Zone Bridgeport wins “Cutting Edge Code” award by Connecticut APA

Following significant community engagement efforts, Bridgeport, Connecticut adopted its Master Plan titled Plan Bridgeport in 2019. Major goals outlined in Plan Bridgeport were to update the City’s zoning and development code to be more user-friendly and provide greater flexibility for developing a wider variety of housing options throughout Bridgeport. 

Problem: 

As documented from early-stage conversations with stakeholders about updating Bridgeport’s development code, “comments included that Zoning regulations should be a living document, updated on a regular basis.” Another primary goal outlined for the project was to “Simplify Regulations: The city’s existing regulations are difficult to use and understand. There are also inconsistencies and conflicts. Clean it up and simplify it.”

Solution:

Bridgeport teamed up with Konveio, Duncan Associates, and Codametrics to deliver an interactive and user-friendly zoning code experience. ZoneBridgeport.com was developed on Konveio as an interactive zoning code platform.

A beta version of ZoneBridgeport.com was presented to stakeholders and the public for review in order to “inform design revisions, refine implementation, and configuration of on-line code; test functionality and usability of the website; and obtain feedback from any additional user testing activities.”

Public comments were accepted directly on Bridgeport’s drafted zoning code using Konveio’s feedback features. Once changes were incorporated and the plan reached adoption in 2020, the plan has served as a living document ever since with a range of interactive features to make their zoning code more user-friendly:

• An ArcGIS map of the city’s zoning code linked from specific parcels to each relevant section of their official zoning code PDF on Konveio, allowing residents and businesses to quickly find important information quickly. The city’s ArcGIS Map was made available on an overview page of their project website built using Konveio. Additionally, readers could open the zoning map without leaving the document. 
• “Guide” pages were developed on ZoneBridgeport.com for stakeholders to access different document sections based on their interests quickly. One is a building-type gallery that allows visitors to look through different building types visually and then quickly jump to the relevant section of Zone Bridgeport’s code to learn more. 
• To increase clarity and minimize undefined jargon or acronyms, an interactive glossary of terms was included, which underlines every instance of a specific term on any page, and presents a definition if hovered over (or when tapped on mobile phones).

In 2022, additional amendments were made to their official zoning code and the process of changing PDF files was painless thanks to Konveio’s version management capabilities.

Impact:

Using Konveio, Bridgeport was able to achieve the goals it set out in its comprehensive plan, a feat recognized by the Connecticut chapter of the American Planning Association with its "2022 Cutting Edge Code Award" award for the final product. 

"Defining the new best-practice standard in Connecticut, Zone Bridgeport is a fully digitized code tied to the City’s online GIS program. It puts the regulations a mouse-click away. Residents need only click on their property to see a pop-up box that shows the designated zone description and provides hyperlinks to permitted uses, building types, building designs, site designs, historic districts, and more. It is clear, concise, visual, illustrative, dynamic, easy to search, and easy to use."

“The result is a state-of-the-art form-based zoning code that is both designed for an older urban area and is entirely 21st Century. Defining the new best-practice standard in Connecticut, Zone Bridgeport is a fully digitized code tied to the City’s online GIS program. Bridgeport’s new code and how the public can interact with it exemplify how easy and approachable zoning should be for everyone.  This is a first-of-its-kind code for Connecticut.”

Award announcement: bridgeportct.gov/planning/zoneaward

Explore zoning code: zonebridgeport.com