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Cincinnati’s form­based code and Transect
Part two of a series: Addressing Missing Middle housing and missing people in the Queen
City
Blog post by Dan Parolek on 05 Jun 2012
building codes urban design

Dan Parolek, Better! Cities & Towns

From previous post: Cincinnati’s urban neighborhoods are at a tipping point. The City has lost 40 percent of
its population since 1950 leaving suburban densities in the city’s formerly urban neighborhoods. Many
residential buildings and lots sit vacant or unmaintained, with over 10,000 historically contributing units in
need of renovation. Neighborhood main streets have withered due to lack of people, competition from nearby
big box stores, and bad thoroughfare design that speeds cars and potential customers through these
neighborhoods rather than to them. In addition, jobs followed the people to the suburbs.

As part of a charrette held the week of Saturday April 28th, Opticos Design built upon months of field
documentation, including many hours spent on Google Earth, mapping analysis, photography, and an
assessment of the existing zoning code to refine an initial calibration of Cincinnati’s urban­to­rural Transect.

Choosing and refining a form­based organizing principle for a city the size of Cincinnati with such a diverse
range of pre­1940s urban patterns and a rich urban morphology is one of the most challenging, but
underappreciated aspects of creating a form­based code (FBC). For Cincinnati, the urban­to­rural Transect
was selected as the organizing principle and was up to the task. The calibration of the Transect allowed the
team to create a framework that would reinforce the fine­grain fabric and rich palette of building types, both
Missing Middle and others, that are an important part of defining the community character of the city’s urban
neighborhoods.

Cincinnati’s Initial Transect Zone Calibration:

T3 Estate (T3E):

The intent of this zone is to protect the integrity of existing, large lot, detached homes and reinforce their role
within walkable neighborhoods and to allow new neighborhoods with this component.

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T3 Neighborhood (T3N)

The intent of this zone is to protect the integrity of existing, small­to­medium lot detached homes and
reinforce their role within walkable neighborhoods and to allow new neighborhoods with this component.

T4 Neighborhood Medium Footprint (T4N.1)

The intent of this zone is to provide variety of housing choices, in small­to­medium­footprint, medium­
density building types, which reinforce the walkable nature of the neighborhood, support neighborhood­
serving commercial adjacent to this Zone, and support public transportation alternatives. Sub Zone: T4N.1­
Open regulates for the same form as T4N.1 but allows office and service­related uses in the primary buildings.
This is used typically in areas that already have zoned existing single­family areas with commercial zoning, but
ensure a more compatible form in newly constructed buildings.
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T4 Neighborhood Small Footprint (T4N.2)

The intent of this zone is to provide variety of urban housing choices, in small footprint, medium­to­high
density building types, which reinforce the walkable nature of the neighborhood, support neighborhood­
serving retail and service uses adjacent to this zone, and support public transportation alternatives.

T5 Main Street (T5MS)

The intent of this zone is to provide a flexible area that can accommodate a broad range of neighborhood
serving retail, service, and residential uses in a medium to high­density main street form. Sub Zone: T5MS­
Open regulates for the same form as T5MS but allows a wider range of uses including residential on the
ground floors. This is used typically used in areas just outside of the primary nodes in neighborhood or
downtown main streets and areas transitioning from main streets into neighborhoods.
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T5 Neighborhood (T5N)

The intent of this zone is to provide a walkable urban neighborhood that integrates a diverse range of
residential uses in a compact urban form within walking distance to retail and service areas. Sub Zone: T5N­
Open regulates for the same primary form as T5N but allows a wider range of uses including services and
general retail with shopfront frontages on the ground floors. This zone responds to the existing patterns in
urban neighborhoods such as Over­the­Rhine in Cincinnati that has allows the urban form to respond to the
market for commercial services within neighborhoods.

T5 Flex (T5Flex)

The intent of this zone is to provide an urban form that can accommodate a very diverse range of uses,
including some light industrial, to reinforce the pattern of existing walkable neighborhoods and to encourage
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revitalization and investment. This zone responds directly to neighborhoods such as Camp Washington in
Cincinnati that have historically had this broad range of urban forms and uses but have been zoned industrial,
thus compromising the diverse mix, in particular the neighborhood component.

T6 Core (T6C)

The intent of this zone is to reinforce and enhance the vibrant, walkable urban, downtown and city core and to
enable it to evolve into a complete neighborhood that provides locally and regionally serving service, retail,
entertainment, civic, and public uses, as well as a variety of urban housing choices. It can also be applied in the
future along transit routes such as the proposed streetcar.

First step in talking with any person or group at the charrette was walking them through this hierarchy of
places that exists within Cincinnati and explaining how that was going to be the framework for the FBC.
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Everyone understood this approach because it just plain makes sense. The stormwater folks started talking
about BMS along the Transect, the residents found the place that best represented the neighborhoods they
lived in, developers were even talking Transect zones by the end of an hour­long meeting.

A public review draft of the Cincinnati FBC is due out this fall followed by a series of neighborhood charrettes
intended to be the pilot application for the form­based code.

