Zoning: Types, Uses, and Regulations
Planning a city is difficult. Cities aren’t replaceable and thus it’s design must reviewed. Cities are as old as civilization. They determine the character and location of our neighborhoods, parks, and airports. In this article, we’ll talk a look at the history of zoning, the various types and their uses, and how zoning impacts you.
What is Zoning?
Zoning is a way of urban development that allows authorities to control the land and it’s real estate market. This makes zoning useful in stimulating or slowing down development in specific areas. Zoning includes laws that govern certain kinds of activities that are acceptable in places like parks and offices, the densities and height of those places, and location of activities. It allows officials to maintain and cover the “character” of a community from certain harmful future developments.
Types of Zoning
There are many types of zoning seen around the world. Below are a few common ones found all around the US. Let’s take a look:
- Single Use Zoning: Single-use zoning, also known as Euclidean zoning, is where everyday uses part from each other and where land uses of the same type are together.
- Conditional Zoning: Conditional zoning are land uses that due to their special nature may be suitable only in certain locations, or arranged or operated in a particular manner.
- Mixed-use Zoning: Mixed-use zones are areas where multi-use buildings provide space to combine residential, commercial, and manufacturing uses.
What is a zoning ordinance?
A zoning ordinance is a law that specifies the land use of specific neighborhoods of a city. A zoning law can set the lot size, height, density, and even floor to area ratio or FAR of that specific location.
Zoning ordinances establishes permitted land uses and differentiates between incompatible land use types. It also guarantees that conflicting land uses are not located next to one another. Laws can add to the city’s safety by placing boundaries on areas that are not suitable for development. Zoning laws usually consist of zoning districts and layers of districts called overlays. For example, in New York City there are three zoning categories; residential, commercial, and manufacturing. Each of these categories can range from low, medium, and high density districts.
Overlays can adjust the size and condition of certain neighborhoods. For example, a commercial layer can be on a residential block on the bottom of neighborhood homes. Layers also force height limits to shape the environment in a certain way or even to protect historic areas.
How does zoning laws affect you?
So how does the zoning laws affect you? Well, these laws interact with almost if not all aspects of a city or even a piece of land. It affects how you can use you property, the number of rooms in your home, parking, and even historical or cultural sites and their preservation.
Conclusion
Zoning laws are important when it comes to how a city should operate everyday. Not only does it stabilize a city or town’s character but it lays the foundations for how a city should develop in the future.