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2024 Planning Excellence Award - APA Colorado Chapter
Englewood’s CodeNext is an all-encompassing update to the city’s land development code, including zoning ordinances, subdivision standards, administrative procedures, and community design guidelines.
As a first-ring suburb in the Denver metro, Englewood is a built-out community experiencing the impacts of rapid regional growth, rising housing costs, and increased demand for urban living.
To address these challenges, the city needed a modern, streamlined code to implement the community’s established priorities of neighborhood character, housing attainability, context-based residential design standards, parking and walkability, and sustainability.
In partnership with the city, Multistudio engaged the Englewood community throughout the project’s development at in-person events and through online activities to build consensus and support for the new code.
The team used renderings and visual storytelling to explore a range of housing strategies with the community, and blended educational materials with workshops and open houses to hear feedback from the public.
The resulting CodeNext Unified Development Code implements the community’s vision through a context-based, design-oriented strategy that supports housing diversity and enhances placemaking throughout the city.
Key strategies embedded in the code include an urban design and street typology system, sustainable site and building design guidelines, expanded mixed-density and missing middle housing options, and regulatory incentives for attainable housing.
With project funding contributed in part by the Colorado DOLA Innovative Affordable Housing Strategies grant, the project was required to consider any one of eight different innovative housing strategies.
The Multistudio city design team expanded the eight strategies into eighteen specific potential code amendments for the City and Community to consider. All eighteen amendments were considered, and all but one were adopted in the final code.
