2.1 Determine Applicable Codes, Regulations, and Permitting Requirements Flashcards
Two types of legal powers
Corporate and Police
Authority to collect revenues (from bonds, fees, taxes, and assessments) and to spend these monies to provide services and facilities (such as roads, water and sewage facilities, parks, etc.).
Corporate Power
Authority to regulate citizen behavior (including the use of private property) in order to promote the health, safety, and welfare of the public.
Police Power
Statement of development policies for a city or region and includes diagrams and text setting forth objectives, principles, standards, and plan proposals
Sets the general direction, and then over time, the City’s staff translates this direction into the zoning and building codes that govern our work as designers.
Comprehensive Plan
- Physical: It is a guide to the physical development of the community.
- Long Range: It covers time periods of 5 years or longer.
- Comprehensive: It covers the entire city or county geographically.
- Statement of Policy: It assesses and describes community desires relating to land use and how they are to be achieved.
Characteristics of a Comprehensive Plan
Examples of elements include:
- land use (general distribution, lotation and extent use of land)
- transportation (existing and proposed thoroughfares)
- community facilities (parks, open space)
- housing
- economic development
- critical and sesitive areas (conservation, use of natural resources)
- natural hazards (protection rom risks)
- agricultural land element
Elements of a Comprehensive Plan
regulatory tools that local governments use to guide development in a defined area; more detailed than comprehensive plans; sets goals, objectives, policies, and programs;
Can not be adopted or amended unless consistent with comprehensive plan;
must be in the form of a written text and map
Regional and Neighborhood Plans
Large in Scale and can include several cities and cross state lines
Regional Plan
Smaller in Scale and relate to a part of a city
Neighborhood Plans
Land use planning, zoning, subdivision, and building regulations are under which power?
Police Power
- Regulate the use of buildings, structures, and land between industry, business, residences, open space, agriculture, recreation, scenic beauty, use of natural resources and other purposes
- Regulate signs and billboards
- Regulate the following:
- location, height bulk, # of stories, and size of buildings and fences
- size and use of lots, yards, courts, and other open spaces
- percentage of a lot which may be occupied by a building or structure
- est. requirements for off-street parking and loading
- est. and maintain building setback lines
- create civic districts around civic centers, public parks, public buildings, or public grounds & est. regulations for those civic districts
Zoning Ordinance
Who develops and regulates subdivisions and common use developments?
Local governmental agencies
Limited to the dedication of rights-of-way, easements, and the construction of reasonable offsite and onsite improvements of the parcels being created
Subdivision Regulations
Standards dictated by ___ may include:
- Lot shape and minimum lot size
- Road rights-of-way dimensions, layout, and construction standards
- Types and widths of easements for utilities and access ways
- Construction standards for the provision of water, sewage, power, drainage systems and other common infrastructure
- Open space requirements such as dedication of land for parks
Subdivision Regulations
Same number of units for that amount of land clustered with smaller lots to provide more open space
Cluster zoning
Affirmative right to use another person’s land for specific purpose;
Automatically continue to apply to a parcel of land even if the property changes ownership;
May restrict use of land within the ____ by the property owner if such use interferes with the use of the ____ grantee
Enforcement: by the benefitting party
Easement
What are the two types of covenants?
Restrictive and Affirmative
Restriction on the right to use land that applies to the owner of the property
Restrictive Property
Property owner agrees to take certain actions that benefit other parties (usually on adjacent parcels)
Affirmative Covenant
In order for a covenant to continue in force if the land changes ownership, what legal requirements are needed to be met?
A. Must be in writing
B. Intent of the covenant to continue with the land must be part of the original agreement
C. Subsequent property owners must be given notice of the covenant at the time of purchase
Diagram used to show how your purchased property is divided within your county, city, or neighborhood. It serves as a guide to a tract of land that has been created by licensed surveyors.
Contains:
- lot line locations and dimensions
- lot numbers
- road and street rights of way
- street names
- utility and other easements
Assessors information; can use if you dont have a surveyor
Plat Map
Regulate the construction, erection, enlargement, alteration, repair, moving, improvement, removing, conversion, demo and occupancy of all buildings and structures.
Includes building, plumbing, mechanical, electrical
Modified by state legislatures and apply to all construction within that state. Local govs may further modify.
Firecodes are not included
Building Code
Additional rights which goes with or pertains to the land, but is not necessarily a part of it. Examples include a right of way or a building. Appurtenances go with the land when it is sold.
Appurtenance
Rental or owner-occupied housing that costs no more than 30 percent of a household’s total monthly income.
Affordable Housing
Process in which an unincorporated area joins an adjacent city
Annexation
Considers variances to planning ordinances for specific developments
Board of Adjustment
Land or water designated to separate one use from another. e.g., to shield or block noise, light or other nuisances
Buffer Zone
term that needed services be in place or planned for before new development is approved. Also referred to as Phased Development Controls
Concurrency
A ratio of the gross floor area of a building to the total area of the site. (Note: May vary by jurisdiction)
Floor Area Ratio
Total floor area contained within a building including the horizontal area of external walls. (Note: May vary by jurisdiction)
Gross Floor Area
Regulations that increase housing choice by establishing requirements and providing incentives for constructing a wide variety of housing types.
