Form-Based Code project: Public process

On February 10 and 11 of 2009, a public workshop was held in the East Renton and Bear Creek demonstration areas respectively.

Conducted by the consulting team hired to draft the form-based code, the workshops were an opportunity for residents to learn about and identify priorities for the new code.

After introductions, the meetings began with a community exercise.  Residents were asked to identify the values, challenges, and visions for their neighborhoods. These were recorded on sticky notes (Post-it Notes®) and attached to a wall under each category title.

Notes with similar themes were clustered together. At the end of the meeting, the themes were summarized and discussed by members of the consulting team. With the exercise, residents were able to both individually and collectively prioritize goals for the project.

See the East Renton and Bear Creek demonstration areas for a summary of the visioning exercises and individual comments for each area.

Residents were also shown a PowerPoint presentation that introduced and highlighted the advantages of the SmartCode, a template form-based code that will be calibrated for the demonstration areas.

The PowerPoint slide show highlighted the problems with traditional zoning, provided background to the SmartCode, and illustrated how the code may apply in the demonstration areas. See the PowerPoint slide show* (13MB) or view it in PDF* (3.7MB) format.

An additional meeting will take place in each demonstration area to present the first draft of the new code.

*Note: To view PDFs, free software from Adobe is required. PowerPoint documents require Microsoft software. For assistance, see helpful hints.

To request this information in alternate formats for people with disabilities, call 206-296-6600 or TTY Relay: 711.