The recently rekindled debate on the scope and possible impact of the proposed Village Center (VC) Zoning plan has seen a variety of reactions from citizens and neighborhood groups. In public meetings hosted by the Zoning and Planning Committee, representatives from these groups presented their concerns (without reference to any visual material, which was prohibited, strangely enough) regarding calculations of total built out square footage to number of total units to perceived short and long term impacts of the buildout. There is also plenty of analysis and opinion elsewhere (e.g., Caroline Gabbay’s op-ed, Richard Rasala’s thoughts, or comments on Village14.com). Here we argue that a crucial missing element of the entire VC Zoning plan is a set of measurable outcomes and a process to adapt the plan when outcomes stray from their desired state. In other words, the plan needs a check engine light.
Let’s start with a few facts.
- The preamble to the current draft of the Zoning Ordinance says “the current village center zoning is inadequate in terms of achieving desirable outcomes”
- The plan is presented as being viable for Newton for now and the future, and several discussions make it clear that this plan is expected to be valid for decades.
- The plan is inspired by input from several other efforts.
- In summary, the intent of the Village Center Overlay District includes compact, pedestrian-oriented villages; a diversity of residences, shops, offices etc.; sufficient density to promote a lively pedestrian environment, public transit, and variety of businesses; expand the diversity of housing options; promote the health and well-being of the community by encouraging physical activity, use of alternative modes of transportation, and creating a sense of place; and enable compliance with the MBTA Communities Act. [emphasis added]
The plan also claims to promote several behaviors. For example:
- Incentivizing preservation of existing buildings
- Incentivizing/requiring mixed use
- Disincentivizing the merging of multiple lots
Assume for a moment that the VC Zoning plan went into effect today. How would we know if it is working as intended? Are incentives working as designed (i.e., generating the desired outcomes)? If not, how would we address this? How would we notice if there were any unintended consequences? How resilient is the plan to an economic downturn? What would cause us to tweak aspects of the plan? How will we – a city that is creating a plan for a generation – base our decision making on facts rather than emotions?
We argue that, as an essential companion to the zoning regulations, the ordinance must include:
- a set of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) of desired outcomes
- a plan to systematically measure and analyze KPIs and
- a plan to incorporate them into future revisions of the zoning plan.
When outcomes are objective – e.g., the number of units of affordable housing or rents over time – this is easily done. When outcomes are subjective – e.g., a lively pedestrian environment – we need to measure reasonable proxies to the intended outcomes. This set of parameters should be comprehensive and include the usual suspects like traffic and parking, but also new ones like vibrancy and walkability, and strategic ones like sustainability and equity. There has already been a fair amount of academic and practical work on using KPIs in urban design, sustainability, as well as at city scale. It would not surprise us that our city might even be home to experts in this field. We should engage with local expertise at the beginning of this process.
Although the prospect of measuring outcomes might seem daunting, some of this proxy data is already available in various forms – via our smartphones and smartwatches, ride sharing data, package delivery data, etc. For other KPIs, work is needed. The city should consider hosting an expert-guided stakeholder workshop on what our initial set of KPIs could be and developing an approach to collecting this data over time. A public dashboard showing our KPIs in action would put people on the same page, show progress towards our goals, and inspire new ideas or approaches. Obviously, this requires a commitment by city government to open data and intellectual honesty over the long term so the stakeholders can trust the data and the decisions that flow from them.
The “measure and tweak” paradigm pervades the rest of our lives. We (mostly) get annual physicals, our kids get progress reports, we get performance reviews at work, and the Fed adjusts interest rates to control inflation. Even DARPA, the agency that created the GPS satellite system and a precursor to the Internet, gives itself mid-term exams on wildly ambitious projects.
VC Zoning cannot be a file-and-forget plan. It needs to have a set of shared, well-defined outcomes, a set of KPIs that represent measurable proxies for those outcomes, a plan to manage those outcomes, and the humility to tweak the approach when necessary. We must give ourselves tools for accountability. We also need to guard against the KPIs themselves becoming the goal, i.e., “teaching to the test.”
Without this check engine light, our kids or grandkids will be back here having the same debates, but with a busted engine.