletown and Jeffersontown. Neighborhoods that developed before the widespread use of the automobile, like Old Louisville, Smoketown, and Parkland, have a form that was designed to accommodate streetcars and pedestrians. Later the renowned landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted designed neighborhoods and villages, like Anchorage, Iroquois Gardens, and Audubon Park, with respect for natural features. Curving, tree-lined roadways and irregularly shaped lots are characteristic of this form.

In recent decades, development has taken the form of low density residential subdivisions, shopping centers and office parks spread out along corridors. While this form of development has resulted in a high quality of life for some residents, with it has come many serious problems for our community. Air pollution and traffic congestion have increased significantly in developing areas due to our reliance on the automobile. We have lost much of our farmland and open space as large lot subdivisions are built further and further out in the county. Job opportunities are often inaccessible to residents who cannot drive or who cannot afford to live in suburban areas. What's more, the county is already experiencing problems finding suitable land for major corporate operations; if the current development patterns continue there will be no room for major employers that provide jobs for county residents.

In addition to problems with our current development pattern, the Cornerstone 2020 visioning process revealed widespread dissatisfaction with the methods currently used in planning and zoning. Decisions on land use, infrastructure, and environmental impacts are not made in a comprehensive way. The 1979 Comprehensive Plan guidelines focus on individual land uses rather than on development patterns, often resulting in new developments that do not respect the diversity of our existing patterns of development. Landscape buffers, walls, and fences are required in an attempt to make incompatible building types less offensive to neighbors.

Because the 1979 Comprehensive Plan guidelines are not detailed enough to effectively guide land use decisions, extensive negotiations are required for nearly every major development project. The result is frustration, costly delays and legal fees for both developers and neighbors. This lack of certainty in the development process often leads to divisive zoning battles that must be settled in court. In addition, the lack of certainty about what type of development can occur often contributes to lower land values. Flexibility is also lacking from the current development process. Our existing zoning regulations encourage and even require suburban, auto-oriented types of development with vast parking lots and deep setbacks. Zoning districts require a strict separation of land uses, making it extremely difficult to develop creative, well-designed communities with a mixture of housing types, densities, and uses.

The Cornerstone 2020 Community Form Committee was charged with seeking new ways of addressing how our community should grow and change in the future. Committee members recognized the need for diversity, certainty, and flexibility. What emerged from their work was a new approach to building on the best of our existing communities and building great new communities in Jefferson County. The new approach, called form districts, focuses on patterns of development instead of individual land uses.

The foundation of this approach is simple: there are distinguishable development patterns or "forms" within the built and natural environment of Louisville and Jefferson County. These forms can be characterized as various types of districts, and actions can be taken to preserve and improve the function and quality of each type. The Community Form Plan identifies 12 types of Form Districts and describes the desired pattern of development in each. Two Process Districts are also identified; these are areas that require further study and public input before a form district can be designated. A description of each form district is included in this Summary.

In addition to the Form Districts, the Community Form Plan establishes the concept of Character Districts that will act as a supplemental overlay to the Form Districts. These will be applied to special areas such as local or National Register Historic Districts, or areas with a particular urban design or architectural character. Just as the current Floyds Fork and Bardstown Road Design Review Overlays apply area-specific requirements to the underlying zoning, the Character Districts will operate as an additional layer of design guidelines or standards that are specific to a particular area.

Process

In our VISION OF 2020, Louisville and Jefferson County are the urban center of a growing region. The people enjoy a rich and diverse fabric of livable communities set in a healthy and attractive environment. Community planning has achieved the degree of certainty in land use decisions that supports neighborhood preservation and protects business investments. The form of the built and natural environment encompasses:

• a compact regional pattern of development
• vital natural resource systems conserved and restored within a network of greenlands that shape the pattern of development; and
• existing and new activity and employment centers, capturing the County's share of regional economic growth.

Community Form Plan Guiding Principles

• Identify and conserve the diverse patterns and distinct styles of development that have emerged over time to shape our community
• Recognize neighborhoods as the building blocks of the community. Encourage a variety of cultural and economic lifestyle choices by reinforcing the strengths of existing and creating vibrant new neighborhoods.
• Integrate and link the places where people live, work, shop, and enjoy their leisure time.
• Provide a range of opportunities for economic growth through public and private investment consistent with community goals.
• Develop effective connections between land use patterns and supporting infrastructure such as transportation, sewer, water, and stormwater management systems.
• Utilize the pattern of greenlands and natural resources as the underlying framework that guides development.
• Provide flexibility to allow creative development, while ensuring certainty in quality and character.

