Formulation of Form-Based Code to improve the livability of a neighbourhood - A case study and application on a major street in Anna Nagar, Chennai.

Abstract

Neighbourhood planning and redevelopment must ensure that it is healthy, sustainable and equitable by providing easy access to shops, services, schools, to nature and community. An efficient neighbourhood has to not only provide an affordable and good quality of life for residents of all age groups but should also be financially viable for developers. Hence, to ensure that redevelopment responds to revised community needs, a new thought process must be employed in the planning, design, and improvement processes of planning.

But the development and planning of any city’s neighbourhood is regulated by land-use zoning and building development regulations, which address only a few parameters of livability. The Form-Based Code (FBC) is a technique for regulating urban development to achieve a specific urban form creating a predictable public realm by primarily regulating the physical form, and then the land use, thereby addressing more livability parameters than the building development regulations in the Master Plan of the city.

In a large city like Chennai, we can adopt the Form-Based Code to individual neighbourhoods to enhance their livability by adopting the hybrid coding method, which is integrated with the existing development regulations pertaining to that Context Specific Transect (CST). Guidelines have been formulated for a specific street using Form-Based Code as a guiding principle, to enhance its livability.