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Planning Reform
On a holiday that commemorates the end of slavery in the United States, the White House marked the occasion by discussion exclusionary zoning.
WhiteHouse.gov
The first month of a three-year pilot program that legalizes the construction and conversion of coach houses—a local form of accessory dwelling unit—is responding to strong demand in Chicago.
Chicago Tribune
Feature
Assembly Bill 1401, one of the most closely-watched land use bills in the California State legislature this year, would remove parking requirements in "High Quality Transit Areas" statewide.
Feature
Lots of planning is discretionary. Cities and developers negotiate what builders will do for cities in exchange for the right to build, creating an incentive for bad rules, eroding the public's faith in zoning, and enabling political corruption.
A proposed code amendment would expand parking reforms implemented by San Diego in 2019.
NBC San Diego
Raleigh, North Carolina is the latest in a series of cities pursuing a significant departure from the 20th century planning status quo.
The News & Observer
Richmond, Virginia has decided to study the idea of removing parking minimums to lower the cost of housing and make more efficient use of land in the city.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
Advocates and political supporters are calling HB 1607 an incremental, first step, after the process of building a winning political coalition cut back some of the original ambition of the statewide zoning reform effort.
Hartford Courant
Zoning and land use changes proposed in the Home in Tacoma plan, an element of the One Tacoma Comprehensive Plan, was approved this month by the Tacoma Planning Commission.
The Urbanist
Feature
Donald Shoup, the author of the seminal planning book "The High Cost of Free Parking," explains how parking requirements have poisoned cities and why poor planning is to blame.
Minneapolis joins the avant garde of cities implementing a dramatic overhaul of the parking requirement status quo that has been a primary determinant of the form and function of cities for nearly a century.
Star Tribune
San Francisco, the poster child for runaway housing costs and displacement of existing residential populations, could be on the cusp of a change of plans.
San Francisco Chronicle
Two options for significant parking reforms are under consideration in St. Paul. The City Council could decide to eliminate parking requirements entirely as soon as this summer.
Pioneer Press
Transit planning is land use planning and land use planning is transit planning.
Mass Transit
The vision proposed by the groundbreaking Minneapolis 2040 Comprehensive Plan is taking shape as zoning amendments move toward adoption.
The Minnesota Daily
Far from an obscure, wonky local issue, zoning reform has the potential to advance social justice in American cities.
The New York Times
Resistance mounts to the zoning reforms gaining traction in the United States.
The Philadelphia Inquirer
New research quantifies the effect of parking reforms implemented by the city of Buffalo in 2017.
Sidewalk Talk
Blog post
The significance of the Biden administration's expansive view of infrastructure is reflected in the flood of commentary published in the week since the public's first look at the American Jobs Plan.
Members of the Cleveland Chapter if the American Institute of Architects are raising awareness about the unintended consequences of zoning changes made in 2018 to make it easier to develop townhomes in the city.
Cleveland.com
