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Thursday, October 26, 2006 - As Post Falls explores the idea of the SmartCode as a new approach to local zoning, one question has been frequently raised: Is this some effort to impose regulations that will change what Post Falls is about?
The answer, plain and simple, is no. If anything, it's a forward-looking effort to preserve and encourage the things Post Falls loves the most.
Under the current zoning ordinance, Post Falls essentially allows and perpetuates one basic form of growth, typified by subdivisions and the arterial strip retail that falls between them. This is the available choice and it's one that works nicely for some people. But the problem that occurs is that the most successful communities, and the places that are loved the most, recognize that different kinds of people - of different incomes or stages of life - want or need different things. The young person just back from college. The single professional. The family and then, ultimately, the empty nest. Each of these scenarios calls for different housing solutions, many of which are very difficult to produce under the existing ordinance. And even when they are possible, they rarely allow someone to remain in the same neighborhood when their needs change.
To achieve the most viable, sustainable and deeply loved community possible, people want and deserve a greater level of choices. That's what the SmartCode is all about.
The SmartCode looks at community as the "human habitat" and structures it along the lines of what's called "the Transect." The Transect divides the human habitat into six zones, called "T Zones", that range from T1, which is the undeveloped natural condition to T2, rural agriculture, to T3, sub-urban, to T4, general town neighborhoods, to T5, Main Street / town center to T6, the downtown core.
Post Falls ranges largely from T2 to T6.
The idea is to provide different rules for each T Zone so that their different characters remain intact. Rural lands feel rural while downtown has its own, more compact and lively, personality. In the process, varying levels of compactness, vitality, and mixing of uses become available and everyone - regardless of the type of home and neighborhood they ideally want - can find an opportunity to live - and remain - in Post Falls.
Some key points about the SmartCode:
- It's not an off-the-shelf, one size fits all, kind of product. It begins with a model template, but implementation involves a public process like we're orchestrating now, where the ordinance is "calibrated" to local taste in scale and density. So, for example, T6 in one town might be characterized by buildings of up to ten stories. In another, it might be four stories. Or, it could be more or less, depending on the scale and desires of the particular community.
- Because the SmartCode regulates certain aspects of building form - such as size and placement on the lot - it makes development more predictable. The net result is that residents then know with a comfortable level of specificity what will be built in the future for a given area.
- The SmartCode legalizes mixed use - such as a neighborhood coffee shop or a Main Street condo over ground level stores - but prevents noxious or nuisance uses and ensures commercial development that's compatible with the surrounding T Zone.
- The SmartCode, like current ordinances, still manages parking, but it greatly simplifies the regulations and takes advantage of opportunities for shared parking and improved pedestrian access.
- Civic spaces - from parks and plazas to expansive green spaces - are handled in a variety of different ways, depending on what's appropriate in any particular T Zone (read an emerging proposal for a green space network here).
- Regardless of one's position on the issue, Post Falls is expected to grow by over 9,000 households in the next 15 years. The SmartCode accommodates this anticipated growth by allowing greater densities in some areas so lower densities, open spaces and preservation of rural character remain possible in others.
- Not everything fits neatly into the Transect structure. For certain uses - airports, industrial areas, big box retail stores, universities or hospital campuses, for example - the SmartCode creates Special Districts with their own development rules.
What type of development will result under a SmartCode? That's up to this process and your voices. But there are a lot of examples of projects that would be enabled by the code, which you can explore here. And, of course, there's still plenty of opportunity to make yourself heard. Attend Friday evening's pin-up of ideas from 5 to 7pm or explore the soon to be increasing collection of ideas being posted in our Current Ideas section. There's even an opportunity there to submit your own thoughts and ideas, which are delivered directly to the design team at work in the studio.
Finally, don't forget to express what kind of development scenarios you like best by taking the 15-minute Visual Preference Survey.
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 Take the Visual Preference Survey.
Read a message from
Post Falls senior
planner Collin Coles.
View scenes from Thursday in the studio.
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Planning
