Zoning By Design

January 2024 - January 2025 | Northeastern University Impact Engine Grant | Collaboration with Amy Dain, Tim Love, and Sam Naylor

Equitable Zoning by Design is a report on zoning for multifamily housing in New England. The small team was made up of Tim Love (Utile/Northeastern University), Sam Naylor (Utile/Joint Center for Housing Studies), Amy Dain (Dain Research), and myself. We worked in collaboration with the municipalities of Canton, Framingham, and Ipswich to develop tools and strategies for re-zoning in response to the MBTA Communities Law. The final report summarizes the full range of issues that were considered and includes several suggested design-based zoning tools that are different in scope and ideological intent than the more comprehensive form-based template that was used in Somerville, MA, and several other communities in New England.

Link to the full report here

Printed Copies // The reports were distributed at a public Northeastern University event on January 23, 2025.

Diagramming Design Tools / While the form-base “lite” toolkit establishes the size and shape of buildings by prescribing the maximum building footprint, maximum number of stories, and optional solutions for the roof form, the code includes fewer design standards, thus allowing for more design freedom. The reduction in design standards also means the code is easier to use and enforce.

Maps and Testfits for Municipalities // Throughout the project, we met with planning boards and presented at public meetings, sharing our work with the municipalities. We utilized eye-level perspective test-fits to demonstrate the differences between existing zoning and proposed zoning tools on sites which we identified by mapping different districts.

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Camille Wimpe