West Homewood discusses future of form-based codes
As renovations continue in and around West Homewood’s Patriot Park, residents of the area are already looking forward.
Thursday night, Oct. 15, the Homewood Environmental Commission held a (Sub)Urban Renewal community talk on the West Homewood Village Concept that is now beginning to take shape. Community leaders and residents gathered inside recently-opened Oak and Raleigh as well as The Studio next door to discuss the changes happening just outside the front steps of the establishments. A series of speakers shed light on questions like “What are "form-based" codes? How will they improve our neighborhood? Will other Homewood neighborhoods follow this model?”
Speakers included Ben Wiesman, director of Catalytic Development at REV Birmingham; Mikhail Alert, Senior Planner at the Regional Planning Commission of Greater Birmingham; and Steven Jones, Transportation Engineer at the University of Alabama.
Wiesman, who was one of the authors of the Homewood Comprehensive Plan, said it is gratifying to see parts of it being implemented.
“It’s so great to drive around Homewood and see sidewalks popping up, change coming to the area,” he said.
Just outside the meeting, traffic barrels and road work signs lined Oak Grove Road and the newly-constructed sidewalks at Patriot Park. The work is part of the first phase of changes planned for the area. Once complete, residents will enjoy a newly-repaved street between Oxmoor Road and Hall Avenue, brick sidewalk pavers and improved crosswalks.
The improvements are all part of the area’s form-based code, which was approved in 2013.
“Form-based codes are more concerned about creating pedestrian environments,” said Wiesman.
Under the new code, the developers will have to be mindful to include sidewalks, improve walkability and narrow streets in their designs, he said.
The Homewood City Council is currently reviewing two proposals on how to proceed with developing a vacant lot next to Patriot Park. The plans include a proposed two-story building with retailers and a Cajun-inspired cafe or a food truck park, open landscaped courtyard and “shipping container beer garden.”
Alert, who is one of the planners behind renderings of how the areas along Oak Grove could be transformed, said the residents are the ones who inspired the vision. What he heard from them at the Regional Planning Commission of Greater Birmingham, he said, was that they wanted to see the area resemble Edgewood.
“Residents want to see improved walkability in the area,” said Alert. “They want to be able to accomplish several things in a short amount of time in the area after parking their car only once. Following the form-based codes will allow residents to engage with one another on the street, where things used to happen.”
Jones, who is trained to increase traffic flow and speed along major roadways, said the shift away from walkable streets and safer areas for pedestrians coincided with the invention of the automobile.
“The metal behemoth,” said Jones, “is what I like to call it. We’ve turned over so many of our spaces to cars.”
Form-based codes, he said, help communities move away from that dependence on cars. The exciting thing he said, is that those changes are now happening in West Homewood.