A typical zoning map; this one identifies the zones, or development districts, in the city of Ontario, California

Zoning is a North American term for a system of land-use regulation. The word is derived from the practice of designating permitted uses of land based on mapped zones which separate one part of a community from another. Zoning regulations fall under the police power rights governments may exercise over real property. Theoretically, its primary purpose is to segregate uses that are thought to be incompatible; in practice, zoning is used as a permitting system to prevent new development from harming existing residents or businesses. Zoning is commonly controlled by local governments such as counties or municipalities. Image File history File linksMetadata Download high resolution version (1600x1249, 1878 KB) Summary Zoning map for the city of Ontario, California. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Download high resolution version (1600x1249, 1878 KB) Summary Zoning map for the city of Ontario, California. ... Land use is the pattern of construction and activity land is used for. ... Police power is the power of a state to make laws and to use physical violence in order to coerce its subjects into obeying those laws. ... Residency is a stage of postgraduate medical training in North America which leads to eligibility for board certification in a primary care or referral specialty. ... Wall Street, Manhattan is the location of the New York Stock Exchange and is often used as a symbol for the world of business. ... Originally, a county was the land under the jurisdiction of a count (in Great Britain, an earl, though the original earldoms covered larger areas) by reason of that office. ... A municipality or general-purpose district (compare with: special-purpose district) is an administrative local area generally composed of a clearly defined territory and commonly referring to a city, town, or village government. ...

Zoning commonly includes regulation of the kinds of activities which will be acceptable on particular lots (such as open space, residential, agricultural, commercial or industrial), the densities at which those activities can be performed (from low-density housing such as single family homes to high-density such as high-rise apartment buildings), the height of buildings, the amount of space structures may occupy, the location of a building on the lot (setbacks), the proportions of the types of space on a lot (for example, how much landscaped space and how much paved space), and how much parking must be provided. Lot is: Place Specific - A French département, see Lot (département) A French river, a tributary of the Garonne, see Lot River A Belgian town, see Lot, Belgium A Polish Airline, see LOT Polish Airlines Character Specific - A Biblical figure, the nephew of Abraham, see Lot (Biblical) Lot, a... Commerce is the trading of something of economic value such as goods, services, information or money between two or more entities. ... Houses in Fishpool Street, St Albans, England For other meanings of the word house, see House (disambiguation). ... A tower block, block of flats, or apartment block, is a multi-unit high-rise apartment building. ... Setbacks on the Pyramid of Djoser. ... Photograph of a landscape A landscape comprises the visible features of an area of land, including physical elements such as landforms, living elements of flora and fauna, abstract elements such as lighting and weather conditions, and human elements, for instance human activity or the built environment. ... This article is about the American English usage of pavement as the durable surfacing of roads and walkways. ... Parking lot showing diagonal parking pattern designed for one-way traffic. ...

Most zoning systems have a procedure for granting variances (exceptions to the zoning rules), usually because of some perceived hardship due to the particular nature of the property in question. In zoning, a variance is an administrative exception to land use regulations, generally in order to compensate for a deficiency in a real property which would prevent the property from complying with the zoning regulation. ... // Use of the term In common usage, property means ones own thing and refers to the relationship between individuals and the objects which they see as being their own to dispense with as they see fit. ...

Types of residential zones would be R1 for single-family homes, R2 for two-family homes, and R3 for multiple-family homes. A Northern European single-family home in Germany. ...

Origins and history of zoning

New York City adopted the first zoning regulations to apply city-wide in 1916 as a reaction to construction of The Equitable Building (which still stands at 120 Broadway). The building towered over the neighboring residences, completely covering all available land area within the property boundary, blocking windows of neighboring buildings and diminishing the availability of sunshine for the people in the affected area. These laws, written by a commission headed by Edward Bassett and signed by Mayor John Purroy Mitchel, became the blueprint for the rest of the country; partly because Edward Basset headed the group of planning lawyers which wrote The Standard State Zoning Enabling Act that was accepted almost without change by most states. The effect of these zoning regulations on the shape of skyscrapers was famously illustrated by architect and illustrator Hugh Ferriss. Nickname: Big Apple, City that never Sleeps Location in the state of New York Coordinates: Country United States State New York Boroughs Bronx (The Bronx) New York (Manhattan) Queens (Queens) Kings (Brooklyn) Richmond (Staten Island) Mayor Michael Bloomberg (R) Area    - City 1,214. ... 1916 (MCMXVI) was a leap year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar). ... The Equitable Building, viewed from street level The Equitable Building is a famous 36-story office building at 120 Broadway in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. ... An agency is a department of a local or national government responsible for the oversight and administration of a specific function, such as a customs agency or a space agency. ... This article, image, template or category should belong in one or more categories. ... A mayor (from the Latin māior, meaning larger,greater) is in modern times the title of the highest ranking municipal officer, who discharges certain judicial and administrative functions, in many systems an elected politician, who serves as chief executive and/or ceremonial official of many types of municipalities. ... John Purroy Mitchel (July 19, 1879 - July 6, 1918) was the mayor of New York 1914-1917, and at age 34 the youngest ever; he was sometimes referred to as The Boy Mayor of New York. ... Modern blueprint of the French galleon La Belle. ... Hugh Ferriss at work, c. ...

