arguments against zoning changes arguments against zoning changes

The evolution of zoning law and zoning ordinances has created a situation in which it can be quite difficult to adopt zoning ordinance amendments, or take a significant land use action, without running afoul of some procedural requirement. The debate, then, is not between planning and non- planning. Now that you have determined whether the development is a by-right project or a rezoning, and you know what is being proposed and find yourself opposed to the project, it is time to activate your community network. Contact affected neighborhood groups, property owners associations, interest groups, clubs, and others who have an interest in opposing the rezoning or development project. Is the housing market producing enough additional housing to meet increased demand, as driven by population and job growth? They were also concerned the town would change zoning laws to accommodate the business. Even if the request is withdrawn or voted down, watch for it to reappear. The very existence of a large North American city (an area in excess of five hundred square miles and a population of 1.6 million) which can function normally and continue to grow without zoning is a major piece of evidence against the traditional view that zoning supposedly protects against chaos. Within a city or metropolitan area, is new housing being built in the locations with highest demand (i.e., the neighborhoods where people most want to live)? Secondly, as Nobel Laureates Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek have so eloquently shown, judging each case on its merits is the absence of lawfulnessnot its presence. Figure 1 shows the zoning map for Falls Church, Va., a city of about 15,000 people just outside Washington, D.C. Second, zoning laws specify what type of structures can be built (or not built) within each zone. Private entrepreneurs, however, are judged, in their profit and loss accounts, by how well they promote positive externalities and repress negative ones. Even apparently straightforward questions like Whats the typical minimum lot size required for single-family homes? turn out to have complicated answers. Private entrepreneurs, however, are judged, in their profit and loss accounts, by how well they promote positive externalities and repress negative ones. Jul 3, 2020 12:01 AM. If a bribe can convert a land parcel to a use more highly prized by consumers, wealth and the allocation of resources will have been much more nearly optimized. It is between central planning, on the part of the government, and individual planning, as coordinated through the marketplace. One might even take an extreme position here, and advocate abolishing the system of government zoningroot and branch. Are there stormwater impacts that would be realized? The reality appears to be that either there are few significant inter-dependencies and externalities in urban property markets or that One mans meat is another mans poison. One and the same phenomenon, such as the presence of commerce in an otherwise residential neighborhood, is interpreted in a positive way by some people and in a negative way by others. Both are narrow residential roads with no curbs, sidewalks or buffer; the increased traffic would be extremely dangerous. Guess Road is two lane north of Umstead. Be willing to come up with solid alternatives that bring a winning outcome to all parties. The Rule of Law Even the maintenance of single-family neighborhoods by zoning statutes is questionable: by keeping land and buildings in the same use over time, zoning can promote neighborhood decay and speed the demise of the single family neighborhood. But it can be viewed as one more aspect of the case against public zoning efforts. The developer is listing houses and townhouses for sale now on its website at prices well above what houses sell for today in the area. But it also includes such prosaic activities as the individuals arrangement of household furniture, the offices placement of desks and room dividers, the factorys disposition of machines and guardrails, and the shopping malls apportionment of its tenants. For one thing, the system became even more complex. If zoning can be defined as matching specific areas of land with particular uses, then nothing said above should be interpreted as opposing private zoning. The Equine Land Conservation Resource, or ELCR, was founded to address this threat and to preserve land for equestrian use. What public policy recommendations follow? It is clear, moreover, that that which is owned is the physical house, and not its value. A fall in the price of wood, an increase in the market rate of interest, the sale of publicly held lands, technological improvements in prefabrication methods can all reduce housing prices. There are good reasons why local governments want to exert some control over what kinds of structures are built where. But the market process functions even without this protection. One of the most persuasive arguments against zoning is the fact that it institutionalizes errors. Are there policies, long-range or comprehensive plans, or adopted goals for the community that support your goals rather than what has been proposed? Suite 120 In many places, a property owner or developer may come forward with a development plan that meets all of the established criteria for development under the current zoning, which is considered a by-right development. Indeed, it is impossible for any rational land developer to act in any other way. If land usage seems imperfect, all that is needed is the enactment of a set of laws compelling proper behavior. Their answer is to place a myriad of zoning restrictions on the new builders, instead of encouraging coordinated expansion. WebChanging the zoning to four units per acre is inconsistent with anything in the area. As you have organized and determined what you do not want to happen, think about what you do want to happen. Paradoxically, this is not necessarily all to the bad. Have Questions About Zoning Changes and variances? Yet this is precisely what zoning seeks to preserve. The externalities that it is designed to ameliorate have been shown to be minimal or non-existent. The answers to these questions are complicatednot unlike zoning laws themselves. The second limitation to asking planners about their regulations is that staff may not have the right data to