Inclusionary Zoning
A general term that can apply to many different types of plans. It is usually associated with a specific project or site, and describes long-range goals that will be accomplished in phases. It can be a study issued as a report, or a very preliminary plan drawing developed in the early stages of designing a site, or most confusingly, a type of Comprehensive Plan in certain states
Master Plan
Laws passed by a local government which support the General or Comprehensive Plan.
Ordinances
An agreement restricting the use of real property which is attached to the conveyance (deed) and which is binding on subsequent purchasers of the property.
Restrictive Covenant
The right of an owner to the use and enjoyment of water which flows across or along his land. It includes a right of an owner of land abutting a body of water to make use of the water area for piers, boat houses, for fishing, boating and navigation, and the right of access for such purposes.
Riparian Rights
A taking is a case when the government has denied a property owner use of their property in a way that causes financial damages, and has not compensated the owner in a fair way.
Taking
A means to allow an applicant for a development permit to alleviate a hardship that is inherent in a piece of land. Sets a precedence
Variance
State statutes largely control land-use planning and regulation in the US; authorizes local governments to adopt and implement local statutes governing land use and development. Delegated by police power
ordinances/ by laws
Forbidding the unreasonable use of one’s property. Can be interfering with another interest in the use or enjoyment of his or her property (private), or with health, safety, peace etc of general community (public)
nuisance law
Regulations ( via police power) must be tied to a valid public purpose
Substantive due process
Regulations enacted and implemented under a public purpose so that those directly affected have a meaningful opportunity to participate
Procedural Due Process
Right to use property in some way that the government may not limit or extinguish. This can occur if a developer has made substantial or extensive expenditures in reasonable reliance on governmental action. A landowner will be protected when: (1) relying in good faith, (2) upon some act or omission of the government, (3) he has made substantial changes or otherwise committed himself to his substantial disadvantage prior to a zoning change.
Vested Right
Power of the government to take property for public use with just compensation (fair market value).
Eminent Domain
Something the local zoning authority requires a property owner to give to the community, in order to obtain approval to develop land
Exaction
What does a Zoning Ordinance regulate?
- types of land uses allowed
- intensity or density of development
- height, bulk, and placement of structures
- Amount and design of parking
- lot size
Organized in this way:
- General provisions
- use standards
- intensity and density standards
- dimensional standards
- development standards for hazard areas or sensitive lands
- nonconformity standards
- development review procedures
- appeal and variance provisions
- enforcement provisions
- amendment provisions
Who hears administrative appeals and requests fr hardship variances from zoning standards, and may decide applications for conditional or special use permits?
Zoning Board
Identify the land uses and the restrictions of limitations specific to each permitted use for each zoning district
Use Standards
Permitted as long as they comply with other applicable standards
“by right” uses
May become compatible with the districts permitted uses, but are subject to discretionary review and supplemental standards intended to ensure that the particular standards intended to ensure that the particular proposed use is compatible with other uses permitted in the district.
Conditional or special uses
Incidental or subordinate to the districts permitted “principal” uses
Accessory Uses
Specifically declared as not allowed in the district, or not allowed there in specific circumstances. Zoning ordinances generally state that all uses not specifically listed as permitted are prohibited, but may list prohibited uses to clarify that certain uses are not included as part of some general listed permitted use.
Prohibited uses
Maximum ration of building floor area to land area. More commonly applied to nonresidential development
Maximum FAR
Division of a tract of land for building and development purposes; Includes the standards for the design and layout of lots, streets, utilities, and other public improvements, as well as procedures and requirements to ensure that public improvements are available when it is time to build on the lots
subdivision ordincance
Who is responsible for subdivision regulation in most states?
Local government’s planning commission
What is typically contained within a subdivision ordinance?
- General Provisions
- Review Procedures
- Performance Guarantees
- Vested Right Provisions
- Development Standards
This merges zoning and subdivision controls and allows developers to plan and develop a large area as a single entity with the design flexibility to mix land uses, housing types, and densities, and to phase large developments over a number of years
Planned unit development
Superimposed. districts on top of portions of one or more underlying general use-based zoning districts that allow application of additional standards addressing a special purpose (ex. historic preservation or flood plain protection)
Overlay Zoning Districts
Unmapped zoning districts whose standards are described in the text of the zoning ordinance but are applied to land only through a rezoning approval of a proposed development meeting the district’s standards.
Floating Zones
Defines the character of a zoning district according to the allowable intensity of development rather than use, relying on measures such as FAR and impervious surface coverage
Performance Zoning
Developers are awarded additional development capacity in exchange for a public benefit (ex. low income housing or amenity such as open space)
Incentive zoning
Regulate building form rather than, or in addition to, land use
Form based zoning