Cincinnati is making their move to capture the demand for urban living. Is your City ready?

A few citywide form­based code tips:

Keeping the six base zones: It is important, even at the scale of larger cities or regions, to stick with the size
based transect zones as a starting point for the calibration and then to tier sub­zones off of the these six base
zones.

Utilizing open sub­zones: The beauty of an FBC is if you want to regulate the same form, but allow a slightly
broader range of uses for an area, you can simply create an open sub zone, such as T5 Main Street­Open,
instead of creating yet another zone.  This enables the code to minimize the number of zones, thus making the
code easier to use.

The naming convention: We take a slightly different approach to naming our Transect zones based on our
citywide zoning code experience. We break down the 6 primary zones, either starting at T5 and sometimes at
T4, into Main Street and Neighborhood classifications. Zone names always start with the T number, then have
a name related to intended primary form (usually neighborhood or main street for our calibrations), then a .1
or .2 (T4 Neighborhood 1 becomes T4N.1) if there is more than one of each zone, and a dash is introduced
with an O (T5MS­O for T5 Main Street Open) for zones with a broader range of allowed uses.

Building Footprint size matters: Cincinnati patterns are primarily small buildings, even in T5. This pattern is
reinforced in form­based zones and will be further reinforced in the FBC.

Transect zones do not apply to all areas: form­based codes are intended to regulate walkable urban areas or
areas intended to transform into walkable urban areas. The drivable suburban area can retain their
conventional use­based framework with some simple clean up to help with administration. Cincinnati is
fortunate to have a large percentage of their city built prior to the 1940’s making much of the City walkable
urban and a candidate for FBC application.

Dan Parolek is principal of Opticos Design, an architecture and urban design firm with a passion for vibrant,
sustainable, walkable urban places. This article originally appeared on Logos Opticos: Composing Vibrant
Urban Places

See also, Missing middle housing: Responding to demand for urban living

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Gated developments, Value of compact, mixed­use development, Changing land­use culture, Cost of living in
sprawl, Ohio form­based code, Bicycle­friendly culture, Transit­oriented development and value capture,

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Comments

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6 comments Add a comment

Rob Steuteville · Top Commenter · Editor/Publisher at Better! Cities & Towns

Great images of Transect zones and how they can be calibrated locally, Dan. It is
encouraging to see how intuitive the concept can be when it is explained clearly.
Reply · Like · Follow Post · June 5, 2012 at 11:15am

Matthew Hardy · Top Commenter

Nice work!
Reply · Like · Follow Post · June 7, 2012 at 2:15pm

Sandy Sorlien · Filadelfia

Thanks Dan and Rob for the excellent visuals to go with an effective means of coding at
the fine grain. Big cities will certainly need subzones for finer controls, and many small
towns use them too. Miami 21 has an extensive R‑L‑O (Restricted‑Limited‑Open) table.
See the annotations for Table 10 of the model SmartCode. The T4‑O Main Street is a
common pattern and many localities want to protect that character rather than evolve to
T5.
Reply · Like · Follow Post · June 9, 2012 at 1:04pm

Jeffrey Jakucyk · Top Commenter · Project Designer, Photographer at Architects Plus

Form‑based or not, it's important that the code allows growth and maturity. What worries
me is that the lower‑density zones are created to "protect the integrity" of such zones,
which means not allowing them to densify or redevelop to a higher and better use. Those
are exactly the kinds of areas that need such densification so they can start pulling more
of their own weight in relation to the services they require. There's also still use‑based
provisions, which are contrary to the very idea of a form‑based code to begin with.

The goal of any zoning reform should be to keep things simple, but just substituting a
draconian and overly micromanaged Euclidian code with an equally draconian and overly
micromanaged form‑based code doesn't really achieve much. The current zoning code
attempts to freeze whatever is already built in amber (which is better than most codes
which view urban parts of cities as huge non‑conforming places that must be
grandfathered in), and I fear that the new code will attempt to do exactly the same thing,
only with a different methodology.
Reply · Like · Follow Post · June 27, 2012 at 11:38am

Sandy Sorlien · Filadelfia

Jeffrey, a Transect‑based code like this one allows growth and maturity because, with
community agreement, you can fairly easily upzone an area to the next higher Transect
Zone, and all the integrated elements adjust upward together.
In the SmartCode, this is addressed in 1.6 Succession. See what you think.
I should add, though, that Transect‑based codes are applied at the fine grain. When, for
example, a T‑3 zone "protects the integrity" of that habitat, remember it is is only
supposed to be a small part of a full neighborhood; it is supposed to be within walking
distance of the higher zones. That's why it is called the "Sub‑Urban" Zone with the
hyphen, to indicate that it is dependent on the urban zones. Agreed that very large areas
of low density need to pull their own weight, but this kind of code doesn't code large
areas that way. Planning and zoning are considered together so that large areas of low
density can become full neighborhoods, with several T‑zones applied at the fine,
walkable grain.
Reply · Like · Follow Post · July 2, 2012 at 9:15am

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