Geography/Planning 379 “Urban Growth & Development” Lecture 21: Zoning

1. Geography/Planning 379 “Urban Growth & Development”Lecture 21: Zoning 1. Fiscal Zoning 2. Controlling Externalities: The Legal Basis of Zoning 3. Zoning Concepts 4. Impacts of Zoning Reading: Required: Textbook Ch. 13, 336-368 Optional: Peters; Hagman “Zoning can protect you against the small, inefficient entrepreneur. Zoning can protect the big fellow against the marauding of little guys who have nothing at all in mind.” –John E. Burchard

2. 1. Fiscal Zoning Definition: Enacting land use regulations to enhance a jurisdiction's property tax base Distorts prices of land and may result in less than optimal location decisions From last time… Political Fragmentation Solution Strategies, Category: Fiscal Reform • Tax-base sharing (Minneapolis – St. Paul) Pool of revenues allocated back out to jurisdictions based on population and “tax need” Each locality contributes 40% of all increase tax revenues from new non-residential uses

3. 2. Controlling Externalities: Legal Basis of Zoning • Spillover effects or “Externalities” • Both positive and negative externalities • First Zoning Code: NYC 1916 • Outgrowth of “The Common Law of Nuisances” • Central Principle : “One must use one’s own property rights so as not to infringe upon the rights of others • Arose out of “Police Powers of the State” – not as planning tool for regulating land use • Landmark Court Case: City of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Company (1929)

4. 3. Zoning Concepts • Two main structural types of zoning: • Exclusive • Hierarchical • Exclusive zones: identify directly the use and intensity of development permitted for parcels in the zone; rezoning needed for anything else Examples: Single-family homes on 1-acre lots; City of Tucson: P-I • Hierarchical zones: identify the “highest permitted use”: all “lower” uses are also permitted Examples: City of Tucson R1→R3 Categories IndustryRetailMFRSFRZone 4 RetailMFRSFRZone 3 MFRSFRZone 2 SFRZone 1

5. 3. Zoning Concepts • Problems with hierarchical zones: don’t necessarily screen out externalities • Problems with exclusive zones: inflexible, can be exclusionary Density Zoning – controls on height, building-to-floor ratio, lot size, lot coverage, square footage, etc. EarlyNYC health concern: sunlight reaching street: • 1961, implemented Bonus or Incentive Zoning: more space allowed if open spaces or plazas provided at street level; could have straight sides “Wedding Cake Architecture”

6. 3. Zoning Concepts Special District Zoning Examples: Entertainment district; City of Tucson HPZ (overlay zone) • One area where has been used: regulation of adult businesses (e.g., Boston’s “Combat Zone”) Transferable Development Rights – sell foregone development rights to others who can then develop at higher densities Example: TDRs used to promote historic preservation… 10-storyheight limit 8 stories of foregone rights; can be sold to office-building developers

7. 3. Zoning Concepts Planned Unit Development • One major criticism of traditional zoning: forces too much artificial separation of land uses that don’t need to be separated: results in boring and inefficient patterns of development • Planned Unit Development specifies amount of land uses of each type permitted in a development, but leaves the location of residences, retailing, workplaces up to negotiation between master planners working for the developer and the local planners • Local Example: La Paloma development

8. 4. Impacts of Zoning • Profoundly influences land markets; creates segmented markets • Suppose “too little” land zoned commercial… What does that do to the price? • What is more likely in the real world? • Has become a tool to protect investments • Helps avoid deficiencies in land market by controlling externalities that can occur; provides more certainty • Can be manipulated to benefit a few • Rezonings (“upzoning”) can produce “windfall” profits • Can be used to maintain homogeneous social class neighborhoods • One study found that 50% of all variation in housing prices between suburban communities is accounted for by exclusionary zoning

9. 4. Impacts of Zoning • Conclusions… • Zoning is really not a good planning tool • It never was designed to be one • Rather it was developed to protect established property rights • …but we don’t have any other legal tool to influence urban growth and development patterns

10. POP QUIZ Name __________ Which was the landmark Supreme Court case that in 1929 confirmed the right of municipalities to zone land? • Roe v. Wade • Brown v. Topeka Board of Education • City of Euclid, Ohio v. Ambler Realty Company • Charles Darwin Estate v. Scopes, Oklahoma Planning Commission