Introduction: The Debate on Design Review

Abstract

Design review is a procedure, like zoning, used by cities and towns to control the aesthetics and design of development projects. Although it is a new phenomena, its adoption by local jurisdictions is growing at a rate that compares to the rapid adoption of zoning in the 1930s. I have recently completed a national survey of planning agencies in more than 370 cities and towns on the topic of their design review processes; 83 percent of the towns surveyed had some form of design review. My initial assumption-that aesthetic review was primarily restricted to historic districts and structures-proved to be wrong. Only twelve respondents reserved design review exclusively for historic structures or districts. Therefore, we can conclude that more than 85 percent of the cities and towns in this country have moved into the arena of design review of ordinary, nonhistoric development projects. This widespread use of design review is also new: 60 percent of the respondents with design review have introduced it in the last twelve years, 10 percent in the last two years. Design review is a difficult and controversial process that needs thoroughgoing, professional criticism before it is introduced on a wide scale. In spite of the astonishing growth in the adoption of design review, it was very difficult to find resources about design review that did not paint it as a rosy picture, a no-lose situation for planners , designers, and citizens alike. Most planners who answered my survey are satisfied with their design review process; the fine-tuning of guidelines was seen as the major improvement to be made, along with giving themselves more autonomy to make design decisions without board interference. Citizens appear in favor, too, as they survey the results of thirty years of McDonald wastelands and trash spec office buildings, and hope that design review will solve the problem. Architects, on the other hand, are curmudgeons of a sort, being somewhat reluctant to throw themselves in with design review fans. Architects who responded to our survey for the AlA consider design review "petty, meddling, and useless" (25 percent), while the largest group said they thought it was a "good concept, but had serious flaws" (50 percent) (Gordon, 1992). I first became interested in design review while working as a planner in Boston, reviewing and approving storefront and housing projects. Like many planner/architects, I was unhappy with the simpleminded projects being proposed, and like many, I insisted on many changes I felt were more responsive to the context of the city of Boston. As the leader of my staff, I went through a series of developmental phases in my attitude toward the review process. We went from a casual review process, which mitigated the really mediocre and senseless proposals, to a more stringent one, which received criticism for arbitrariness. We wrote guidelines to counter this, but the guidelines were loose, general ones. Review became more B. C. Scheer et al. (eds.), Design Review