Land Use and Zoning

Land use and zoning structures differ from one another, yet both are regulatory tools that help communities manage development. Creative land use and zoning concepts are used to satisfy the residents’ needs and goals, and to protect their interests.

Land use is defined by broad categories including residential, commercial, agricultural, recreational, and transportation. Land use is determined by a city or county's comprehensive plan, which governs the future use of property.

Zoning can honor the history of a community and preserve the social structure, its cultural values, and the way it governs itself.

How Zoning Developments Differ

Land use and zoning structures differ from one another, yet both are regulatory tools that help communities manage development. Creative land use and zoning concepts are used to satisfy the residents’ needs and goals, and to protect their interests.

Land use is defined by broad categories including residential, commercial, agricultural, recreational, and transportation. Land use is determined by a city or county's comprehensive plan, which governs the future use of property.

Zoning can honor the history of a community and preserve the social structure, its cultural values, and the way it governs itself.

Mixed-use developments offer more than one use or purpose within a shared building or land area. Mixed-use projects may include any combination of shopping/retail, housing units and apartments, office spaces, medical facilities, recreational, and commercial components within the same site or plats of land. This type of development usually occurs in high-density urban areas where space is limited and holds more value.

Traditional zoning is conventional in its design and separates areas of land based on land use and economic function. By doing so, conflict between residential and industrial areas is prevented.

Subdivisions refer to the division of land into two or more parcels, sites, or lots. It can also include the realignment of existing property lines or the consolidation of two or more lots into a single lot. Subdividing allows developers to build new properties on separate parcels of land. New communities are usually best served economically by subdivision construction.

Conservation zoning protects open, undeveloped land and allows for certain concentrated development. A conservation easement is a pact between a property owner and a land trust or other organization in which the property owner agrees to place restrictions on the use of the property to protect and conserve natural resources such as water supply sources, woodland areas, and wildlife.