SmartCode is a zoning regulation that allows more freedom for those wishing to redevelop.

Don't like our car based city? SmartCode encourages more walkable communities and a less car-based city.

Our current zoning ordinances regulate WHAT and WHERE you can build. SmartCode regulates the FORM of development and how it looks. This means you could potentially have a 2+ floor building with a business on the first w/ lofts above, w/o having to have special/specific/complicated zoning changes.

With SmartCode, any business or industry can build anywhere it wants, as long as it conforms. Technically, even an oil refinery could develop in the middle of a neighborhood, BUT because SmartCode regulates how a building looks and interacts with it's part of town, it would be impossible for an oil refinery to develop.

There are different kinds of SmartCode. Usually, it is set up so that different parts of town are under different SmartCode regulations. Downtown allows for more dense development, the area immediately outside of downtown is slightly less dense, but still dense. And so on...

SmartCode allows the city to develop in a sustainable fashion while not putting pressure on developers and residents to build under such rigid zoning.

Tuscaloosa has begun to enact SmartCodes in places like downtown, but I think that they should enact it all over town. The sooner we enact it, the better the city will develop, and it will be healthier growth.

Best of all it doesn't zone property owners out of the process. Itt allows a land owner to redevelop, rebuild, or whatever in the best way that they see fit.

Things change over time. New roads are built and expanded. Residents move to different parts of town. So one part of town may have been prime real estate for commercial, but now it's a nice suburban neighborhood. SmartCode allows a land owner to rebuild whatever they want as long as it "fits the mold."

SmartCode = Freedom/Flexibility