Our CNU Florida Chapter builds on and contributes to the national and international work of CNU members. Nationally, CNU is at the forefront of addressing issues such as health and transportation, and housing equity. The CNU joined with the Federal Government to launch the game-changing HOPE IV program, transforming 1960’s “urban renewal” errors into attractive mixed income housing. CNU’s “Sprawl Retrofit” efforts aim to improve living conditions for millions of Americans in placeless suburbs.
CNU Florida: The Nation’s Leading Innovators
Members of CNU Florida are some of the nation’s leading innovators for revitalizing and improving the built environment in Florida and beyond.
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The Form-Based Code. Seaside pioneered the form-based zoning code, which, instead of strictly separating uses, regulates and achieves an attractive urban form.
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Miami21. Lizz Plater-Zyberk led the successful effort to enact Miami21, the nation’s first municipal-wide form-based zoning code. Today, more than 430 form-base codes, including in downtown Sarasota and Naples, are reinvigorating urban areas left behind in the sprawl era. Orange County is developing a unified land development code, much of it based on form-based principles.
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The Transect. Andres Duany extended the Transect, used by natural scientists to describe a progression of natural environments, to include human made environments, from rural to the most intensely urban. The Transect enables zoning codes to change in accordance with the context, to achieve an appropriate outcome in each setting.
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Context-Oriented Street Design. The Florida Department of Transportation, through the leadership of CNU Florida’s Billy Hattaway, became the nation’s first DOT to adapt the transect and incorporate context-oriented street design into its State Highway System road construction and design manual. Similar efforts are underway to rewrite the Florida Greenbook, governing municipal and county roads.
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Mixed Income Housing and a New Urban College Campus. Downtown Orlando’s Creative Village, led by New Urbanist master developer Craig Ustler is pioneering housing for mixed incomes—indistinguishable from the outside—next to a new Downtown Campus of the University of Central Florida and Valencia College.
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Tactical Urbanism. Former Miami residents Mike Lydon and Tony Garcia helped launch the Tactical Urbanism movement and authored a book of the same name.
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Transit Oriented Development in Florida. Florida is a national proving ground for Transit Oriented Development ("TOD"). The concept of TOD, pioneered by CNU co-founder Peter Calthorpe, is now used widely as a strategy in Florida to place people next to investments in public transit, increasing ridership, and enhancing transit’s economic viability. Cities and counties along Central Florida’s SunRail commuter line are encouraging TOD, resulting in substantial new investments and $1.19 billion in property value growth across 12 stations, according to FDOT. Building on the historic model of Henry Flagler, Brightline is implementing TOD as a private sector venture with its new higher speed rail line, which will one day connect Miami’s Intermodal Center with Orlando and Tampa.
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Modern Roundabouts. The New Urbanist planning firm Canin Associates demonstrated how modern roundabouts could avoid road widening and save the Town of Windermere’s historic downtown, threatened by the encroaching motorist congestion of suburbia. In the City of Clearwater, New Urbanist engineer Ken Sides led the public works department in building dozens of modern roundabouts, reducing motorist congestion and crashes, and improving safety for people walking and riding bicycles.
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The Next Generation. Leading New Urbanists help train the next generation at Florida’s planning schools, business administration, and environmental studies programs, including at the University of Miami, New College of Florida, Florida Atlantic University, and Rollins College.