By the late 1920s most of the nation had developed a set of zoning regulations that met the needs of the locality. New York City went on to develop ever more complex set of zoning regulations, including floor-area ratio regulations, air rights and others according to the density-specific needs of the neighborhoods. The 1920s was a decade sometimes referred to as the Jazz Age or the Roaring Twenties, usually applied to America. ... In the field of zoning, floor area ratio refers to a limit on how much total space, expressed as a fraction of the total size of the parcel of land involved, may be consumed by the floor or floors of a building or buildings constructed on the parcel. ... Air rights are a type of development right in real estate. ... The concept of Needs is often used to refer to things that people must have. ...

Among large cities in the United States, Houston, Texas is unique in having no zoning ordinance. Houston voters have rejected efforts to implement zoning in 1948, 1962 and 1993. Thus Houston continues to be the largest city in the U.S. with no zoning. Nickname: Bayou City Location in the state of Texas Coordinates: Counties Harris County Fort Bend County Montgomery County Mayor Bill White Area    - City 1,558 km²  (601. ...

Types of Zoning

Zoning codes have evolved over the years as urban planning theory has changed, legal constraints have fluctuated, and political priorities have shifted. The various approaches to zoning can be divided into four broad categories: Euclidean, Performance, Incentive, and Design-based.

Euclidean zoning

Named for the type of zoning code adopted in the town of Euclid, Ohio, Euclidean zoning codes are by far the most prevalent in the United States, used extensively in small towns and large cities alike. Also known as "Building Block" zoning, Euclidean zoning is characterized by the segregation of land uses into specified geographic districts and dimensional standards stipulating limitations on the magnitude of development activity that is allowed to take place on lots within each type of district. Typical types of land-use districts in Euclidean zoning are: residential (single-family), residential (multi-family), commercial, and industrial. Uses within each district are usually heavily prescribed to exclude other types of uses (residential districts typically disallow commercial or industrial uses). Some "accessory" or "conditional" uses may be allowed in order to accommodate the needs of the primary uses. Dimensional standards apply to any structures built on lots within each zoning district, and typically take the form of setbacks, height limits, minimum lot sizes, lot coverage limits, and other limitations on the building envelope.

The zoning ordinance of Euclid, Ohio was challenged in court by a local land owner on the basis that restricting use of property violated the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Though initially ruled unconstitutional by lower courts, the zoning ordinance was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co. (1926). See below for more information.

Euclidean zoning is preferred by many municipalities due to its relative effectiveness, ease of implementation (one set of explicit, prescriptive rules), long-established legal precedent, and familiarity to planners and design professionals. Euclidean zoning has received heavy criticism, however, for its lack of flexibility and institutionalization of now-outdated planning theory (see below).

Performance zoning

Performance zoning uses performance-based or goal-oriented criteria to establish review parameters for proposed development projects in any area of a municipality. Performance zoning often utilizes a "points-based" system whereby a property developer can apply credits toward meeting established zoning goals through selecting from a 'menu' of compliance options (some examples include: mitigation of environmental impacts, providing public amenities, building affordable housing units, etc.). Additional discretionary criteria may also be established as part of the review process.

Performance zoning is known for its high level of flexibility. However, performance zoning can be extremely difficult to implement and may require a high level of discretionary activity on the part of the supervising authority. For this reason, performance zoning has not been widely adopted and is usually limited to specific categories within a broader prescriptive code when found.

Incentive zoning

First implemented in Chicago and New York City, incentive zoning is intended to provide a reward-based system to encourage development that meets established urban development goals. Typically, a base level of prescriptive limitations on development will be established and an extensive list of incentive criteria will be established for developers to adopt or not at their discretion. A reward scale connected to the incentive criteria provides an enticement for developers to incorporate the desired development criteria into their projects. Common examples include FAR (floor-area-ratio) bonuses for affordable housing provided on-site and height limit bonuses for the inclusion of public amenities on-site. Incentive zoning has become more common throughout the United States during the last 20 years.

