Buffalo is undergoing the ambitious adventure of a complete zoning overhaul using a form based format – city wide. This is something that only Miami and Denver have done before. It’s revolutionary.  This is a daunting task yet once it is complete, we will quickly reap the benefits of a simple, understandable document that truly puts our best foot forward for our future. 

This is a simple post to tell YOU to educate yourself a little on zoning, urban planning, the transect.. and read through the documents that the city is putting out there. The more you understand, the better feedback which makes the code stronger for our future. Take some time to go to the meetings that are happening this week and get involved in the process. The schedule is listed  here.

Here are a couple urban planning 101 / Green code links for you to review.

There are several reports you can download here: http://www.buffalogreencode.com/

Also for some background on form based codes go here: http://www.formbasedcodes.org/

To think about LEED ND (neighborhood development) – check this out: http://www.usgbc.org/DisplayPage.aspx?CMSPageID=148

A comparison of conventional zoning vs. form based: http://www.cecilgroup.com/wordpress/news/article-conventional-zoning-vs-form-based-code/