inform their answers. This view is supported by Roscoe H. Jones, Houstons Director of City Planning. Can your fire and police departments provide adequate protection for the proposed development? What has been criticized above is government zoning, not the private variety. Rather, they care about how well housing markets are functioning to meet the needs of current and future residents. Seven Steps to Influencing Zoning Change in Your Community, Blending Land Conservation with New Community Development [runtime 14:50], Seven Steps to Planning for an Equestrian-Friendly Community for Community Leaders and Planners, Seven Steps to Influencing Horse-Friendly Planning for Horsemen, The Equine Land Conservation Achievement Award, Trail Etiquette and Safe Passing Plans When Encountering Equestrians. But the market process functions even without this protection. Value preservation is a will-o-the-wisp, for price is a manifestation of the worth placed on an item not by one person, but by two groups: potential sellers and potential buyers of items like the one in question. Bivins Road is two lane. What security can zoning provide against the possible ravages of the glue factory if its provisions can be rescinded at any time? He is a member of the FEEFaculty Network. Trying to identify which specific policies or procedures are binding constraints on housing supply is not just technically difficultits not really the most important question for policymakers to ask. Value preservation is a will-o-the-wisp, for price is a manifestation of the worth placed on an item not by one person, but by two groups: potential sellers and potential buyers of items like the one in question. Although one must always be cautious and realize that no one solution can offer a total panacea, there is a strong presumption toward the non-zoning extreme of the spectrum. When you have a chance to be heard, no matter the medium, be sure to include facts. If a bribe can convert a land parcel to a use more highly prized by consumers, wealth and the allocation of resources will have been much more nearly optimized. The charge that zoning is used to keep poor people and minorities out of wealthy suburbs has been around for decades. Private Zoning The maintenance of single-family neighborhoods by zoning statutes is also questionable. While citizens have a clear and obvious right to have their homes protected from physical damage, this does not apply to the value of their property. It behooves an LGA, therefore, to do the same. One approach is to allow structures to be built by right, meaning that proposals for new development can be reviewed and approved by administrative staff as long as they conform with dimensional requirements. In effect, planners do not have the incentives to get it right, nor do they suffer the consequences of get-ring it wrong. The competitive system thus can obviate the need for building height restrictions, set back requirements, floor space ratios, and other bureaucratic measures which artificially attempt to limit density. It is thus clearly destructive of these ends. Measuring zoning through planner surveys has two main drawbacks. Todays ordinances are continually growing to accommodate more detailed regulations of use, lot size, building height and bulk; more reasons for granting variances, bonuses, and special exceptions; and much more complicated procedures for appeals and reviews. Sometimes, you may only know development is planned in an area because you notice survey stakes on the property or see some trees being cleared. The procedure instead became one ofjudging each case on its merits in an ad hoc manner. And this is not surprising: to divide all building into residential, commercial, and industrial, as the early enactments did, and then to impose these three categories upon the entire pattern of future construction, is hardly likely to foster architectural innovation. According to this philosophy, urban planners were assumed to have enough wisdom to forecast, at least in broad brush strokes, the future spatial organization of the city. The zoning idea has a certain appeal. (External diseconomies are said to prevail when A harms B by doing C, and B cannot collect damages nor force A to cease and desist from such activities. Meanwhile renterswho tend The contrast with the bureaucratic orientation is stark indeed. Perhaps the answer lies in improving the provision of these services, not in holding down new construction. Without a market-created price system, it is extremely difficult for the public official to rationally allocate resources. Removal of the trees would be detrimental to the natural beauty of the land. Home What's New Organizing Your Community to Oppose a Proposed Development or Zoning Change. Email, call, and visit your elected officials. 4037 Iron Works Parkway WebThe particular form and emphasis of the arguments may change, but the principles which underlie them do not. Proponents of eliminating single-family zoning in Minneapolis advanced three major arguments: reform would make the city more affordable, by expanding the supply of housing; it would make the city fairer, by reducing racial and economic segregation; and it would combat climate change, by reducing commutes and making housing more It is of course true that builders and lenders can make mistakes, and that some over crowded structures might be built, but the inexorable forces of profit and loss would ensure that such errors were few in number. What has been criticized above is government zoning, not the private variety. What is private zoning? ELCR works through our Conservation Members and Partners to raise awareness of issues driving loss of horse lands and to support local action to keep land open to horses. You might even considered posting signs making your opposition highly visible (checking first to be sure you will not be in violation of the local sign codes!). For while the owner has a right to collect damages from the boy who breaks a window with a ball, he has no such right with respect to the man who invented prefabricated housingeven though the latter might well have been responsible for a greater drop in the value of his house than the former. The zoning idea has a certain appeal. The table of contents for Montgomery County, Marylands zoning code (Figure 3) runs for eight pages, while the entire ordinance is nearly 400 pages. A developer who tried to pack