Incentive zoning allows for a high degree of flexibility, but can be complex to administer. The more a proposed development takes advantage of incentive criteria, the more closely it has to be reviewed on a discretionary basis. The initial creation of the incentive structure in order to best serve planning priorities can also be challenging and often requires extensive ongoing revision to maintain balance between incentive magnitude and value given to developers.

Design-based zoning

Design-based zoning relies on inter-related schedules of rules to be applied to development sites according to both prescriptive and discretionary criteria. These criteria are typically dependent on lot size, location, proximity, and other various site- and use-specific characteristics.

Design-based codes offer considerably more flexibility than Euclidean codes, but can be very complex to create and administer. Design-based codes have not been widely adopted in the United States and are often criticised as overly-constraining and difficult to interpret where they have been used. There are very few or no other articles that link to this one. ...

One example of a recently adopted code with design-based features is the Land Development Code adopted by Louisville, Kentucky in 2003. This zoning code created "form districts" for Louisville Metro. Each form district was intended to recognize that some areas of the city were suburban in nature, and some urban. Building setbacks, heights and design features vary according to the form district. As an example, in a "traditional neighborhood" form district, a maximum setback might be 15 feet from the property line, while in a suburban "neighborhood" there might be no maximum setback at all. Louisville redirects here. ...

Constitutional challenges

There have been notable legal challenges to zoning regulations. In 1926 the United States Supreme Court upheld zoning as a right of U.S. states (typically via their cities and counties) to impose on landowners. The case was Village of Euclid, Ohio v. Ambler Realty Co. (often shortened to Euclid v. Ambler), 272 U.S. 365 (1926). The village had zoned an area of land held by Ambler Realty as a residential neighborhood. Ambler argued that it would lose money because if the land could be leased to industrial users it would have netted a great deal more money than as a residential area. Euclid won, and a precedent was set favorable to local enforcement of zoning laws. The Supreme Court Building, Washington, D.C. The Supreme Court Building, Washington, D.C., (large image) The Supreme Court of the United States, located in Washington, D.C., is the highest court (see supreme court) in the United States; that is, it has ultimate judicial authority within the United States... Euclid is a city in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, United States. ... Village of Euclid, Ohio v. ... // Case citation is the system used in common law countries such as the United States, England and Wales, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and India to uniquely identify the location of past court cases in special series of books called reporters or law reports. ... 1926 (MCMXXVI) was a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... A village is a human residential settlement commonly found in rural areas. ... In law, a precedent or authority is a legal case establishing a principle or rule which a court may need to adopt when deciding subsequent cases with similar issues or facts. ... For the band, see The Police. ...

The Euclid case was a facial challenge, meaning that the entire scheme of regulation was argued to be unconstitutional under any set of circumstances. The United States Supreme Court justified the ordinance saying that a community may enact reasonable laws to keep the pig out of the parlor, even if pigs may not be prohibited from the entire community.

Since the Euclid case, there have been no more facial challenges to the general scheme. Beginning in 1987, several United States Supreme Court cases ruled against land use regulations as being a taking requiring just compensation pursuant to the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. First English Evangelical Lutheran Church v. Los Angeles County ruled that even a temporary taking may require compensation. Nollan v. California Coastal Commission ruled that permit conditions that fail to substantially advance the agency's authorized purposes require compensation. Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council ruled that numerous environmental concerns were not sufficient to deny all development without compensation. Dolan v. City of Tigard ruled that conditions of a permit must be roughly proportional to the impacts of the proposed new development. Palazzolo v. Rhode Island ruled property rights are not diminished by unconstitutional laws that exist without challenge at the time the complaining property owner acquired title. In the context of government and public services regulation (as a process) is the control of something by rules, as opposed to its prohibition. ... Compensation has several different meanings as indicated below. ... The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which is part of the Bill of Rights, guarantees several protections related to legal procedure. ... Holding Court membership Case opinions Lucas v. ... Dolan v. ...

However, the landowner victories have been mostly limited to the U.S. Supreme Court despite that Court's purported overriding authority. Each decision in favor of the landowner is based on the facts of the particular case, so that regulatory takings rulings in favor of landowners are little more than a landowners' mirage. Even the trend of the U.S. Supreme Court may now have reversed with the 2004 ruling in the Tahoe case. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who had previously ruled with a 5-4 majority in favor of the landowner, switched sides to favor the government that had delayed development for more than 20 years because of the government's own indecision about alleged concerns to the water quality of Lake Tahoe. Other facts and information OConnor is an avid golfer who scored a hole-in-one in 2000 at the Paradise Valley Country Club in Arizona. ...

