Susan Henderson, Zoning Code Expert, on Form-Based Codes in Hennepin County

[West Broadway in Robbinsdale.]

Here's a transcript from an interview with Susan Henderson of Placemakers, taken from the wonderful Talking Headways podcast put together by Jeff Wood.

Henderson's firm did some work on the Bottineau station area planning and she mentions it in the podcast.

Here are the locally relevant highlights:

We have a fascinating [project] going on right now… Right now we have this amazing process in Hennepin County which is where Minneapolis is. They’re extnenidng their blue light rail northwest, there's an FTA grant, and the county is the fiscal agent for four municipalities.  

[My] contract is for doing the form-based codes. They’re not even all form-based. There’s some early stage interventions.  

One problem we’ve discovered has to do with capacity both at the staff level and politically. What are people actually able to do? And if we are doing our professional duty, then we’re crafting a code that fits the capacity to ensure successful implementation.  

Across these four municipalities, we have one that’s a "full stop' form-based code. And then we have one that’s basically a simple text amendment that requires good urbanism within a quarter mile of the station, and than just enables it as an option within a half mile.  

There are all sorts of tools that you have to use to make sure you’re giving the local government what they need. The thing I love about this one is that you’re working with these four groups simultaneously, and so it keeps us really really nimble because they all have different issues. [There are] different degrees of urbanity, from great little main streets to only suburbia, and by finding the right solution for each one expands the way we think about coding.
… 

[Q: That’s the Bottineau line. Is that still going forward?] 

Well they’re all hopeful. I can’t speak to the nuances of it all but it’;s in engineering. A lot depends on whether the federal funding happens. 

But also Hennepin County and the Metro area, they’re very progressive and committed to transit. And my understanding is that they’re going to try and find a way, regardless of federal resources.

Of course, the real problem with Bottineau hasn't been federal funding, but rather agreements with the railroad. So all of Henderson's work might be for naught.