Cleveland’s push to update its planning code is making progress.
On Friday, the City Planning Commission moved forward legislation geared to expanding the city’s test phase of form-based planning code, often nicknamed Smart Code. The massive suite of laws is designed to make a more vibrant city, friendly to pedestrians and encouraging of mixed-use projects that add energy and liveliness to streets.
Set to be considered by City Council this week, the Smart Code extension will expand the pilot phase of these new planning laws from its first three neighborhoods—Detroit Shoreway/Cudell, Hough and Opportunity Corridor. If passed, Planning Director Calley Mersmann will choose a code consultant, with a $125,184 budget, to help decide where Smart Code will be tested next.
The extension, draft legislation shows, will also refine form-based code—a massive, 54-section-long packet of planning guidelines—to include new standards for accessory dwelling units (also known as “granny flats”), streetscape improvements, and denoting what’s allowed or not on the ground floor of apartments in residential areas.
It will also create new district classifications that seem to match the county’s itch for modern planning language as a whole: “Industrial,” “Autocentric,” “Waterfront” and “Transit-Oriented Development.”
“The resulting code will be predictable, user-friendly and graphic-rich,” the legislation reads.
Approved in 2024 after ten years of drafting, the form-based code pilot in the three selected neighborhoods replaced, for now, what’s called Euclidean zoning with zoning districts designed to put look (or form) before use.
Pretty much anything in the physical public realm—from the transparency of a first-floor apartment complex window to the thinness of a sidewalk or the exposure of a dumpster—is meant to cater to a more pleasant city-going experience on the pedestrian level. (Buildings built before form-based code don’t apply.)
A refreshed city image, as framed by Mersmann and Shannon Leonard, the chief zoning administrator, are intended to nudge private investment and pique business interest. Among other things, they say it bolsters the city’s fledgling tree canopy, helps cyclists, cuts down on car ubiquity, all in an effort to “advance the function and beauty of Cleveland.”
It’s unclear when exactly the details of the extension will be announced.
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