Creating Livable Communities
Enhancing existing centers and promoting new center-based development is a core strategy for creating livable communities. Connections 2040 identifies over 120 key centers [0.1 MB pdf] in the region as focal points for future development. These centers range from large metropolitan centers and suburban centers to traditional town centers and rural hamlets. While they vary in size, each of these centers has existing infrastructure in place and provides many of the amenities that people want: walkability, unique architectural character, access to transit, social connections, and a mix of housing stock, including affordable housing that is well connected to employment opportunities. Local analysis has shown that center-based development saves $25,000 in development and infrastructure costs per new housing unit compared to sprawl-based development. Households in centers also spend $1,300 less per year in energy and transportation costs and have shorter commutes and more transportation options compared to households located outside of established centers.
Smart Growth/Enhanced Community Design
Local governments can lead the way to a more sustainable future by ensuring their ordinances promote compact, center-based, mixed-use development. Recognizing that each community can best determine its own approach, DVRPC has highlighted a variety of smart growth zoning tools that can enhance communities:
- For More Information
Smart Growth Project Database
Traditional Neighborhood Development
Traditional neighborhood development applies historic development patterns to new development, encouraging compact, center-based development with a mix of uses in a pedestrian-friendly, village-type setting. Important features of traditional neighborhood development include a connected street grid, the use of back alleys to access garages, shallow setbacks, and front porches.
Municipalities with Traditional Neighborhood Design Ordinances
Transit-Oriented Development (TOD)
TOD encourages compact, mixed-use, walkable development near transit stations to encourage the use of transit and to use land more efficiently. TOD zoning districts are often adopted as overlay zones, or they can be by-right zones.
Municipalities with Transit-Oriented Development Ordinances
Transit Revitalization Investment District (TRID)
Pennsylvania's TRID Act of 2004 is legislation that offers municipalities, transit agencies, and developers a flexible approach to plan for and implement transit-oriented development (TOD). TRID is an optional tool to be used by communities wishing to leverage state funding for planning and implementing TOD. This legislation supports local economic development goals and encourages the use of innovative financing methods, including public–private partnerships. It also allows transit agencies to share in real estate tax revenues to support capital projects and maintenance in TRID areas.
Unified Development Codes (UDC)
UDCs combine the zoning ordinance (land use, density, and bulk standards) with the subdivision and land development ordinance (site plan review, which includes road and utility standards; design review; and often stormwater management) into one code and integrated review process. Proposed developments are easier to visualize and review by staff, boards, and citizens.
Incentive Zoning
Incentive zoning encourages developers to provide amenities, such as open space, recreational areas, or affordable housing, in exchange for allowing a higher density of development.
Overlay Zones
Overlay zones provide additional regulations or guidelines on land use within their coverage areas. Overlay zones do not replace existing zones and are often used to protect natural resources or historic areas, or to control access along major highways.
Form-Based Zoning
Form-based codes encourage predictable and compatible new building construction by using physical form (rather than separation of uses) as the organizing principle for the code. They are regulations, not design guidelines, adopted into a municipality's land use ordinance. Several municipalities in the Greater Philadelphia region use form-based codes to address the relationship between building facades and the public realm, the form and mass of buildings in relation to one another, and the scale and types of streets and blocks. Several municipalities have site form-based codes as a way to preserve the overall character of their historic downtown, while allowing for new development.
- For More Information
- Form-Based Codes in New Jersey: Issues & Opportunities by the Regional Plan Association
Municipalities with Form-Based Codes
Performance Zoning
Performance zoning regulates development based on the specific impacts of the development on the site instead of on the specific types of uses. For example, performance zoning for an industrial development might consider vehicle traffic, air pollution, noise, and lot coverage, but not regulate what types of industry could locate in the development. Performance zoning provides municipalities with more control over the impacts of development, while giving developers more flexibility in types of permitted uses.
Live/Work Zoning
Live/work zoning allows for structures that combine a significant amount of floor space for residential and business use.
