A Note to Michael Ytterburg, Architect
Land-locked cities have not had annexation alternatives. This
has often forced them to struggle with decline, limited economic development, eminent
domain, and excessive physical intensity in an effort to meet their current
expenses and debt obligations. It has been very difficult to define the scope
of economic development required to comprehensively correct a deficit; but
shelter capacity evaluation as part of a digital master planning effort beginning
at the parcel level of our presence can be translated into an economic
development strategy embedded in a zoning ordinance for any city.
Zoning is a concept without an adequate mathematical language,
tools, and information; but it has the potential to lead us toward a desirable
quality of life within limited geographic areas defined to protect our source
of life. It will not evolve, however, without a complete overhaul by those
familiar with the physical design vocabulary and correlated mathematics needed
to consistently lead others toward desirable shelter capacity decisions based
on measurable research and evaluation.
Zoning was a hard fought legal battle to define two types of
freedom - individual freedom to pursue initiative and collective freedom to
oppose individual oppression. It began as an attempt to reduce the suffering of
vulnerable populations crowded into shelter symbolized by excessive physical
intensity, pollution, disease, and decay. It was eventually recognized that
this threatened everyone’s health, safety, and welfare. We are now beginning to
recognize that the ambiguous term “welfare” includes our physical, social,
psychological, environmental, and economic quality of life at the very least - while
we continue to argue over the line separating individual from collective
freedom.
BUILDINGS
A building can shelter any activity. The combination has
been called a “land use”. Building mass combines with floor quantity, parking
quantity, pavement, and unpaved open space to produce project shelter capacity
and physical intensity to shelter activity within a mathematical spectrum of
options that has sprawl at one end of the scale and excessive intensity at the
other. The terms “land use” and “density” may have confused the fact that physical
design is used to shelter social and economic activity. It symbolizes the
leadership decisions taken with its silent presence, but they remain
undocumented and uncorrelated by an adequate mathematical leadership language.
The result has been random sprawl as a reaction to the excessive intensity of
the past and more excessive intensity and sprawl pursuing the goal of profit at
any price by exploiting the weaknesses of uncorrelated zoning ordinance leadership.
The concept of citizen participation may have assumed that sprawl
and excessive intensity are defined and regulated by the dimensional
stipulations scattered throughout a zoning ordinance. In addition, the
assumption may have been that annexation could solve all inadequate zoning definitions
of city planning intent by consuming additional land area, but we are becoming
aware that our inability to accurately predict the shelter capacity of land for
growing populations is consuming land that is our source of life. I believe
that most recognize, at least intuitively at this time, that land is not a
consumable commodity and unlimited resource.
Populations produce density. Buildings produce shelter
capacity, intensity, intrusion, and dominance based on the design specification
values chosen to define a project strategy. Density has confused the physical
design issue. It is only related to residential activity. A residential
building may be designed to shelter many optional densities depending on the
average dwelling unit area planned and the related design specification values under
consideration. From a physical design perspective, project building mass,
height, parking, pavement, and unpaved open space combine to determine one
shelter capacity implication expressed as gross building area per buildable
acre. This measures the impact of strategic shelter design decisions in a
project and their impact on the surrounding area. The physical relationships
become obvious when occupant activity is recognized as a separate topic limited
by the shelter capacity available.
Projects combine to form urban design areas, districts,
cities, regions, and conurbations. We are not even close to correlating the
design specification decisions involved based on measurement and evaluation
that can produce strategic shelter design knowledge and consistent leadership
decisions. The design specification topics involved have not even been
comprehensively listed unless you have read about shelter capacity evaluation. The
shelter goal is to lead these strategic decisions toward urban design results
that can shelter the activities of growing populations within geographic limits
that protect their quality and source of life – the Natural Domain.
Shelter capacity, intensity, intrusion, and dominance are
mathematical implications produced by mathematically correlated design
decisions entered in a shelter capacity template. The implications measured or
predicted are the foundation for all ensuing levels of design decision
associated with site planning, architectural form, function, and appearance.