The Form Districts

Downtown

Proposed Form

• create a unique and active destination for tourists and residents
• reinforce connections to the river
• increase pedestrian activity
• encourage residential uses
• conserve historic resources

Neighborhoods and Villages (Traditional Neighborhoods, Suburban Neighborhoods)

Proposed Form

• encourage compact development that is integrated with public open spaces such as parks, squares or playgrounds
• organize new neighborhoods and villages around an identifiable center such as a prominent intersection or village square
• encourage new neighborhoods and villages to have definable edges
• locate shops and services at high visibility places in neighborhood and village centers
• encourage residences above commercial establishments
• require new buildings to respect the scale and design of existing neighborhoods and to fit into the streetscape
• encourage connectivity in street layout to reduce traffic congestion
• design streets to be accessible for pedestrians and bicycle and transit users
• preserve integrity of historic neighborhoods
• allow flexible lot types, setbacks and configuration in new development to encourage compact development forms such as new traditional neighborhoods, villages and clustering to preserve open space

Town Center

Proposed Form

• encourage new development that is compatible with the compact, medium intensity, pedestrian friendly nature of the town center
• enhance the core of the town center so that it serves as a focal point and identifying feature of the district
• provide community gathering space in the core set buildings close to street
• set buildings close to street
• encourage lower intensity uses as a transition to a lower intensity form district
• foster the evolution of strip commercial development into pedestrian friendly, mixed use development
• encourage pedestrian bicycle and transit use within and to the town center

Regional Marketplace Center

Proposed Form

• create compact, high intensity centers that are easily accessible by transit
• encourage a wide mix of uses, including office and residential
• encourage higher intensity uses in the interior with lower intensity uses near the edge of the district
• ensure that access is appropriate to the regional character of the district and consider vehicular, pedestrian, bicycle and transit modes
• improve circulation within the marketplace center, including vehicular, pedestrian, bicycle and transit
• establish a strong identity for each marketplace center through landscaping, street furniture, lighting and signs

Traditional Marketplace Corridors

Proposed Form

• promote reuse of vacant buildings
• ensure that redevelopment is in proportion to character and scale of existing buildings
• emphasize a node system at major intersections where major transit connections will be made
• preserve the setback, rhythm and spacing of buildings predominant in the corridor
• encourage vehicular access from alleys rather than streets
• recognize the availability of on-street parking and walk-in traffic in parking standards

Suburban Marketplace Corridors

Proposed Form

• commercial nodes at major intersections containing highest intensity uses
• develop nodes as major transit centers; consistent with TARC development plans
• encourage lower intensity development between nodes with emphasis on alternative modes of travel
• encourage a greater mix of uses including residential, office and commercial
• encourage smaller setbacks and creative design for parking and access in order to create a pedestrian friendly corridor
• develop suburban marketplace corridors as places people want to visit

Traditional Workplace

Proposed Form

• encourage adaptive reuse and investment in older industrial areas
• buildings with small or no setbacks from street
• mostly on-street parking
• high degree of lot coverage
• narrow streets, pedestrian and transit accessible
• historically integrated with residential areas

Suburban Workplace

Proposed Form

• reserve land for industrial and employment uses
• ensure compatibility with adjacent form districts through buffering and/or low impact uses
• buffer heavy industrial uses from adjacent uses
• ensure adequate access for employees, freight and products
• improve transit service

Campus

Proposed Form

• develop master plans for campus locations that protect adjacent landowners from negative effects while providing for the most efficient and viable development
• center principal buildings around a square or central avenue that serves as a focal point of the district and that also serves as a gathering spaces
• provide open space and recreational facilities such as plazas, gymnasiums and bicycling and walking paths
• encourage bicycle, pedestrian and transit travel
• encourage residential areas to be incorporated into campus districts e.g., dormitories or apartment

Natural Resources

Proposed Form

• preserve the character and integrity of special natural resource areas
• minimize environmental impacts in special natural resource areas
• reinforce the natural resources as a framework to guide development
• determine uses allowed, scale, and location of those uses based on the features of each natural resources form district
• establish density limits based on net developable area
• establish flexible density standards, encourage innovative development that supports the goals of the natural resources form district

Implementing Form Districts in Jefferson County

All other "community design" standards (setbacks, heights, dimensional requirements) of the current zoning ordinance will be stripped from the existing zoning districts. A new and distinct set of community design standards will be developed for each form district. In this way, similarly zoned land in different form districts will have identical use and density/intensity standards, but unique design standards that help accomplish the community's vision. For example, R-4 (medium density residential) zoning in a traditional neighborhood will be required to develop with setbacks, lot widths and other dimensions typical of older neighborhoods. Similarly, subdivision requirements will also support lot dimensions, street patterns and other characteristics of each type of form district. Each form district will also have a set of guidelines relating to transportation access, provision of open space, housing variety and relationship of residences to commercial support services.

One additional zoning district category will be added to the zoning code for each major form district type. Applicants that choose to rezone to, for example, a "traditional neighborhood district" will have flexibility to "master plan" a variety of housing densities, types and neighborhood commercial services that are allowed in that district.

Other attributes of the Jefferson County proposal include special or "character districts" to enhance or maintain special historic, cultural, environmental and natural resources. Also anticipated are new rules to allow "conservation or open space" subdivisions in areas not provided with urban services. These rules would encourage forms other than traditional 5 acre lot rural subdivisions in order to better preserve rural character, agriculture and sensitive environmental areas.