Last month, city planners and their consultants held three workshops to present a draft of new design guidelines that will be voted on later this year by the Planning Commission and Metro Council.
If approved, they will become part of the city-parish zoning code and affect the way neighborhoods and developments look in Baton Rouge for years to come.
The effort is the first step in the implementation of FuturEBR, the parish’s master plan for land use and development that was adopted in late 2012.
It’s also one of the most important steps in that process because the new guidelines take a form-based approach to zoning, which is different from conventional zoning, with its emphasis on land usage and density.
What follows is an explanation of what form-based zoning means and how the proposed form-based design guidelines contained in FuturEBR will affect development in the parish going forward.
Form-based zoning focuses on the size, scale and location of buildings and structures in relation to people. Conventional zoning is more concerned with usage.
The regulations and standards in form-based zoning codes are tied to a regulating plan that designates the appropriate form and scale—and, by extension, character—of development rather than only distinctions in land-use types.
They can be very specific, depending on how far the Planning Commission and Metro Council want to go.
As envisioned, form-based design guidelines for Baton Rouge would not only govern the size, scale and design of structures but also regulate building materials, setbacks, signage, pedestrian access, landscaping, and fencing and lighting, among other things.
No. While form-based zoning puts into law design guidelines that were previously only advisory, developers generally prefer the system because it is consistent and clearly spelled out in a single place in the city-parish code.
It’s also important to note that a form-based zoning code would apply almost exclusively to new developments and would not be retroactively applied to existing homes and businesses.
FuturEBR proposes five design levels that would be applied to all properties in the parish. Properties within a given level would then be required to meet the standards that apply to that level. Very basically, the five levels are defined in FuturEBR as:
Level I, base standards: Covers the majority of the parish and includes rural and suburban areas not otherwise designated in an urban design level.
Level II, suburban areas: Includes selected transit-oriented corridors with heavy automobile use and minimal existing pedestrian activity and adjacent large-lot residential usage.
Level III, walkable areas: Areas with moderate vehicle use and high potential for walkability.
Level IV, urban center: Pedestrian-oriented areas that generally have lower density than downtown Baton Rouge.
Level V, urban core: Pedestrian-oriented areas within downtown or with similar densities as downtown.
Most areas in the parish will fall within design Level I, predicts Rachel DiResto, executive vice president of the Center for Planning Excellence.
That means there will not be a significant change for most neighborhoods. But take the Perkins Road Overpass area, for instance, which has been undergoing a redevelopment over the past few years and is now home to several trendy restaurants and boutiques.
DiResto suggests the commercial corridor along Perkins Road between South Acadian Thruway and the overpass might become a Level III walkable area because there is so much pedestrian traffic there now. If that were to happen, then Level III guidelines would apply to all future development in that area.
The biggest advantage is that it makes the zoning code more simple, consistent and uniform, according to Ryan Holcomb, interim planning director. “Part of the problem now is there are nine urban design overlay districts and four urban design districts,” Holcomb says. “They’re all similar but different, and it’s a code enforcement nightmare. This kind of streamlines everything.”
The parish consultant, Fregonese Associates, is revising the draft design levels based on feedback from the three May workshops. In the fall it will present final design levels to the Planning Commission for adoption. If approved, the levels will then go to the Metro Council for a vote, likely late this year.
Yes, this is just the first step in the implementation of FuturEBR, albeit one of the more important ones. There are still many areas of the zoning code that need to be updated and rewritten so that they dovetail with the land-use guidelines suggested in FuturEBR. It’s a complicated process and will take several years to complete.
