North Central Texas Regional SmartCode Workshop - Monday, 5 March, Grapevine
The North Central Texas Council of Governments (NCTCOG), in partnership with the North Central Texas Chapter of the Congress for the New Urbanism (NCTCNU), is pleased to bring the SmartCode OnSite Workshop to our region on Monday, March 5th, 2007 at the Grapevine Convention Center in Grapevine, TX.
To register for the workshop, please go to www.nctcnu.org. There is a registration fee of $24 (lunch included). Registration ENDS February 28, 2007.
Questions? Please contact Lyndsay Krodel at (817) 704-2505 or lkrodel AT nctcog DOT org.
You don’t want to miss this great opportunity to learn more about how to recreate the traditional neighborhoods and sense of community from our past. We look forward to seeing you at this exciting event!
PS Don’t miss the great deal for early graduate student registrants!!
From CIRP student and conference attendee Brooke Kapur:
[In general] the workshop was both interesting and informative. All of the speakers allowed their personality to help convey their messages, and their optimism about the benefits of SmartCode implementation was contagious. By and large, attendees seemed receptive to the information provided, and the question and answer sessions stirred up some interesting metro-area-specific topics.
…
[The] workshop in Grapevine provided an excellent introduction to SmartCode. Sponsored by The North Central Texas Council of Governments (NCTCOG) in partnership with the new North Central Texas Chapter of the Congress for the New Urbanism (NCTCNU), the event was attended by nearly 200 members of the North Texas planning community.
By opening the workshop with a brief overview of the North Texas region’s current transportation situation, Mike Sims, from NCTCOG, provided a context for the use of SmartCode in the region and made its adoption relevant for each of the region’s cities. For the first half of the workshop, Nathan Morris, from PlaceMakers, LLC, gave workshop attendees an overview of SmartCode with a brief history and some of the reasons why cities would want to pursue its implementation. The lunchtime presentation, by Monte Anderson, President, NCTCNU, demonstrated some concrete examples of SmartCode principles in use in and around the DFW metroplex. In the afternoon, Chad Emerson, from Faulkner University, addressed attendees about SmartCode’s details by explaining what SmartCode is, what it is not, the way it can be tailored to fit the unique situation of each city, and, using a recent example from Montgomery, Alabama, the implementation process. A walking tour of Downtown Grapevine wrapped up the day’s events.
About SmartCode (from the workshop literature):
The SmartCode is a type of form-based code that offers an alternative to conventional zoning regulations. According to its lead author, Andrés Duany, the SmartCode is based on the traditional neighborhood model as it varies along the urban-to-rural Transect.
In keeping with the new urbanist principle that the neighborhood is the basic unit of urban form, the SmartCode provides design criteria for streets, blocks, open spaces and buildings based on their geographic location from rural preserve to urban core. Municipalities can now adopt the SmartCode as a replacement for the aging zoning ordinances that perpetuate sprawl.