communications

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Two Major Awards for Kingston Code

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In 2023, city leaders in Kingston, New York unanimously voted to replace their 1960s-era zoning with a new, citywide, form-based-code. Dover, Kohl & Partners led the Kingston Forward initiative, devising the new code in an interactive public process. This month Kingston’s bold undertaking was recognized with two major planning awards.

Charter Award

The Congress for the New Urbanism honored the Kingston code at the CNU 32 Charter Awards ceremony in Cincinnati. The Charter Awards are considered the highest honor in urban design. Project director Amy Groves, a Dover, Kohl & Partners principal who has been with the firm since 2002, said, "Kingston is using code reform to help meet City goals for increasing housing options, building sustainably, and preserving its historic core. It is a great example for cities across the country."

Kingston is an extraordinary, historic place, deserving of the best design and thoughtful development.

CNU wrote: “For the 24th year, CNU's Charter Awards recognized outstanding achievements in architectural, landscape, and urban design and planning worldwide. Regarded as the preeminent award for excellence in urban design, the CNU Charter Awards honor a select number of winners. Winning projects represent major contributions to building more equitable, sustainable, connected, healthy, and prosperous communities.”

Dover, Kohl & Partners was joined in the Kingston Forward effort by Laberge Group, who spearheaded the GEIS; the Pace University Land Use Law Center, who helped integrate the code into Kingston’s legal system; Hall Planning & Engineering, who supervised the multimodal street design standards; and Gridics, who implemented an innovative online code platform.

Kingston’s new code was the result of an extensive, interactive public process.

Form-based codes have been recognized as one of the “25 Great Ideas of the New Urbanism.” Victor Dover and Joseph Kohl were among the founders of the Form-Based Codes Institute (FBCI). Victor, Joe, Amy and others from DK&P have served as FBCI faculty. Robert Steuteville commented, “Kingston Forward takes the art and communication of a form-based code to a new level.”

The new code is tied to a street-based, transect-based plan for the city, enabling new development to fit the historic pattern without needless variances. The code legalized mixed use and “gently denser” development, repealed minimum parking requirements, legalized accessory dwellings citywide, and lowered the barriers to affordability.

Conference of Mayors Achievement Award

In May, Kingston Forward was also selected for the 2024 Local Government Achievement Award given by the New York State Conference of Mayors. “This community-led initiative will really change how and where new development is created in Kingston, and we believe this is much more equitable and sustainable,” said Mayor Steven Noble. “We are already starting to see new projects that create much-needed housing, especially the crucial ʻmissing middle,ʼ and affordable development.”

Charrette sketch showing how to repair the effects of 1960s “urban renewal” projects and restore the form of the town

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TPS Ep. 4, Visualizing Change

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The fourth episode in Town Planning Stuff Everyone Needs to Know is about before-and-after thinking. To do planning and urban design you have to take a hard look at a place to see what’s there, and then imagine in your mind’s eye what it should be, in the future. And then, you have to draw it, somehow, and show it to others, and ask, “Is this what you envision, too?”

This is a visual process, it’s not just planning by the numbers. You have to make your visions visual to really communicate them. Advertisers have long known this; they love to depict the new and improved as compared to the old. Think of the TV commercials showing the dirty t-shirt “before” it’s washed in the new detergent, and how great it looks “after” their product gets used or their advice gets followed! Professionals and policymakers have long needed to apply that kind of communication more often to the big decisions about our built environment.

Historically, some of the most influential thinkers about design understood this well. Landscape architect Humphrey Repton painted garden scenes on two layers of canvas, gluing a hinged top layer depicting “before” conditions over a bottom layer depicting his proposal, so he could show the impact of changes with the turn of a canvas flap. John Nolen, the first American to refer to himself as a professional city planner, titled his book “New Towns for Old,” capturing the before-and-after essence of his visions.

Way back in the 1980s, Joe Kohl, Erick Valle and I saw a TV news report about surgeons who were using crude video imagery to show trauma patients how their faces might look after reconstructive surgery. Before, and After. We thought, what if we could do the same thing to help heal the disfigured American city? That few seconds of television changed the course of our lives. We launched our “Image Network” company— the outfit that over time became our town planning practice— with an emphasis on visualization. We got pretty good at it. Those early contracts to produce electronic simulations and communication tools thrust us in front of the whole range of influencers who really decide what happens in our designed environment, from mayors, planners, architects, developers, and engineers, to preservationists, environmental advocates, economists, housing experts, retail experts, and community activists. We quickly got exposed to how all these folks think, and had to learn to translate among them.

But in those first years we gradually realized, and had to confront, a few key things. One was that most decisionmakers, including architectural designers, are terribly unskilled at envisioning how their abstract plans and elevations will actually turn out once built in the real world, such as how big or small the buildings would be, how the streets would feel, and how their new construction fits (or doesn’t) with its context. Another finding: Once we created effective simulations that showed their projects in the cold light of day, warts and all, they often weren’t sure what to do about it to fix the flaws. We felt the need to transition to leading the design and planning process, rather than just reacting to it as illustrators, after all the big decisions had already been made by someone else. Influential teachers like Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, Mark Schimmenti, Geoff Ferrell and Jaime Correa taught us about urbanism, and we set out to rebuild our practice around the principles they introduced into our studio.

Today, whenever we propose changes to a street scene or a neighborhood, we use drawings and computer imagery to show how the place you know could be transformed over time, new and improved into a better place. We urge planners to think of plans less like a static map and more like a movie, which changes as you go along. It’s about thinking through change over time, whether the changes are gradual or dramatic and disruptive. This helps community leaders and investors make better choices.

Visualizing Change Before it Occurs: It’s #4 on my list of town planning stuff everyone needs to know. New episodes post each week; please share them, subscribe to the Dover Kohl YouTube channel, and let me know what you think. —Victor