SARA BRONIN: Welcome to Property Law 101.
I'm Sara Bronin.
And I created the series so that you could understand
the fundamentals of property and property law
through four broad questions.
Today we're talking about the third question, using property.
And we're talking about public land use regulation
in the form of zoning.
So zoning is the public regulation
of land uses, structures, and lots
through the assignment of lots to
distinctly regulated districts.
For your information, this definition
comes from the draft 403 statement of property law.
I'm helping to draft the first ever land use
volume in a restatement.
As we say in the restatement, the word zoning
includes both zoning codes as they are written and zoning
decisions which officials make in reaction to zoning
applications.
We'll cover zoning applications and the deal making
and flexibility that surrounds them in another video.
But for now we ask, how does zoning work?
All right.
So zoning codes typically include
both a map and a written code.
This can be in the form of an ordinance or regulations.
The map shows you where zones or districts are.
The number of zones in any particular jurisdiction varies.
In a recent study of Connecticut zoning codes,
I found an average of 14.5 districts for each zoning
jurisdiction.
There were some jurisdictions with one zone.
And there were other jurisdictions
with as many as 40 zones.
Most of these were regular or base districts.
Some of these were overlay districts
that can be layered on top of a base zone
and change the characteristics of the underlying zone.
The code, meanwhile, explains how the districts
must be regulated.
For example, the code will specify what kinds of uses
will occur within particular districts.
These uses might be agricultural, industrial,
residential, commercial, open space,
or other types of uses, subcategories
of these for example.
In the Connecticut study, we found
that most zones are residential zones, either primarily
residential districts or districts
allowing a mix of residential and non-residential uses.
In fact, over 2/3 of residential land
allows only single family housing as a right.
Only about a quarter of districts
allowed no residential at all.
Zoning codes also dictate how buildings and structures must
or may be built. It says how tall buildings can be
and how bulky, really how big they can be.
It says how they will appear on a lot as well.
In another video, we cover zoning codes
that emphasize the form of buildings.
These are called form-based codes, somewhat explicably.
The code will also say how large lots
have to be for certain uses.
So a really common provision of zoning codes
is that they require a minimum acreage for each housing unit.
Single family zoning very often has a minimum lot size
for each house.
In that Connecticut study I just mentioned,
68.5% of land zoned primarily for residential uses
has a minimum size of one acre or more.
It's about 81% if you include 0.92 acres or more
or 40,000 square feet or more.
These types of regulations reduce density of development
and create sprawl.
Once the zoning code is created, there's
a process by which people can put in applications
to get a zoning permit.
The nature of the process will be set forth
by both state enabling acts and local law.
But usually, there are three bodies that play a role.
OK.
So first is a legislative governing body like a city
council or a board of aldermen.
It's in charge of the map and the text
of the zoning code itself.
One exception to this among states
is Connecticut, which uniquely allows
cities to delegate the power to draft and amend
zoning codes to planning and zoning commissions.
So the legislative body is also in charge
of rezonings, which is a way to change the map or text
of the zoning ordinance.
Second body that plays a role in zoning
are boards of zoning appeals or boards of zoning adjustment.
They can hear particular applications,
but their primary function is to consider
requests for minor deviations like variances.
So we will talk about variances in another video.
Third body is the planning commission.
So planning commissions deal with a comprehensive plan
and also advise the legislative body about decisions
that body has to make.
State laws or judicial decisions sometimes
require zoning laws to be tied to comprehensive plans.
And in those jurisdictions, planning commissions
play a very important role.
There is another important player in the zoning scheme.
And that is the staff of the local jurisdiction.
So the town planner or the zoning enforcement official
will really be the one on the ground interacting
with property owners hoping to do something
with their properties and putting in applications
pursuant to zoning processes.
As they enforce the zoning code, these staff members
might be able to issue fines or fees or a stop work order.
They might also be able to force property owners to remove
structures that do not comply.
That's a rare remedy but it does happen.
If you're interested in learning more about the Connecticut
example, download my paper on SSRN, which
was uploaded in February 2021.
It provides a wealth of information
about what zoning codes are and what they do.
So I will leave it there.
I'd love to hear from you whether on Twitter
or through my website where you can sign up to my mailing list.
And see you next time.