Zoning In The United States

In 1969, Massachusetts fashioned the law 40B, famously referred to as the “Anti-Snob Zoning Act”, which allows developers to bypass land use restrictions in towns where less than ten percent of the housing meets the state definition of affordable. There are multiple positions and solutions to friction in Massachusetts largely inspired by controversy surrounding the State's affordable housing law, Massachusetts General Laws chapter 40B between housing advocates and open space advocates. This thesis reviews and critiques the current law, and diagnoses various legislative proposals for the progressive feud.

In “New Axioms for Reading the Landscape: Paying Attention to Political Economy and Social Justice,” Don Mitchell incorporates old ideas from Peirce F. Lewis’s original “Axioms for Reading the Landscape.” At the same time, Mitchell includes new ideas into his axioms. In Axiom 1, he explains that “the landscape is not produced through ‘our unwitting autobiography’ (as Lewis describes it), but as an act of (social, not individual) will” (2007, 34). He also stresses the idea that landscape should be produced as a commodity. In contrast, Neil Smith explains the main causes behind gentrification. Smith explains how gentrification happens through a process which he calls “rent gap” (1979, 545). In gentrification, the landscape is a commodity because it loses and gains monetary value through disinvestment and investment.

Amongst topics of conversation regarding eminent domain, one will find regulatory usage of land, seizing of land for public use, and the most controversial of late, the seizing of land from a private owner and giving it to a more economically beneficial, often politically connected private owner. Kelo v New London (US 2005), has prompted dozens of proposals to reform eminent domain practices legislatively. Most of these proposals would restrict the use of eminent domain to transfer property from one private individual to another. It is one thing to have a city claim property to further the development of the city by building roads, schools, etc. It is another thing altogether for the government to seize a property so as to gain money from higher taxation. For many years, however, courts have read the public-use restraint broadly, enabling governments to take property from one owner, often small and powerless, and transfer it to another, often large and politically connected, all in the name of economic development, urban renewal, or job creation.

The Iowa City Zoning Code was designed to be developed together with the Iowa City Comprehensive Plan; the goal is to stimulate the progress of a better quality of life for the population. Moreover, the regulations cover the provisions of the law for land use control in Iowa City. The document regulates the land use authorization for each of the zones and details the specific areas outlined in Iowa City. There are many land use area in the Iowa City Zoning Ordinance, as shown in Map 1 (Appendix C). However, this document will cover the use of residential land and will explain three of them: the Low-Density Single-Family Residential Zone (RS-5), Medium Density Multi-Family Residential Zone (RM-20), and Neighborhood Stabilization Residential

First, rezoning action is quasi-judicial in nature, subject to strict scrutiny on certiorari review. Second, a landowner who demonstrates that proposed use of the property is consistent with comprehensive plan is not presumptively entitled to such use. Third, a landowner seeking to rezone a property has burden of proving that proposal is consistent with the comprehensive plan, and consequently burden shifts to the zoning board to demonstrate legitimate public purpose of maintaining existing zoning classification. Finally, the board is not

I care deeply about the planet Earth, the home humans originate from, so it pains me to watch “modern” society devastate natural life across the board. I feel personally connected to the issue of how we use our land. Having lived in the Lee County area since birth, I have noticed just in our own little part of the world how much “development” can change things. There used to be so much more plant life: trees, grasses, flowers and a myriad of other greenery. What was once considered “empty” lots, by some, have been adapted to suit human desires be it additional roads, restaurants, shopping malls, and a continuing spread of “chain” corporate industries. Beyond human structures, huge amounts of land also are cultivated for industrial farming

Distinguished in chapters three and four of The Color of Law, racial zoning is a way for organizations to manipulate and control what neighborhoods African-Americans and other ethnic minority groups reside in. Due to this, many of African-Americans viewed racial zoning as a serious threat to their well-being in the United States. With the help of Jim Crow laws, exclusionary zoning, and the "On-Your-Own-Home" campaign, banks and real-estate agents had provoked economic discrimination towards various ethnic minority groups. Furthermore, through the concepts of dysfunctionalism, social inequality, latent functionalism, and Eurocentrism as seen in The Real World, racial zoning has negatively affected African-Americans from breaking out of what the world considers them to be.