The values entered in a template represent a strategy that is refined with more
detailed design decisions, tactics, and tasks that combine to define the
construction needed to produce a final product. The product symbolizes the
knowledge of a culture and expresses it in a silent message to the future.
ZONING
The zoning code is a planning document with an inadequate
design leadership language. A building code is a document that leads the
tactical construction decisions required to reach the design strategy and objectives
established. It is not a strategic document from a planning perspective. I
originally struggled with this issue because I found the zoning ordinances I
read a hopeless tangle of procedure and activity regulations with contradictory
physical design specifications scattered throughout. I wished for an ordinance
that would separate its design standards for ease of reference and leadership
direction, and eventually realized that the text could be separated into the
following sections:
1)
Management
a.
Purpose
b.
Operations
2)
Definitions
3)
Land Use
a.
Area regulations
b.
Activity regulations
c.
Existing conditions
d.
Nuisance regulations
4)
Design
a.
Context regulations
b.
Object regulations
5)
Enforcement
I wrote “The Disorganized Zoning Ordinance” in 2010 for my
blog at www.wmhosack.blogspot.com
to suggest the steps required to reorganize and adopt this rearrangement. My
intent was to improve the transfer of information among those the ordinance was
attempting to lead. A more detailed explanation was included in Chapter 20 of my
book, “Land Development Calculations”, 2010. I did not attempt to reconcile the
contradictions I found among zoning ordinance design specifications, however. My
focus was on content reorganization. For instance, most experienced designers
are familiar with the contradictions among permitted density, building height, and
parking regulations in most, if not all, zoning ordinances. They often require
reconciliation with contested variance requests fought over the concept of
consistent legal application, but the consistent application of a contradiction
has made everyone ignore the mathematical problem. I knew the problem could be solved
with equation derivation, algorithms, and forecast templates created to correlate
the specifications involved and reduce measurement, prediction, and implication
evaluation to a simple entry of design value decisions. The template decision
topics and values could then be used to predict options and measure existing
conditions to define their capacity and intensity implications for comparison
and evaluation. I’ve called the effort Shelter Capacity Evaluation. It is
intended to introduce consistent measurement, evaluation, correlation,
prediction, and communication to all leadership efforts concerned with shelter
capacity and urban design for social and economic activity on limited land
areas.
The intent is to improve the knowledge and leadership
provided based on information that only research can provide and mathematics
can document with the credibility required to balance the debate between
individual and collective freedom that will determine our response to the
universal Law of Limits we face.
I have written about shelter capacity evaluation templates
on many occasions and mention them again because they collectively represent a
language that can be introduced to the design section of zoning ordinance
reorganization. Keep in mind that a zoning ordinance is not simply about
compatibility among neighboring activities. It attempts to lead the strategic
decisions of shelter design that determine a shelter project’s place within the
physical sprawl/excessive intensity spectrum. At the present time it does this with
an incomplete understanding of the scope, building design category, and design
topic relationships that must be correlated before leadership decisions can
make a difference.
Our goal is survival. Our strategy will involve food, water,
fire, air, shelter, land, and population objectives that prompt skepticism and argument
at least and aggression at worst. The last three can be quantitatively addressed
with shelter capacity evaluation. Two are new to the list. The first four involve
environmental preservation. The campaign will require new awareness, trait modification,
and commitment to the search for knowledge and wisdom in a world of emotion that
accompanies the gift we have been given.
POSTSCRIPT
Think of a city’s Movement, Open Space, and Life Support
Divisions as arteries serving a Shelter Division within a Built Domain that must
serve increasing shelter capacity demand from growing populations.
Unfortunately, we have been too short-sighted to see open space as a necessary
artery in the Built Domain or as the growth medium of our Natural Domain. We
have also avoided seeing unpaved open space quantities as critical ingredients
within every project site plan in the Built Domain. It has always been an avoidable
expense or an expedient form of currency taken from a planet that is not a
helpless victim.
Walter M. Hosack: December, 2023
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