- For More Information
Smart Location of Public Facilities
Smart location of public facilities situates schools, post offices, municipal offices, and similar facilities in areas that are accessible by a variety of modes, and it integrates them into the fabric of the existing community. This increases the vibrancy of existing centers and developed areas and better serves the public.
Design Guidelines
The goal of the design guidelines is to improve the overall aesthetic character and visual unity of a geographic area, from an entire municipality to a delineated historic district.
- For More Information
- Best Practices
- West Chester Borough, Chester County, PA [6.7 MB pdf]
- Hopewell Township, Mercer County, NJ [42.7 MB pdf]
- Kennett Square, Chester County, PA [17.2 MB pdf]
- Gloucester City, Camden County, NJ [4.5 MB pdf]
- Newtown Borough, Bucks County, PA [3.2 MB pdf]
Active Design Standards
Active design builds on health research showing that design can impact today's biggest health epidemics: obesity and its related chronic diseases. Active design standards focus on creating neighborhoods, streets, and outdoor spaces that encourage walking, bicycling, and active transportation and recreation. Active building design strategies focus on promoting active living through the placement and design of stairs, elevators, and indoor and outdoor spaces.
- For More Information
- Active Design Guidelines by The Center for Active Design
Open Streets/Play Streets
Open streets/play streets are an interim strategy that communities can use to close streets off from automobiles during weekends, opening them up to public use for recreation and entertainment. They also allow residents to rethink the role of street space in their community.
- For More Information
- A Partnership for a Healthier America-Play Streets
- Open Streets Project
Pedestrian Plazas
Pedestrian plazas reclaim underused street segments as public space. They can be done on a temporary trial basis with minimal capital outlay.
- For More Information
- City of Philadelphia Pedestrian Plaza Guidelines [pdf]
Infill And Redevelopment
Virtually every community has vacant or underutilized properties, ranging from single, isolated parcels to surface parking lots to abandoned shopping malls to brownfields. Community revitalization provides a coordinated and comprehensive approach to addressing distressed areas and to foster healthy and vibrant residential and commercial opportunities.
Redevelopment Plan
A redevelopment plan documents the process to restore or rebuild an area in a state of decline, disinvestment, or abandonment. Redevelopment plans can transform an underutilized or distressed area into an economically viable and productive part of the community.
- For More Information
- The Community Revitalization Desktop Guide for Pennsylvania Municipalities
Brownfields Redevelopment
Brownfields redevelopment involves the remediation and redevelopment of former industrial or contaminated sites. Such projects can revitalize urban areas and improve the quality of the environment.
- For More Information
Greyfields Redevelopment
Greyfields redevelopment involves the redevelopment of abandoned or underutilized shopping centers or strip malls. This redevelopment can often take the form of mixed-use centers and can provide the opportunity to create town centers in communities formerly lacking them.
- For More Information
Retail Caps
Retail caps protect the economic vitality of the downtown in many communities by limiting the size of superstores. These limits may apply to the overall square footage of the store or just to the "footprint," which would require the store to build up rather than out.
Façade Grant Programs
Façade grant programs, funded through private or public funds, are a way for communities to incentivize reinvestment and/or historic preservation in a geographic area. Most grant programs are targeted at older buildings or long-established businesses and usually require a 50 percent match. If a façade grant program is operating within a historic zoning district, the proposed improvements will be reviewed by the historical architecture review board or historic preservation commission.
Downtown Rightsizing
Most downtown retail districts often include too much land area. By over-zoning for commercial and retail uses, strategic recruitment becomes more difficult. In many cases, smaller districts (one to three blocks) are more successful, as they have less space to fill, and are more walkable.
- For More Information
Community Branding
A downtown brand unifies the downtown district. The brand is created based on how a neighborhood or community perceives itself. A proper brand is more than words and images used along with a place name; it is a long-term, permanent feeling of what a place should be and mean.
