CFEC Model Code

Zoning Code Reform

Nov 7

Written by Dacie Doucette

CFEC Model Code

Salem, OR · 2024

Client: Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development
Location: Salem, OR
Year: 2024
CP Role: Lead consultant
Practice Area: Zoning Code Reform
Team: Alex Joyce, Principal-in-Charge; Jamin Kimmell, Zoning Code; Pauline Ruegg, Project Manager
Award: 2026 Oregon Chapter of the American Planning Association (OAPA) Innovation in Planning

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The Challenge

Oregon's Climate-Friendly and Equitable Communities (CFEC) rules require the state's largest urban areas to allow compact, walkable, transit-supportive development, and many cities had no ready-made code to adopt.

Our Approach

Because a model code only helps if local staff can apply it, local planners shaped it from the start. We used TestFit, SketchUp, and precedent images to show each standard's trade-offs before the advisory committee chose it, then wrote the code in plain language with graphics.

Outcome

We delivered the CFEC Model Code to the state, giving Oregon's largest cities tested standards they can adopt. The Oregon Chapter of the American Planning Association gave it a 2026 Innovation in Planning award.

Related Projects

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I bring a mix of marketing theory, intuition, and my creative touch to every project.

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Portland Residential Infill Project Analysis

Grand Junction Vibrant Together Downtown Plan

Spatial Planning + Placemaking

Conceptual planning, test-fits, streetscapes, and master plans that make places walkable, vibrant, and inclusive — with the design and economic analysis to show they can actually be built.

Visioning + Long-Range Planning

Comprehensive and general plans that frame alternative futures, surface trade-offs, and set a direction the community owns — not one it inherits from a process it didn’t trust.

Urban Analytics + Scenario Planning

Growth modeling, fiscal impact analysis, and policy evaluation that let communities test alternative futures before committing — decisions made with eyes open to uncertainty, not in spite of it.

Real Estate + Feasibility

Site feasibility, pro forma, public-private partnership structuring, and development strategy for public-sector clients navigating the gap between what a place could be and what the market will currently support.

Zoning Code Reform

Code audits, zoning updates, form-based codes, and design standards written for adoption and legal review — not just policy aspiration. Pro-forma-driven analysis that tests whether new standards produce the outcomes they promise.

Housing Policy

Housing needs analyses, production strategies, and middle-housing policy calibrated to local markets and state statutory requirements — so plans produce housing, not just goals.

Environment + Sustainability

Urban forestry, parks and open space planning, climate action, and environmental equity analysis — treated as a land use problem alongside core planning practice, not as a separate sustainability track.

How We Work

1. Road-Tested Futures

We structure work around alternative futures rather than a single recommended path, stress-testing strategies against market, regulatory, and political conditions before clients commit. Scenario planning, feasibility analysis, and housing needs assessments form the analytic foundation — so decisions get made with eyes open to uncertainty, not in spite of it.

2. Visually Striking Storytelling

Sophisticated analysis is only useful if non-technical audiences can engage with it. We translate quantitative findings, policy choices, and design ideas into plain-language narratives, diagrams, and renderings that a council member, a property owner, or a neighbor can see, debate, and act on — without simplifying the substance underneath.

3. Hands-On, Equitable Engagement

Quality process creates quality outcomes. We engage authentically, not transactionally — designing processes that meet people where they are, in their language, their venue, their schedule, so communities feel genuinely heard, not simply consulted. We integrate that input with the technical work it’s meant to inform, to create outcomes shaped by the community.

4. Place-Based Designs

Two convictions drive our practice: a plan only matters if it can be acted on, and planning works best when it’s grounded in a real place. Every plan, policy, and analysis we produce is anchored to specific places — drawing on local form, history, and patterns of use so ideas can be visualized, debated, refined, and built. Grounding the work spatially is what makes spatial planning more than a label.

5. Market-Feasible Strategies

A plan is only as good as its adoption rate. We are clear-eyed about the financial, regulatory, and political obstacles to realizing equity and sustainability, and we build those conditions into the work from the start — pro forma stress-tests, code drafts written for legal review, strategies calibrated to what the market will actually support and build.