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Zoning Ordinances


Photo courtesy of www.pedbikeimages,org / Dan Burden
The overall purpose of zoning is to regulate the use of land, the density of land use, and the siting of development. It is meant to implement the vision of future land use in a community, as stated in the municipality's comprehensive plan. It is the most commonly and extensively used local technique for regulating land use as a means of accomplishing municipal goals. One of the benefits of zoning is that it makes it attractive for developers to want to site a project in a particular area due to the level of certainty that the community will accept the project because it is in conformance with its zoning.

Zoning commonly consists of a zoning map and a set of zoning regulations. The zoning map typically divides a municipality into various land use districts, such as residential, commercial, and industrial or manufacturing. Zoning regulations usually describe the permissible land uses and dimensional standards (such as building heights and distances of buildings from property lines) in each of the various zoning districts identified on the zoning map.

Many communities are now looking beyond the traditional single use zoning to zoning ordinances which encourage mixed-use and "clustered" development that is served by transit and is accessible to pedestrian and bicycle networks. Other options are to create zoning ordinances which protect agricultural and significant natural areas and build on existing infrastructure.

 
Related Principles:
neighborhoods nodal development housing natural resources agriculture economic development transportation

 

 

  
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