 Hi, thanks for joining us. I'm Tony Perez of OptiCos Design, and I'm part of the team on the Santa Rosa Project, and we're here in these six sessions to talk to you about form-based codes. And the first one today is about what is a form-based code and how does it work. So thanks for joining us, and now I look forward to your questions. So thanks for joining us. In talking about what a form-based code is and is not, it's first important to understand why a form-based code came to be. Form-based codes came to be generally because use-based codes or conventional zoning as you might know it, they are tools that were designed to prevent bad things from happening, which is a great and noble concept, but they were never intended to make anything. They were always devised as a protection tool or preventative tool, not a regenerative tool, and that's a really important understanding why form-based codes came to be. So the conventional zoning approach basically doesn't know what it wants. It highly regulates physical environments, yet it produces results like this on the left. The conventional zoning approach that is in your community did not produce the result on the right. That was produced prior to conventional zoning coming into cities largely. There are exceptions, but largely the result on the right was before. And so it's really important to understand that form-based codes came about because of these kinds of results. And we're not talking about architecture. We're talking about size, scale, adjacencies. Is it a good physical neighbor or not? In this case, the example on the left is not. In addition to those types of examples, the conventional zoning approach focuses on numerical parameters and measurements that really have little to do with how you experience a building. In this case, the building on the right is three stories with 49 units in it and is longer than you can see in the photograph. Yet it is the same density as the building on the left that is only five units in two stories. They're nearly the same density as you can see there, 29 versus 30. And so zoning code would focus on that number and there's other characteristics. If they were regulated, they would be down the list, but most conventional zoning codes they are not. So it's really important to understand the form-based approach by understanding that at the end of the day there are two categories of buildings. You could say, well Tony, I observed 35 different types of buildings and that's true. But I learned this from an architect named Stephanus Paulizoidus that I worked for about 20 years ago and he taught me this, that there are two categories of buildings you can see on the screen. They all sort into one of these two categories. Buildings that are individually or collectively as large as most or all of a block, block scale, or buildings that are the size of detached houses which with front, side, and rear yards. And from the smallest cottage in your house to the biggest mansion in your house and that would be house scale. Understanding this really helps you understand where missing middle, for example, fits into the overall spectrum of buildings. From the most rural and the largest property with the largest house in the country to the largest tower you can think of in a downtown that's the spectrum and missing middle falls in the middle. And this is a really useful context to understand that, hey, I'm thinking about primarily house scale buildings with a couple of exceptions of the block scale at the smaller end of that spectrum. So form-based planning and zoning, as you can see there's a real emphasis on the physical realities, physical intentions of a community. But there's also an intention about mixing uses, mixing housing types. And equally important is that building form, as you've heard me say in these three slides, it's as important and more important to land use. And the conventional zoning approach says it's all about land use and all these other characteristics will deal with them as we need to. And you can see what kind of results that produces. The form-based approach also says the public realm is huge. It's worth a lot of attention. In fact, that's how we experience buildings and neighborhoods. And so there's a greater attention to that and design the role of buildings in public realm. And then lastly standards are informed by what are the existing conditions? Where are the existing lot sizes? What's the intention for how to continue or change that character? And that leads into a big aspect of the form-based approach where you often see drawings like this and you say, well, that's an artist's rendition. A lot of times they'll trivialize this kind of work with a sentence like that or a statement. But this is more than a rendition. This is actually looking at actual parcels in the community and saying, okay, besides our great ideas, like what fits on these parcels? What's economically viable? And how does that fit on the parcels? And how does the parking work? And what do the setbacks look like? And does that really fit the character of the neighborhood? Or do we need to adjust what we're thinking about? All that goes into what otherwise looks like somebody's own idea and what you see on the screen there are ideas from when a charrette code was being prepared. So central elements of a form-based code. The first item is a regulating plan and this is basically a 3D zoning map. And if you can notice they're darker and lighter colors. The parcels in white, those are not in the form-based code that I'm showing you. But the parcels that have a dark gray or dark purple or light blue, those are all in the code. And the idea is to not only show as a conventional zoning map shows the uses of the height that are allowed by the zoning district, but by the intensity of the color, the darker, meaning the more intensely properties are used, the taller the buildings are, the more law coverage there is, and the more intensity of uses. The lighter color is just the opposite. The setbacks are bigger, the law coverage is less, and the uses are less intense. And right away you can get an understanding from this diagram where the intensity is and is not. Secondly, the intent of a form-based zone is very different than a conventional zone in that it talks about what it intends to make. And if you look at a lot of your existing intense statements, with the exception of the neighborhood mixed use zone, which starts to talk about these kinds of physical realities and characteristics and building types and walking distances within short walking distances of neighborhood uses, those kinds of things, most of the existing intense statements are about density and uses irrespective of the kind of environments that they're trying to make. And you know, it's not a criticism that can't make a good place, it just tends not to make a good place because it's silent on a lot of the important information that makes a good place. So building form standards, another essential element of form-based codes you know, what lot sizes exist in the community and what can you do on those lot sizes? What kind of buildings fit on certain lot sizes versus other lot sizes? What are the setbacks that are making the environment that everybody wants right now, or the environment that it doesn't yet exist that everybody wants? What are the building height measurements