Design Review Reviewed

Abstract

Most American cities use design review to improve the visual quality and compatibility of ordinary nonhistoric projects. They often use a discretionary design review process. How well does discretionary design review improve community appearance by keeping building projects compatible with their surroundings? This article presents a two-part study aimed at answering this question. For a neighborhood in Columbus, Ohio, our research team did a physical inventory of the compatibility of 96 projects that underwent discretionary design review and 68 that did not. The latter projects met less restrictive administrative appearance controls present in the zoning ordinance. The team also surveyed 39 residents for their opinions on a subset of projects built according to either the discretionary review of the design or the administrative controls. The results indicate that discretionary design review is not demonstrably better than administrative review. Communities can use methods like the ones discussed here to evaluate their own design review programs. They may find that the replacement of discretionary design review with more explicit administrative appearance controls achieves the intended compatibility more efficiently.

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