On October 15, a new neighborhood development code officially went into effect in the City of Covington, KY, replacing a decade’s old code that previously made development expensive and time consuming. The City of Covington is located along the Ohio River in Kentucky, directly across from Cincinnati, and has a total population of around 40,000.
The new Neighborhood Development Code (NDC) replaces the city’s 2006 Zoning Ordinance, a traditional one-size-fits-all set of rules and regulations that separated city parcels into single allowed uses. The previous Zoning Ordinance was often criticized for being frustrating, expensive, and time consuming to navigate. Referring to the old ordinance, City Zoning Administrator Dalton Belcher said “[The ordinance] renders some parts of Covington technically illegal and wraps red tape around the kinds of investment everyone wants to see: a homeowner adding a sensible addition, a legally established business adding cool signage, a novel business idea bringing jobs into Covington.” The new code reflects a fundamental change in philosophy and approach to planning and development.
The City contracted with Texas-based Kendig Keast Collaborative in 2018, and embarked on a 2-year process to create the ‘most user-friendly code in America,” through intense effort and widespread public engagement. The city Board of Commissioners approved the replacement code in September, and the code is now fully in effect. The NDC can be found on its project website HERE.
Covington’s new code represents a form-based development code, which uses the physical form of buildings, rather than a separation of uses, as the guiding principle for the code. The regulations and standards in form-based codes designate appropriate form and scale of development, rather than only distinctions in land-use type. By not micromanaging development like traditional zoning ordinances, form-based codes provide easier access and reduce red tape for existing homeowners and new developers. The goal for the City of Covington has been to create a more walkable, mixed-use environment as more development projects are completed over time.
For more information on form-based codes, visit https://formbasedcodes.org/
Original Articles:
City tosses rigid zoning code, City of Covington, KY. September 24, 2020
Covington rolls out a simpler redevelopment code, WCPO Cincinnati. October 15, 2020.