that are making the physical character that people want either that exists or in the future? And then parking, in addition to requiring how much parking is required in certain areas, you need to really understand where does the parking make sense so that it contributes to that physical character that we are taking so much time to work on and make sure that it delivers the kind of walkable places that we want. So getting the parking in the right location is key as well. And then there are supplemental standards to those essential elements I just mentioned. The first one is building types. You can actually define a more refined maximum zoning envelope by building types. So back here you can say there's the maximum zoning envelope that is generated by applying all these standards. And then you can refine it further and say, well in certain areas we want the multiplex small to be the biggest building that we want. And so here are the footprint measurements and on-site open space measurements that need to be applied to this to generate that. Or frontage types. You can say in addition to the other standards that are in the code, we want to be clear about the types of elements that attach the building facade to the back of the sidewalk. And you can see here, if you look at the screen, item G, G is identifying the distance between the back of the sidewalk or the right of way in the building facade and all the elements in this particular case of the porch that are required to make that element again attach to the side of the back of the right of way. And you know people talk about having an engaged or active public realm having really good frontage elements like porches which are just one of several choices of how to do this. This is a great way to activate and engage public realm. And then civic space types. On properties of certain size, then it's going to make sense to require the applicant developer to provide some civic space like this accessible to the public and definitely to the tenants of the project. Other components that you could consider, sometimes in rare cases that make sense to really regulate architecture, we don't recommend that that be done most of the time for a lot of reasons. But in some cases there's such a strong architectural character that you really want to make sure that the rest of the buildings and new buildings and additions and renovations deliver more of that character. And so regulating that through standards makes sense. And then sign standards to make sure that again if you have some strong sign character in an area that you generate standards to do that more of that. Where these standards make sense is what this slide is about. The form-based approach works best in what we call the walkable urban. So in your case it would, in centrosity case it would be in the downtown downtown adjacent neighborhoods, the college area neighborhood. And then at the other end of the spectrum is the suburban all the outer neighborhoods. In these areas the form-based code doesn't make sense because as you've seen the form-based code is trying, it's made to mix housing types, provide non-recentral uses within walking distance of those housing types. And that's almost antithetical to what the suburban neighborhoods are meant to produce and what the expectations are in those areas. So we found it helpful to just continue with the special zoning approach in suburban areas. But in between the downtown and downtown adjacent neighborhoods walkable areas, there's usually an area like this in communities and there is one in Santa Rosa called transitional. And these transitional areas they are interesting because they lacked the amenities to walk to yet they have the short blocks and the walkable pattern and they just are missing those amenities. And so in these areas the question is do you want do you the community want to keep the character as it is or would you like to retrofit some areas over time to allow those non-recentral uses and amenities to be put into neighborhoods and you could have that walkable environment as some of the downtown adjacent neighborhoods in downtown. So the form-based code makes sense in walkable and transitional. And then lastly the repeating structure of communities is really what the form-based code is looking for. And I love this analogy of the human face to make this point. All of us are unique thankfully and we all look different. Even twins if you look at them closely they have differences that you can recognize after you talk to them for a little while. And if you're talking to twins they'll tell themselves. But no matter what we all share the same anatomy. So you take that anatomy of the face and that repeating structure that we all share and take that thought and now we apply that to communities. So here is my hometown of 1200 people in Isles in California. It is tiny and on the other end of the spectrum here's a city of 120 130,000 people in Pasadena. Many many times larger than that little town I grew up in. Yet they share the same structure neighborhoods, corridors and centers. My hometown has three neighborhoods three centers and one corridor and they're tiny. Pasadena has many more and they are all larger. There are none of them as small as where I grew up. But the point is that they all share all the same elements. The difference is they have more and more of them. And so you apply that to Santa Rosa and you say well here is the aerial photograph of the city. Let's apply that concept to Santa Rosa and you can see the main centers there the downtown adjacent downtown area and then the transit area. And then you can see the corridors in orange and the yellow neighborhoods there. And so understanding that is key because now you can operate on this and say are we working on a corridor and what kind of corridor are we working on? Are we working on a neighborhood? What kind of neighborhood? Are we working in a center? What kind of center? And so understanding where you are and what kind of element you're working on is very helpful and Formase Code provides that. Formase Code provides a direct connection between the neighborhoods, corridors and centers and all the elements inside each of those repeating elements in a community. And now you can start to operate on the individual pieces the streets, the streetscapes, the buildings, civic spaces, facades, frontages, signage, uses and so on. And this approach in which I'm using the recording engineers sound deck here as an analogy the approach is that much like the recording engineer uses this tool to have a coordinated outcome of a sound by manipulating the sound of individual elements. Say horns and percussion and voices and electric guitars or something else. They're coordinating for one coordinated outcome. The Formase Code does the same thing with all the elements that you choose. You choose as few or as many as you want. And you say I'm going to turn up the buildings and turn down the signage or turn up the uses and turn up the regulations on facades or whatever it is. Turn up the streetscapes or turn them down. It's a lower intensity area depending on the character you can turn up or turn down what you're allowing and how you allow it in your town. And that's an overview of what a Formase Code is and how it works. And so really I look forward to your questions and discussion through this process. Thank you.