New Urban Projects

Dan first started working on New Urban projects in 1988. From the beginning, he combined the New Urban focus on pedestrian-oriented, mixed-use, beautiful place-making with sustainable development principles. He worked on dozens of projects and communities around the country and overseas. For these clients, he created new ordinances and comprehensive plans to remove the impediments to great communities. Dan rezoned thousands of acres using Form-Based Codes, TND codes and conventional Euclidian codes. He helped put in place governance approaches specifically designed for mixed-use projects with design codes in dozens of states and overseas. He integrated advanced sustainability programs into major projects and helped clients create unique utility services.

Dan was the lead or one of the team members on numerous projects for large and small local governments. For many years, he was the primary instructor for the “legal aspects” of the smart Code and Form-Based Codes in general. He helped author the first handbook for use of the Smart Code. Dan was on three teams that won Charter Awards – the highest award given by the Congress for the New Urbanism. He was been named a CNU Fellow in 2018.

Dan has been on the boards of, or represented, most of the organizations involved in New Urbanism. He has been on the boards of the Congress for the New Urban, the Form-Based Codes Institute, the National Charrette Institute, the Transect Codes Council, the Seaside Institute, the Sky Institute and the New Urban Guild. He helped create and represented the National Town Builders Association.

Dan spoke nationally on many issues related to New Urbanism and written numerous articles, especially on the subject of removing barriers to New Urbanism projects. But Dan’s favorite undertaking was to work with developers and localities to develop a strategy to use various tools to realize the client’s vision of a great place and then put in place the mechanisms to achieve that vision.