Driehaus Form-Based Codes Award
Today's Best Form-Based Codes
The Driehaus Form-Based Codes Award will be presented at CNU 20 in West Palm Beach on Friday, May 11. The award is presented annually by FBCI with the generous support of the Richard H. Driehaus Charitable Lead Trust. It recognizes excellence in the writing and implementation of form-based codes. Award winners include codes for corridors, neighborhoods, entire cities and even regions. The winning codes will be available for study on this page.
Driehaus Award Winners from 2007 to 2011
The 2011 Driehaus Award Winners
The award jury selected two winners in 2011: Compact Communities Code for Lee County, Florida and the City of Livermore, California, Development Code. The winners were recognized on June 3, 2011 during a session called Today's Best Form-Based Codes at the CNU 19 conference in Madison, Wisconsin. The session included a discussion of writing "big city codes" led by Rick Bernhardt, a description of elements that should be included in a good FBC by juror Stefanos Polyzoides, and a look at the international coding scene by juror Peter Richards of Australia.
Award jury members highlighted what they liked about each of the winning codes.
Compact Communities Code for Lee County, Florida
- It is a unique and ground-breaking type of regional form-based code that offers administrative approval of new villages at specified sites, while also functioning as a zoning overlay that can be applied to infill sites at the initiative of individual landowners.
- The code includes an explicit TDR (Transferable Development Right) mechanism.
- The code concentrates development and protects agricultural land – in contrast to the large-lot single family zoning in adjacent areas.
- The code plants “seeds” to help redeem and restructure the extreme sprawl to the immediate north which characterizes current development in the eastern part of Lee County. The code has the potential to provide such good results that other nearby jurisdictions may undertake form-based codes.
- The major place-making determinants of standards for lots, blocks, buildings and streets are provided so that one can work within the provided conceptual plans and receive administrative approval, or one can create a new plan and request certification as meeting the conceptual plan requirements.
- The code illustrates a range of possible outcomes following from its regulations.
Click to download: Lee County Compact Communities Code (7 MB)
City of Livermore Development Code
- It provides a valuable model of how to code a medium sized town with existing walkable and sprawl neighborhoods.
- The code is focused on providing a complete form-based regulation for higher density residential areas that are, or have the potential to be, walkable and will provide a successful model for other areas within the city.
- The document is organized to incorporate a form-based code into a larger development code overhaul, such that the sprawl areas of the city remain under Eucliean zoning while the form-based code is designed for walkable areas of the city and designed to expand to all walkable areas — as the city is ready.
Click to download: Livermore Development Code (11 MB)
The 2011 Driehaus Form-Based Codes Award Jury
Peter Richards, Director, Deicke Richards, Queensland, Australia
Stefanos Polyzoides, Moule & Polyzoides
Ana Gelabert-Sanchez, Loeb Fellow at the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University
Kaizer Rangwala, Rangwala Associates (Chair)
Geoffrey Ferrell, Ferrell Madden Lewis
George Proakis, Director of Planning, City of Somerville, Massachusetts