An important part of this model was to divide the Champion lands into separate but complementary ownerships on the basis of ecological values and basic management purposes: areas with the greatest ecological significance would be publicly owned and protected, with timber harvesting precluded on substantial acreages to allow natural processes like forest succession to occur unimpeded; and the most productive timber lands, with fewer special ecological values, would be kept in private ownership with a requirement that they be managed for long-term sustainable forestry. Public access for a variety of historic uses and other activities would be guaranteed on the entirety of the property.

Zoning Codes are considered codes that are used to regulate the land that will be used as well as preconditions to the building used. According to (Freeman, Decker & Decker, 2013) Zoning codes state if a property can be used as commercial or residential. The Zoning regulations are put into place because child care centers need to be placed in areas that are good and in a safe environment for children. For Example: A child care center would not be placed in a high crime area or a known high drug area. Zoning codes play a major part in a business as the codes are written laws that must be adhered to as it dictates how a property in an area can be used. The zoning regulations that must be met are landscaping, the parking to include handicap,

The municipal government can support urban agriculture by developing zoning bylaw. In Toronto City, wide zoning bylaw was enacted in 2013. In May 2013, Brown and Wakefield, 2013, recommended that the zoning bylaw needs a subcategory of urban agriculture zone. These are very important to the promotion of urban agriculture, however, in official zoning by law, 2013, land use for agriculture use is categorized under Toronto Park, Forestry and Recreation, the emphasis was not given to urban promote urban agriculture. It is important to categorize land as “urban agriculture zone” which will promote urban

Although the trend is to think that planning is a recent concept, urban planning is not new. Chicago is a prime example, it was the first city to be laid out according to a plan; the plan included aspiring ideas for the river and lakefront as well as the idea that every citizen should be within walking distance of a park. As history shows us early cities intentionally designed narrow streets to make it difficult for an enemy to move through the city easily. Yet today’s plans have wider streets, setbacks and green space integrated throughout a city.

Residential areas refer to spaces of land generally considered for housing activities, rather than for commercial and industrial purposes. On the other hand, zoning is the process by which the local government determines the uses of land for different purposes by designating each activity to a given piece of land using a map of zones, which include residential, industrial, commercial and forest activities among others. Residential zoning, therefore, is the process by which the government control or oversee the constructions that are strictly for residential purposes, governed by laws and mostly in use in developed cities. This essay is an in-depth analysis of residential zoning practises, with a focus on the case of the

Since the latest administrative boundary adjustment of Beijing in 1958, there have been five urban master plans drafted in 1958, 1973, 1982, 1992 and 2004. Each master plan was associated with a planned overall land use map. Individual land parcels in the map were assigned with a land classification of either urban (residential, commercial, industrial, public green land, and mixed-use land) or non-urban (farmland, forestland, and wetland) (Long, Gu, & Han, 2012). The maps guide the future urban development, and actual land uses should conform to the land classification plan.

In order for Agenda 21 to be effective, land use must be controlled by the governments of the world. No decision-making would be left in the hands of private property owners as they cannot be trusted as stewards of their land. Individual rights are to give way to the needs of communities as determined by the governing body. The Wildlands Project projects the reclamation of most of the land, while humans will be packed into islands of human habitation, close to employment centers and transportation.

In the late period of 20th century, the accelerated development of urbanisation led to the excessively consumption of city land and destruction of the balance of ecological system in the US. In order to regulate the urban sprawl, some North American scholars started to review this kind of uncontrolled approach of land exploitation in 1990s. It was reported by the American President’s Council on Sustainable Development that “green infrastructure strategies actively seek to understand, leverage, and value the different ecological, social, and economic functions provided by natural systems in order to guide more efficient and sustainable land use and development patterns as well as protect ecosystems” in 1999, as a result, it boosted the boom of green infrastructure.