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QUESTIONS OF ZONING REGULATIONS AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT OF RUSSIAN HISTORICAL CITIES. ZONING VS FORM BASED CODES
The urban agenda in Post-Soviet Russia can be characterized as an ongoing competition of two regulation concepts. The commencing of the Urban Planning Code of Russia in 2004 introduced the concept of legal zoning and land-use regulation, dismissing state’s monopoly over urban planning. However, this concept has been challenged over time by the aspiration of the state to retain control over regulation and, therefore, endorse the tradition of manual control regulation. Presently, the morphological parameters of the urban environment are not treated as subjects of regulation, what gives rise to large-scale development in historical cores. This gap in the regulation system exposes the extreme vulnerability of historical morphotypes in urban centres. In order to address this weakness, the implementation of masterplan and form-based code is currently discussed in the professional community. Form-based code principles accentuate materiality of the urban form and introduce the parameters of physical environment as a prevailing subject of regulation to the zoning system, whereas masterplan is a tool for setting the objectives and principles of the spatial development of the territory. Urban cores of historical cities have become the realm of experimentation with different approaches to regulation and planning. This paper accumulates the empirical experience from the pilot projects of new regulation activities in the so-called ‘historical settlements’ – Kazan, Samara, Orenburg and Saratov. In the paper we address the issue of providing functional and economic flexibility of historical environment, simultaneously ensuring the purpose of heritage preservation and sustainable urban development.
Key words: regulation, form-based code, morphological approach, historical cores.
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