Las Vegas Form-Based Code

Historic Westside

Form-based code
Adopted
Council approval
January 20, 2021
Area
603 acres
Case
Not listed

The Historic Westside, just northwest of the downtown core, across the railroad tracks, is one of the most historically and culturally significant neighbourhoods in the Las Vegas Valley. For decades it was the centre of the city’s Black community, and it carries that history in its churches, schools and landmarks. It also carries the effects of long disinvestment: vacant lots, ageing housing and parks without much programming.

The 2016 masterplan described a neighbourhood of low-rise homes and industrial land with real advantages, including open space, large developable sites and good transport access. Its goal was a thriving neighbourhood with the services and amenities it had been missing.

The Hundred Plan

The groundwork came before the form-based code. In the mid-2010s, the UNLV Downtown Design Center worked with the city and the Ward 5 office on strategic planning for the area. The result was the Hundred Plan, completed in May 2016. It recommended:

  • infill housing that fits the neighbourhood, including multifamily homes, to stabilise the community
  • preservation of historic sites
  • programmes for job training, safety and cleanliness
  • allowing mixed-use development in the existing industrial areas

The city’s approach was to turn those recommendations into zoning, so that the plan’s vision would become the default outcome rather than something each project had to argue for.

How the code got here

  • Late February 2020. A full-day kickoff workshop at the Historic Westside School, titled HUNDRED Plan: Coding for Action, with city planners and Lisa Wise Consulting.
  • Spring 2020. Further in-person meetings were put on hold because of the pandemic, and work continued through surveys and interviews.
  • July 30, 2020. Planning staff presented the draft: a proposed regulating plan for the neighbourhood and the code changes needed for it, with the new standards marked in red.
  • September 15, 2020. A second neighbourhood meeting, recorded and posted online.
  • January 20, 2021. City Council voted unanimously, on a motion by Councilman Cedric Crear, to approve the General Plan Amendment and rezoning of 603 acres to the form-based code.

Why it matters

At 603 acres, the Historic Westside rezoning was larger than the Medical District pilot and Fremont East combined. It was also the clearest test of a claim made for form-based codes: that they can guide reinvestment in a neighbourhood without erasing what is already there. The aim, following the Hundred Plan, was to keep the scale of the existing residential streets while opening the commercial edges and former industrial land to mixed use.

Sources

Other districts