too many people into an office building would have difficulty finding mortgage assistance. In one respect these reforms were a plus, for the system became less rigid. The main drawback to this approach is that, given the length and complexity of each law, reading the full code for many jurisdictions is extremely labor-intensive. A developer who tried to pack too many people into an office building would have difficulty finding mortgage assistance. This is not surprising, as large cities have bigger municipal budgets and more full-time planning staff. Councils in NSW made changes in zoning after the state government requested that all zonings within the state be aligned to a comprehensive LEP. Uniformity Follow through until you are sure the issue is settled. at 395. Share you message on social media, with local news stations, your local newspapers, and with all of your networks. In future articles, I will discuss how each of these outcomes can be measured, to help policymakers assess the health of their local housing market. It is akin to claiming the ability to forecast inflation for the next five yearsand then changing the prognostication each week. Ultimately, of course, there can be no absolute guarantee against declining property values. A. Three questions that better capture the impact of regulation are: In the absence of regulatory barriers or other frictions that impede the market, housing stock should adjust to changes in demand to meet all these conditions. But this is all that is meant by private zoning. Find out how to get on the next agenda for your governing board and share your opposition, even if the item is not scheduled for consideration. They seldom track variances requested and granted, or the number of threatened or filed lawsuitsmetrics that would be helpful to policymakers as well as researchers. Another complication to identifying the impact of specific tools or components of zoning is that the same regulation can have very divergent effects on housing markets in different locations or time periods. at 387-88 (citation omitted). Thus it appears that if error and hence the need for correction lies anywhere, it is not with the rapacious builder who places strains on public services, but rather with those charged with the provision of the infrastructure: those in the government sector. Perhaps the answer lies in improving the provision of these services, not in holding down new construction. The effects of incompatible uses on property values are traced. Without zoning, it is contended, external diseconomies will abound: pickle works will come to rest next to single family homes, glue factories beside country clubs, and oil refineries in proximity to restaurants. But any systematic differences between respondents and nonrespondents will limit the usefulness of the survey responses. The fate of this zoning change now rests with Gov. But it also includes such prosaic activities as the individuals arrangement of household furniture, the offices placement of desks and room dividers, the factorys disposition of machines and guardrails, and the shopping malls apportionment of its tenants. For instance, a six-story maximum height for apartment buildings would be a binding constraint in midtown Manhattan, but not in rural Kansas. It must be emphasized that zoning is only one weapon in the planning arsenal: even were these restrictions scrapped in their entirety, the public authorities would still exercise great control over land use patterns through (1) provision of infrastructure and amenities, such as parks, water mains, sewer placements, and the layout of freeway and major arterial streets; and (2) direct land use controls concerning building heights, set backs, floor space ratios, and the like, but applied uniformly to an entire city, and not differentially to districts within its boundaries. Zoning is a rigid control, and is likely to fracture during times of change in consumer tastes, neighborhood demographic structure, urban growth, and transportation and building technologies. The steep slope of the property is subject to serious erosion. Opponents argued that the initiative would prevent development that is key to the city's economy and to filling housing needs. Similarly the real issue here is not the choice between zoning and non-zoning; it is between private and governmental zoning. Uniformity would mean that all market participants view C as harmful.). After reviewing the challenged zoning ordinance and the arguments for and against it, the Court concluded the following: There are currently no townhouses in the area. Opposing a by-right development will be more challenging than opposing a rezoning, where there is typically an established, formal process for public input, and you will have to create your own opportunities to make your voice heard. He risks none of his own money, and can earn no honest profit from correct choices. But this change ushered in a new crop of problems. Other questions try to elicit data that most communities dont systematically track. Confronting the charge that zoning is all that stands between a viable urban environment and chaos is Exhibit A, the City of Houstonwhich has never enacted such legislation. Since the various tenants are contractually unrelated to one another, the situation is closely analogous to governmental zoning. After all, zoning has not worked very well. He will gain a competitive advantage over those of his colleagues who are not similarly skilled. Tom Flanigan. Alternatively, zoning may require that certain proposed developments undergo additional reviews before approval; building types that require additional review are sometimes called conditional use or special use. The process required for conditional uses varies widely across cities and counties (and even across zones and use types within a locality), but usually requires the landowner or developer to hold public meetings where residents and advocates may voice concerns over the project. Be very careful when talking about traffic and property values as negative impacts of development. The wooded area in question is home to many animals, and is the natural habitat for the Pileated Woodpecker, a protected species under the Migratory Bird Act. Find this content useful? Literally dozens of districts have been defined; what may and may not be done with each is subject to a bewildering and growing number of