Miami 21 ‘Town Hall’ Information Series with guest speaker Francisco Garcia Iglesias – Part I
| February 11, 2010 | 6:00 pm | to | 8:00 pm |
The Metro 1 Green Building Resource Center invites you to learn more about Miami 21 with guest speaker Francisco Garcia Iglesias. The presentation will discuss Miami 21 in a two-part series covering the topics below. Guests are welcome to ask questions and voice opinions in this ‘town hall’ series.
About Miami 21:
Miami has been engaged over the last five years in a wholesale restructuring of its development regulations. The result of these efforts, a code and development plan named Miami 21 was approved in September, 2009 and will complete the adoption process in early 2010. The adoption of Miami 21 signals a drastic break with Euclidian zoning. Euclidian or use-based zoning has held sway over American development for nearly 90 years; it has resulted in the wholesale deterioration of urban centers and brought about the dominance of the suburb as the default housing habitat for Americans.
Miami 21 can be termed diversely a form-based code, a transect-based code, a sequential growth code or an infrastructure-based code. Most importantly, it departs from legalistic concepts of buffering and use segregation and promotes sustainable development through the implementation of planning well established principles:
- Walkability and pedestrian oriented development.
- Neighborhood-based urban structure as opposed to a corridor-based suburban structure
- Integration of complementary uses and densification of areas properly served by public transit
- Gradual transition between development intensities to generate harmony and maintain property value
- Qualitative evaluation of development according to sustainability criteria requiring compliance with well-established environmental principles
- Predictability of development parameters by using net lot area and gross floor area based formulae as opposed to gross floor area and net floor area
- Reduction of bureaucratic processes by reducing reliance on public hearing / adversarial permitting
Miami 21 is the first city-wide development code to adopt this methodology in a major urban area. The creation, design and implementation of Miami 21 have become a nation-wide case study, a precedent of sustainable regulation intended as model and precedent for American cities.
Learn more about Miami 21 by visisting http://www.miami21.org/
About the Speaker, Francisco Garcia Iglesias:
A planner, urban designer and architect by training, Mr. García is responsible for leading designs for new communities as well as urban redevelopment and revitalization projects in America, Europe, Asia and the MENA region. In 15 years of professional experience he has held executive positions in both the public and private sectors.
Mr. García’s experience is broad in range encompassing, among others, management of a large municipal community planning department; urban design and zoning division inclusive of code enforcement. In the private sector he has managed the implementation of sizeable projects such as the development of a mixed use parking and retail structure and the restoration of a historic museum. In addition, and pertaining to master planning and coding efforts, Mr. García is presently involved in, or has recently completed, the design of diverse master plans in both infill and gray-field conditions as well as for new towns and number of code calibrations for municipalities large and small.
Mr. Garcia brings this experience and knowledge to effective leadership of design workshops and charrettes and is regularly called to lecture before government officials, developers, and citizen groups. He also effectively advocates or mediates in complex entitlement processes.
Mr. Garcia has worked at the forefront of mixed use, community planning and code writing during his tenure in the field of urbanism where he is sought-out to work on complex or sensitive sites, including culturally-diverse or disenfranchised neighborhoods. Mr. García has led over twenty community design charrettes and participated in over fifty. He successfully engages stakeholders with a clear perception of both present reality and future potential building consensus toward a shared vision. Mr. García’s urban design and coding efforts have been published and have been honored most recently with a Charter Award from the Congress for the New Urbanism in the 2009 Denver conference.
Location: Metro 1 Green Building Resource Center | 120 NE 27th ST #200, Miami, FL 33137
Cost: Free for members / $10 for non-members – Refreshments will be provided