Specific zoning laws have been overturned in some other U.S. cases where the laws were not applied evenly (violating equal protection) or were considered to violate free speech. In the Atlanta suburb of Roswell, Georgia, an ordinance banning billboards was overturned in court on such grounds. It has been deemed that a municipality's sign ordinance must be content neutral with regard to the regulation of signage. The City of Roswell, Georgia has now institued a sign ordinance that regulates signage based strictly on dimensional and aesthetic codes, rather than an interpretation of a sign's content (i.e. use of colors, lettering, etc.). The Equal Protection Clause is a part of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, providing that no state shall make or enforce any law which shall. ... Freedom of speech is the right to freely say what one pleases, as well as the related right to hear what others have stated. ... This article is about the state capital of Georgia. ... The historic Roswell city hall. ... Ordinance can mean: A law made by a non-sovereign body such as a city council or a colony. ... The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view. ... Signage is any kind of graphics created to display information to a particular audience, typically wayfinding information on streets, outside and inside of buildings. ... The historic Roswell city hall. ...

On other occasions, religious institutions sought to circumvent zoning laws, citing the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA). The Supreme Court eventually overturned RFRA in just such a case, City of Boerne v. Flores 521 U.S. 507 (1997). However, Congress enacted the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) in 2000 in an effort to correct the constitutionally objectionable problems of the RFRA. In the 2005 case of Cutter v. Wilkinson, the United States Supreme Court held RLUIPA to be constitutional. The Religious Freedom Restoration Act (, also known as RFRA) is a 1993 United States federal law aimed at preventing laws which substantially burdened a persons free exercise of their religion. ... 1993 (MCMXCIII) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar and marked the Beginning of the International Decade to Combat Racism and Racial Discrimination (1993-2003). ... City of Boerne v. ... // Case citation is the system used in common law countries such as the United States, England and Wales, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and India to uniquely identify the location of past court cases in special series of books called reporters or law reports. ... 1997 (MCMXCVII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc-1 et seq. ... This article is about the year 2000. ... Holding Court membership Case opinions Laws applied U.S. Const. ... The Supreme Court Building, Washington, D.C. The Supreme Court Building, Washington, D.C., (large image) The Supreme Court of the United States, located in Washington, D.C., is the highest court (see supreme court) in the United States; that is, it has ultimate judicial authority within the United States...

Some limitations and criticisms of zoning

Land-use zoning is considered by some to be an important tool in the treatment of certain social ills, a part of the larger concept of social engineering. Criticism of zoning is widespread, however, and its effectiveness as a tool for positive social change is debatable. Social engineering is a concept in political science that refers to efforts to systematically manage popular attitudes and social behavior on a large scale, whether by governments or private groups. ...

Circumventions

Existing development in a community is generally not affected by the new zoning laws because it is "grandfathered"(or legally non-conforming), meaning the prior development is exempt from compliance. Consequently, zoning can only affect new development in a growing community. In addition, if undeveloped land is zoned to allow development, that land becomes relatively expensive, causing developers to seek land that is not zoned for development, and then seek rezoning of that land themselves. Communities generally react by not zoning undeveloped land to allow development until a developer requests rezoning and presents a suitable plan. Development under this practice appears to be piecemeal and uncoordinated. Communities try to influence the timing of development by government expenditures for new streets, sewers and utilities usually desired for modern developments. However, the development of interstate freeways for purposes unrelated to planned community growth, creates an inexorable rush to develop the relatively cheap land near interchanges. Property tax suppression measures such as California Proposition 13 have led many communities to disregard their comprehensive plans and rezone undeveloped land for retail establishments, desperate to capture sales tax revenue. In American English, a Grandfather clause is an exception that allows an old rule to continue to apply to some existing situations, when a new rule will apply to all future situations. ... It has been suggested that Autobahn be merged into this article or section. ... // Property tax is an ad valorem tax that an owner of real estate or other property pays on the value of the thing taxed. ... redirect California_Proposition_13_(1978) ... A sales tax is a state or locality imposed percentage tax on the selling or renting of certain property or services. ...

Aesthetic criticisms

More prescriptive zoning codes tend to give rise to a phenomenon known colloquially as "Design by Zoning," or DBZ. Jurisdictions with highly prescriptive zoning codes can force the uniform adoption of (often unintentionally negative) aesthetic qualities in all new construction due to the inflexibility of the zoning ordinances. This can lead to urban environments dominated by apparently nonsensical or awkward building configurations. An example of this has occurred in the application of the increasingly-complex low-rise multi-family residential code in Seattle, Washington.