regulations. The most well-known example is, of course, Houstons system of deed restrictions. But technical tools still dont get around some of the conceptual hurdles to evaluating restrictiveness. Circulate a petition, on line and on paper. Zoning can increase the cost of building new structures. Zoning can work against historic mixed use neighborhoods in older communities. To a certain extent, zoning limits the development potential of previously existing land uses and structures that do not conform with the zonings standards. A fall in the price of wood, an increase in the market rate of interest, the sale of publicly held lands, technological improvements in prefabrication methods can all reduce housing prices. Each component of zoning emerged to address concerns over the spillover impacts of new development on surrounding neighborhoods. The trees provide some protection against this. Arguments for zoning are so widely made and frequently accepted that even those who otherwise appreciate the merits of the competitive market system have felt constrained to make an exception in this instance. First things first, understand what is being proposed. Be sure to use appropriate hashtags, which can help generate interest in and attention to your cause. But this is all that is meant by private zoning. Here the practice is not to hem in the private market with a bewildering array of complex zoning restrictions, but rather to cooperate with the land developer by forecasting the growth patterns in order that the city government may supply the necessary municipal facilities and services. The natural proclivities of the market would also protect against the hit and run land developer who is said to leave an excessive population in his wake, swamping municipal services. In recent years, a few researchers have started taking advantage of technological tools to capture zoning data, such as digitizing zoning maps or using text analysis and machine learning to code written laws. The purpose of zoning, and its sole reason for existing, is to give government control over the use of all land within the community. Id. Rising concerns about housing affordability, racial inequality and climate change are causing cities nationwide to re-examine their attachment to the detached house. A good way to begin the process is to circulate a petition against the zoning variance request around the neighborhood, obtain signatures, addresses and telephone Thus merchants match store areas to particular uses. The latter is especially critical in this area which, even in its current state, regularly experiences flooding when it rains. For instance, all of Falls Churchs R zones are intended for residential uses, ranging from single-family detached homes in the R1-A and R1-B zones to apartment buildings in the R-M zones. He also adjusted his plans to remove outdoor play. The case is an exact parallel to the planning debate. There are currently no townhouses in the area. I think the state is overstepping its authority here, Poe said. This system is far more flexible. As has been said many times before, people must plan if they are to act rationally. Without a market-created price system, it is extremely difficult for the public official to rationally allocate resources. But the view that zoning is the best guarantee of stability is inconsistent with the evidence: The stability of neighborhoods that zoning seeks to protect thus appears to be endangered by the rezoning that is part and parcel of the enactment of zoning by-laws in the first place. It is in this way that the market promotes efficient zoning. Under this ordinance, the pickle factory would be prohibited from residential neighborhoods and required to locate itself in a special industrial area, reserved for that kind of operation. Items for sale must be deployed in the most advantageous manner possible. The success of each enterprise rests, in great part, upon the skill in such zoning. If the grocer discovers, for example, that apples and oranges sell better in close proximity, or that the juxtaposition of corn and peas detracts from the sale of both, without any offsetting benefits on the remainder of the stock, he can profit by incorporating this information into his zoning decision making. Be sure to include your elected officials in your communications and ask them to attend your meetings. Standard components include the minimum lot size (the smallest amount of land on which one structure can be built), a maximum building height, and setbacks (how close the building can be to the edge of the lot in each direction). Zoners are likewise subject to miscalculation; the problem is that there are no automatic bankruptcy procedures to weed out bureaucrats with poor judgment. There is a vast reservoir of private zoning efforts operating in the economy, unreported, under- publicized. Each has demonstrated (the former in his analysis of rules not authorities in monetary policy; the latter in his work on the rule of law) that to consider matters on a case by case basis is to color the judicial process with stultifying arbitrariness. Thirdly, zoning complexity and changeability have spawned graft and corruption. Pay attention until the decision is finalized. Because of private marketplace zoning, we find no filling stations at the end of cul-de-sacs; ship channel industries are, naturally, located along the Ship Channel, and so on. Use your email and listserv networks, social media, flyers, word of mouth, go door to door, set up a website, host a meeting, and use any other communication tools available to share information. One of the most persuasive arguments against zoning is the fact that it institutionalizes errors. Oppose rezoning applications that do not promote healthy growth nor benefit existing residents. And if you live in a rapidly developing and changing area, your local elected officials may hear a lot of opposition to every rezoning request that all begins to sound like generalized fear and dislike of change. It is Lenders would realize that such compressed conditions would overload services, resulting in tenant dissatisfaction, lower rents, and the possibility of mortgage default. Charles Marohn. Higher courts get final say on whether plaintiffs must pre-pay states legal fees. This parcel includes 1000 linear feet of Crooked Creek, a primary tributary of the Eno River; 3,000 linear feet of other tributaries, and a pond.