Agenda - Planning Commission - 07/05/1995

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Page Three THE ZONING REPORT probably 98% are. S~nce a zoning lot can con- tain only one use, inimany codes, a lot of rec- ord might be dividediinto several zoning lots if there are several users on the same lot of rec- ord, one zoning lot !for eadh use. And con- versely, several contiguous lots of record or ~ . portions of lots of r~cord under single owner- ship or control havin~ jointly one use together are one zoning lot. In some codes, lack of co- incidence occurs w~en a planned single-site project under one o~vnership legally has more than one principal b~ilding or use on the lot, such as a shoppingI center or an apartment complex, where the ~code requires either but not. both the lot of~ record or zoning lot to contain only one mai~ building. Many zoning codes ae~d qualifiers to their defi- nition of zone lot an~ lot of record. Most ap- ply the qualification~ to zoning lots, requiring only that the lot of~ record contain only one main building and thee open space required by the zoning code around the building. Common qualifiers require the zoning lot to be under ~ontrol, to abut a public single ownership or street or an approved private accessway, to meet lot area and w'.~dth standards of the zone district in which it i~ located, and perhaps in rural areas, to mee~ a maximum rati}~ of lot depth to width, to icontrol creation of strip residential plank lots~ A qualifier for zoning lots and lots of record is that they be co~tained in one contiguous pOrtion~ not separated by any ROW or inter- vening ownership. A]Jthough extensively shaped by case law in each ~tate, substandard contigu- ous vacant lots of re~ord or portions under the same ownership must~be combined to form con- forming zoning lots. A few codes allow ~ny lot of record that was created under a prio~r code or before any code. was in effect, whet~er it was legally created or met the zoning r~gulations then in effect, to be accepted now ~as a legal zoning lot. It must be mapped to s~rvey standards, be under single ownership, b~ recorded, meet current zoning lot area and standards and abut a public ROW or approved pri~ate accessway. Three possible sets of the definition of tract and parcel Under one set, the words 'tract' and 'parcel' are defined in some state land division statutes and local codes under these statutes to provide for parcelization or partitioning. It creates a lawful method and procedure for iocalities to control the division and conveyanc, e of vacant and undeveloped land. It allows land in large acreages to be divided under law that had been divided and conveyed without effective local development controls. The acreages involved and plots created are too large to qualify for land subdivision. The pieces of land intended as single owner- ship units created in a land division by parceli- zation or partition are 'termed parcels. The parent pieces of land from which parcels through parcelization and lots through subdivi- sion are created are termed tracts and some codes define these as 'parent tracts.' In jurisdictions with a parcelization code, a tract can be divided into other tracts by law- ful land division not involving parcelization. This can be the break-up of a farm into two bona-fide farms. But all resultant tracts, par- cels and lots, whether or not by parcelization, must meet the zoning code requirements of minimum size, width and ROW frontage. In some states and localities, parcels and lots for non-farm uses cannot be located, if possible, in mapped special resource overlay districts or areas: on mapped prime agricultural soils, in commercially viable forestry areas, on soils tested as being unsuitable for septic disper- sion or in areas determined to be wetlands or excessively steep hillsides. As authorized by these state statutes, many recent local rural zoning codes have imposed exclusive farm zone districts~ which require a minimum lot or tract area of 20-40 or more acres per dwelling. These large-area districts preclude divisions and parcelizations that cre- ate estate-type farmettes purporting to be bona-fide farms in a split-up of a farm, small residential plank lots stripped along rural roads and large-lot urban subdivisions in rural areas. June 23, 1995 Issue