Social criticisms

In more recent times, zoning has been criticized by urban planners and scholars (most notably Jane Jacobs) as a source of new social ills, including the separation of homes from employment and the rise of "car culture." Some communities have begun to encourage development of denser, mixed-use neighborhoods that promote walking and cycling to jobs and shopping. However, a single-family home and car are major parts of the "American Dream" for nuclear families, and zoning laws often reflect this: in some cities, houses that do not have an attached garage are deemed "blighted" and are subject to redevelopment. Movements that disapprove of zoning, such as New Urbanism and Smart Growth, generally try to reconcile these competing demands. New Urbanists in particular try through creative urban design solutions that hark back to 1920s and 1930s practices. Recently, the New Urbanists have also come under attack for the negative aspects of the highly prescriptive nature of their model code proposals. Jane Jacobs Jane Jacobs, OC , O.Ont (May 4, 1916 – April 25, 2006) was an American-born Canadian writer and activist. ... Over the course of the 20th century, the automobile rapidly developed from an expensive technological wonder into the de facto standard for passanger transport. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... The term nuclear family was developed in the western world to distinguish the family group consisting of parents and their children, usually a father, mother, and children, from what is known as an extended family. ... Look up garage in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Blight is a condition of property or the uses of property in parts of a city, town, or neighborhood that are detrimental to the physical, social, and/or economic well-being of a community. ... Urban renewal (also called urban regeneration in British English) is a movement in urban planning that reached its peak in the United States from the late 1940s through the early 1970s. ... New urbanism is an urban design movement that became very popular beginning in the 1980s and early 1990s. ... Smart growth is a concept and term used by those who seek to identify a set of policies governing transportation and land use planning policy for urban areas that benefits communities and preserves the natural environment. ...

Exclusionary zoning

Zoning has long been criticized as a tool of racial and socio-economic exclusion and segregation, primarily through minimum lot-size requirements and land-use segregation (sometimes referred to as "environmental racism"). Early zoning codes were often explicitly racist. June Manning Thomas provides a survey of the literature concerned with this particular critique of zoning. Environmental policy making or enforcement thereof that specifically and directly affects people of color, certain ethnic/racial groups, or native wild species in a negative manner. ...

Exclusionary practices remain common among suburbs wishing to keep out those deemed socioeconomically or ethnically undesirable: for example, representatives of the city of Barrington Hills, Illinois once told the Real Estate section of the Chicago Tribune that the city's 5-acre minimum lot size helped to "keep out the riff-raff." Incorporated Village in 1957. ... The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois. ...

Zoning and housing affordability

Zoning has also been implicated as a primary driving factor in the rapidly accelerating unaffordability of housing in urban areas (see, Glaeser, Edward L. and Gyourko, Joseph, The Impact of Zoning on Housing Affordability, 2002). According to critics, as much as half of the price paid for housing in some jurisdictions is directly attributable to the hidden costs of restrictive zoning regulation.

In 1969 Massachusetts enacted Chapter 40B, a so-called anti-snob zoning statute. Under this law, developers may circumvent local zoning boards in municipalities with less than 10% affordable housing. Similar laws are in place in other parts of the United States, though their effectiveness is disputed. 1969 (MCMLXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1969 calendar). ... Official language(s) English Capital Boston Largest city Boston Area  Ranked 44th  - Total 10,555 sq mi (27,360 km²)  - Width 183 miles (295 km)  - Length 113 miles (182 km)  - % water 13. ... Anti-snob zoning is a nickname for Massachusetts General Law, Chapter 40B, designed to widen the availability of affordable housing in the state. ...

See also

• Police power
• planning permission
• Subdivision (land)
• variance (land use)
• inclusionary zoning
• Context theory
• Mixed-use development

Police power is the power of a state to make laws and to use physical violence in order to coerce its subjects into obeying those laws. ... Planning permission or planning consent is the permission required by property developers and private individuals in the United Kingdom in order to be allowed to build on, or change the use of, a plot of land or to redevelop an existing building. ... Subdivision is the act of dividing up land into smaller pieces that are easier to sell, usually via a plat. ... In zoning, a variance is an administrative exception to land use regulations, generally in order to compensate for a deficiency in a real property which would prevent the property from complying with the zoning regulation. ... Inclusionary zoning, also know as inclusionary housing, refers to city planning ordinances that require a given share of new construction be affordable to people with low to moderate incomes. ... Context theory Environmental design and planning rest on theories of how new development should relate to its context. ... This article or section is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. ...

External links

• New York City Department of City Planning - Zoning History
• Zoning and land use discussion forum on Cyburbia