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What will it take to write a new development code that reflects a decade of planning?
SUMMARY
Fargo has numerous plans from the past 10-to-15 years, including its recently adopted growth plan, that all have a consistent message: Fargo wants to grow and redevelop in ways that create more connected, walkable, and memorable places. But its land development code from 1998 fails to reflect this beyond the downtown core, resulting in tedious and unpredictable negotiations (through the use of conditional overlays and planned unit developments) to achieve better outcomes.
After the adoption of czb's Fargo Growth Plan in 2024, the City of Fargo turned to czb once again to rewrite the land development code to align it with the community's intentions for the future.
Plan to Code
This project, which started in December 2024 and will run through June 2026, is the latest example of czb's "Plan to Code" method. Picking up directly where the growth planning process left off, czb's team began the work of translating goals from Fargo's plans into testable scenarios for specific development contexts to confirm the outcomes sought by the city. By the summer of 2025, that work had produced a preliminary district framework and solid direction for new development standards.
Working with teams of technical staff from the City of Fargo, along with focus groups of neighborhood advocates, designers, and builders/developers, the end result will be a code that puts over a decade of planning into law while also reflecting the nuances of Fargo's market and the needs of very different development contexts -- from greenfields on the city's periphery, to suburban retrofit opportunities on aging corridors, to infill and character preservation in older neighborhoods.
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