- For More Information
- Classic Towns of Greater Philadelphia
Main Street Programs
Having an organizational structure in place increases a downtown's capacity for development and reduces responsibilities on the local government. Management structures help with access to funding resources and attract new development without burdening residents with increased taxes.
- For More Information
Business Improvement Districts
Business improvement districts, and similar tools such as Special Improvement Districts and Neighborhood Improvement Districts, allow the coordination of business improvement activities, usually by levying a special tax on businesses in the area that will be applied directly back into the district. These activities often include maintenance agreements, façade and streetscape improvements, and security provision.
- For More Information
Green Stormwater Infrastructure And Urban Greening
Green Infrastructure is a network of different types of greenspace and green features that provide natural ecosystem functions and enhance the livability of developed communities. For example, green infrastructure in the form of trees and green streets boosts property values, supports retail activity, improves health, protects water quality, reduces stormwater runoff, cleans air, stores and sequesters carbon, provides wildlife habitat, and increases roadway safety. Types of green infrastructure that municipalities can promote include:
Rain Gardens
Rain gardens are small bioretention areas—shallow depressions made up of a mixture of sand and soils planted with native vegetation—that serve to filter stormwater runoff from their immediate surroundings.
Bioswales
Bioswales are long, naturally vegetated, shallow depressions designed to intercept sheet flow (runoff that flows over the ground as a thin, even layer rather than concentrating in a channel) from surrounding land.
Naturalized Retention Basins
Naturalized retention basins create a natural flow channel for rainwater and use dense tree, shrub, wildflower, and tall meadow grass vegetation to slow down and filter runoff. They add aesthetic beauty, increase property values, recharge water tables, reduce erosion, and improve water quality.
Tree Trenches
On the surface, tree trenches appear no different than ordinary street trees. However, tree trenches include sub-surface structures to store and absorb stormwater through uptake by the trees over time.
Green Streets
Green streets involve a range of techniques, including rain gardens, naturalized retention basins, and tree trenches, within and adjacent to the street right-of-way that serve to integrate stormwater runoff.
- For More Information
- Philadelphia Water Department-Green Streets Program
Green Roofs
Green roofs utilize plant vegetation in the place of typical rooftop covers (shingles, tiles, membrane, tar, etc.). A green roof consists of several layers below the plants, including soil, a layer of drainage, a root inhibitor, and up to several layers of thick, waterproof materials making up the base of the surface. Green roofs provide cooling benefits to the building and help to counteract the urban heat island effect. Installation costs are competitive with traditional roofs and often require less maintenance.
Neighborhood Parks
Neighborhood Parks provide much-needed natural vegetation and trees in urban settings and provide all the environmental and aesthetic benefits inherent in community green infrastructure.
Greenways and Trails
Urban greenways and trails are types of linear parks that can be integrated into developed communities, thereby creating a linear green feature and providing alternative transportation. The Greater Philadelphia region is working on completing The Circuit, a 750-mile network of trails.
Greening Vacant Lots
Greening vacant lots transforms otherwise derelict parcels from sources of blight into valuable pieces of community green infrastructure.
- Best Practices
- Pennsylvania Horticultural Society
Trees
Trees contribute many benefits, including reducing the heat island effect, stormwater run-off, and carbon dioxide levels. Tools that specifically promote trees, an integral component of any community green infrastructure system, include:
- For More Information
- Stormwater PA
- Pennsylvania Horticultural Society Greening Programs
- Green Infrastructure and Forestry Toolkit
- Case Studies
- US EPA - The Economic Benefits of Green Stormwater Infrastructure: A Case Study of Lancaster, PA [pdf]
- New Jersey Future - Trenton Green Infrastructure Feasibility Study [pdf]
- Best Practices
- Philadelphia, PA - Clean City Green Waters Program
Tree Inventory
A tree inventory provides specific data on street and park tree location, species, condition, and maintenance needs to manage budgeting, staffing, and maintenance of trees.
