In Arterial, legislative analysis depends on both Policy and Entitlements. Entitlements allow us to understand how legislation might be changed depending on planning precedents in the area—for each city on Arterial, we have a comprehensive set of tracking systems for development applications streamed directly from cities. Arterial’s datasets combine the public-facing development information with the underlying policy and documentation submitted to City Hall—allowing us to analyze applications in the same way a planner would.

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Quickstart

Precedents can either be automatically generated from an entitlement simulation (see Entitlement Analysis) or manually searched for in a Dataset view (either in a project or in Explore Mode). Each city has its own set of development application and permitting datasets that can be searched through—you can select one from the Precedence section of the dataset selector. In the top-right corner of the map, you’ll be able to search on applications using the Search Precedents button. This will open a modal with a prompt for a set of clauses to filter the rendered applications by. After searching for a set fo applications and precedents, you can save your search using the Save Precedence Search button in the map toolbar. You’ll be able to access this search later in the Precedences tab in the sidebar.

Precedences can be generated from the entitlements bar.

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Analyzing Precedents

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Planning Rationales

Most development applications will contain legal information encoded in Planning Rationales—the arguments developers make to justify their project to the city. Arterial tracks these under the Planning Rationale key within developmen datasets, and are composed of:
  • Policy References: the collection of policies that are attempting to be adjusted
  • Arguments: the page-by-page arguments based on specific clauses in legislation
  • Site Context: the arguments based on site and building context

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Interpretation

Arterial can also combine information across keys and in specific ones to provide a comprehensive interpretation of what a particular rationale means. In a Dataset view, you can click on the Interpret button to generate a short summary of a single rationale: In Precedence views, you can run ultiple interpretations at once by clicking on each application’s checkbox and then clicking the Interpret button in the toolbar.

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Project Data Sheets

Arterial also tracks the actual data sheets and architectural plans submitted as part of applications; these are available in the Project Data Sheets key (and are exportable - see Exporting & Sharing).