They’ve all won the 2010 Driehaus Award:
You are invited to join Mayor Jim Ardis for a news conference on April 20, 2010, at 10:00 a.m. to announce that the City of Peoria is one of three winners of the prestigious 2010 Driehaus Award for excellence in form-based coding from the Form-Based Code Institute. The other two winning cities are Miami, Florida, and Denver, Colorado. The news conference will be held at 601 SW Water Street at the corner of Water and Walnut Streets, adjacent to Kelleher’s Pub, which is the site currently being renovated for the corporate offices for Water Street Solutions. The award will be presented on May 20, 2010, in Atlanta, Georgia, at the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU)-18 Conference.
I received this invitation because I’m a former Heart of Peoria Commission member.
As a former Heart of Peoria Commission member do you think the Heart of Peoria Plan has been properly implemented and is successful? Is the Peoria form-based code even finished? Don’t the architects who designed these form-based codes make up the Form-Based Code Institute?
I think the City makes too many exceptions to the Form-Based Code and Land Development Code which undermines its effectiveness and sets a dangerous precedent. The Form-Based Code is finished for the four form-based districts (West Main Corridor, Warehouse District, Sheridan Triangle, and Prospect Road Corridor), however, the plan was to develop a Form-Based Code for the rest of the Heart of Peoria over time as money was available. The rest of the Heart of Peoria area is currently under a “Land Development Code,” which is a sort of hybrid between a Form-Based Code and traditional zoning. It’s a placeholder until a Form-Based Code can be developed. They just couldn’t afford to do all 6,000 acres at once.
So far, significant changes to the public portion (streets, sidewalks) of the Form-Based Code areas haven’t happened, although there have been lots of plans drawn up for Sheridan Triangle, West Main, and the Warehouse District. Nothing so far has been implemented, however.
Thanks C.J.
… so, I wonder why is Peoria being considered a “winner” in this category?
I have to admit that I am scratching my head over this one.
I have only one question? How do we win this award when we don’t follow the code?
“Meanwhile, the council also is expected to vote on committing another $100,000 in TIF funds – already set aside for streetscape improvements – to partially match a possible National Endowment for the Arts grant to develop plans for turning about six blocks of Downtown into a more pedestrian-friendly environment replete with public art and landscaping.
The idea is to encourage people to linger and walk between events in an area roughly bounded by the Civic Center, County Courthouse and the riverfront – including the forthcoming Riverfront Museum – rather than simply hitting an event and leaving or going from place to place in the car.
Should Peoria land the NEA grant – it’s a finalist – and succeed in already active efforts to get businesses and individuals to donate the remaining $150,000 needed to match the $250,000 the feds would pony up, it would buy a series of community planning “charettes,” followed by a “master plan” with input from artists and design professionals, followed within 15 months by engineering designs.” PJStar.
…. more than likely one of the architects (Duany/Ferrell) that is responsible for giving out the Driehaus awards will get this work for designing the community planning charettes (even though Duany was already paid to do charettes).