Tree Management Plan
A tree management plan for street and park trees addresses species diversity, planting needs, hazardous trees, insect and disease problems, and delivery of regular care, such as pruning and watering. A management plan should take into consideration the impacts of climate change and select trees for future climate.
Street Tree Ordinance
A street tree ordinance identifies municipal responsibilities for planting, maintaining, and removing trees, and establishes a tree commission with authority to guide the management of public street and park trees.
Woodland Protection/Percent Tree Cover
Woodland protection/percent tree cover requires a certain percentage of tree cover to be preserved, sometimes on a sliding scale depending on the type of development and steepness of slope.
Buffer Zones
Buffer zones require trees and vegetation between different uses, such as residential and commercial, or between roads and buildings.
Subdivision and Land Development Ordinances
Subdivision and land development ordinances should include requirements for trees to be shown on subdivision and site development plans, as well as strict design standards that require the protection of trees during the development process, replacement/mitigation, and maintenance after development.
Landscape Ordinances
Landscape ordinances promote site-appropriate native plants and set minimum thresholds for the use of naturalized landscaping in parking lots and other forms of new commercial and residential development.
Specimen and Special Tree Protections
Specimen and special tree protections require developers and contractors to protect trees of a certain size, species, or other community value.
- For More Information
- Municipalities with Tree Protection Ordinances
- Municipal Implementation Tool # 15: Municipal Tree Planning
- Overview of the TreeVitalize Municipalities Program
- Model Ordinances
- Cheltenham Township, Montgomery County, PA
- Kennett Township, Chester County, PA
- Lawrence Township, Mercer County, NJ
- Mansfield Township, Burlington County, NJ
- Plumstead Township, Bucks County, PA
- Radnor Township, Delaware County, PA
- Woolwich Township, Gloucester County, NJ
Inclusive Housing
Housing is a key issue that impacts both regional competitiveness and the vitality of individual communities. Introducing new housing types, sizes, and designs into our region's centers and communities can provide housing opportunities for families with a range of incomes, help the region be less energy constrained, and provide housing choices to help meet the demands of the coming senior boom. To help seniors, municipalities can adopt policies to support aging in place. Local codes that allow increased densities and integrated land uses, for example, can help improve access to necessary services. Widening crosswalks, retiming traffic lights, and providing wider sidewalks, benches, and lighting will benefit residents of all ages, including seniors. Municipalities can also do the following to maintain and improve their housing stock:
- For More Information
Universal Design Standards
Universal design standards are guidelines for the built environment and products that emphasize ease of use, accessibility, and attractiveness for people of all abilities.
Compatible Residential Infill Ordinances or Infill Design Guidelines
Compatible residential infill ordinances and infill design guidelines can guide the process of integrating new development carefully into the existing neighborhood fabric with respect to block patterns, scale, building features, landscaping, and other characteristics of the neighborhood.
- For More Information
Housing Maintenance and Rehabilitation Programs
Housing maintenance and rehabilitation programs targeted to elderly or low-income homeowners can help preserve the existing housing stock, and modification programs that make units more accessible can help seniors stay in their homes longer.
Accessory Dwelling Units
Accessory dwelling units are small secondary units built on single-family lots, either as accessory apartments or as separate unattached dwelling units. Accessory units reduce housing costs for seniors and can provide an informal support network, particularly if on the property of family or friends.
Municipalities with Accessory Dwelling Unit Ordinances
Shared Housing
Municipalities should make sure their zoning ordinances allow shared housing by unrelated adults. Often this can be regulated by the number of adults allowed, and care should be taken to not make this too restrictive.
Housing Units Above Commercial and Retail Spaces
Housing units above commercial and retail spaces can provide affordable housing opportunities and enhance the vitality of centers.
Inclusionary Zoning
Inclusionary zoning ordinances include either a mandatory or a voluntary (opt-in) percentage of affordable units to be built in a development, in exchange for nonmonetary entitlements from the municipality, such as density bonuses, fee waivers, or relaxed parking restrictions.
- For More Information
Connections 2040 Toolbox
