The SmartCode is a unified land development ordinance for planning and urban design. It folds zoning, subdivision regulations, urban design, and basic architectural standards into one compact document.

Because the SmartCode enables community vision by coding specific outcomes that are desired in particular places, it is meant to be locally customized by professional planners, architects, and attorneys.

Important: The SmartCode is not a building code. Building codes address life/safety issues such as fire and storm protection. Examples of building codes include the IBC, IRC, and ICC documents.

The SmartCode supports these outcomes: community vision, local character, conservation of open lands, transit options, and walkable and mixed-use neighborhoods. It prevents these outcomes: wasteful sprawl development, automobile-dominated streets, empty downtowns, and a hostile public realm. It allows different approaches in different areas within the community, unlike a one-size-fits-all conventional code. This gives the SmartCode unusual political power, as it permits buy-in from all stakeholders.

The SmartCode is considered a “form-based code” because it strongly addresses the physical form of building and development. Conventional zoning codes are based primarily on use and density. They have caused systemic problems over the past sixty years by separating uses, making mixed-use and walkable neighborhoods essentially illegal.

The SmartCode is also a transect-based code. A “transect” is usually seen as a continuous cross-section of natural habitats for plants and animals, ranging from shorelines to wetlands to uplands. The specific transect that the SmartCode uses is based on the human habitat, ranging from the most rural environments to the most urban environments. This transect is divided into a range of “Transect Zones,” each with its own complex character. It ensures that a community offers a full diversity of building types, thoroughfare types, and civic space types, and that each has appropriate characteristics for its location.

The six T-Zones are: T-1 Natural, T-2 Rural, T-3 Sub-Urban, T-4 General Urban, T-5 Urban Center, and T-6 Urban Core.

The Transect is a powerful tool because its standards can be coordinated across many other disciplines and documents, including ITE (transportation), and LEED (environmental performance). Thus the SmartCode integrates the design protocols of a variety of specialties, including traffic engineering, public works, town planning, architecture, landscape architecture, and ecology.

The SmartCode addresses development patterns at three scales of planning:
- the Sector (Regional) Scale
- the Community Scale
- the Block and Building Scale.

Thus it may replace a number of other documents. Its text is only 28 pages, plus Tables & Definitions.

If stronger architectural guidelines are desired, a community may adopt supplemental regulations or a pattern book.

The SmartCode & Manual can be downloaded here. The next SmartCode Workshop is October 19-21, 2006, in Las Vegas, NV. Online registration is available here.

Already taken the SmartCode Workshop? Then take the next step in SmartCode education with the SmartCode Pro Sessions, an advanced hands-on charrette-style training lab for small groups of planning and design professionals, offered by the New Urban Codes Collaborative. For further information or to register, go here.