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Consolidating Zoning Districts <br />By Donald L. Elliott, FA/CP <br />"Council wants another new zone district ?" sighed Peter Planalot. "1 can't even Keep <br />track of the ones we already have, and I'm the planning director! We need to get rid of <br />some of the existing districts before we add new ones." <br />I never actually heard Peter make the above <br />statement, because he doesn't exist. But I <br />suspect that many planning directors and <br />zoning administrators would sympathize <br />with Peter's frustration. As cities grow and <br />counties mature,'they need to accommodate <br />new kinds of development, and that often <br />leads to the creation of new zoning districts. <br />They don't exactly breed like rabbits, but <br />they do tend to proliferate over time. In A <br />Better Way to Zone, I quoted statistics from <br />Denver as an example. Its 1923 zoning or- <br />dinance had 13 districts, the 1957 code had <br />1 9, by 1 994 it was up to 42, and its 2010 <br />code has 107 districts. <br />Proliferation of zone districts creates <br />several problems, none of them fatal but <br />most of them annoying. First, the creation of <br />a new district needs to be reflected in all of <br />the nor- district based - controls in the zon- <br />ing code. If the new district has special sign <br />or parking regulations, how do they relate <br />to the general parking and sign standards? <br />Are they consistent? Can they be integrated? <br />If the new code is silent on those issues <br />(because they weren't the issues driving the <br />creation of the new zone, which is common) <br />what sign and parking standards should <br />staff apply? And each time a new develop- <br />ment standard is added or revised, its im- <br />pact on each existing zone district needs to <br />be considered. Did you check how the new <br />landscaping requirements are going to . fit <br />with the dimensional or form requirements <br />in each district? The more districts you have, <br />the more checking you have to do. And the <br />more chance there is for inconsistencies to <br />enter the code. Why is it that this district <br />has stronger landscaping requirements but <br />weaker tree preservation requirements than <br />all the other similar districts in the code? <br />Was that intentional or just an oversight by <br />drafters who didn't know what else was in <br />the code? <br />A second problem (alluded to above) <br />is that proliferation of zone districts make <br />it hard for staff, citizens, and investors to <br />understand and remember how the code <br />works. Staff are paid to learn it, so they <br />wilt, but the training time required each <br />time staff turns can be long. Investors <br />can hire consultants to learn it, but that <br />increases development costs and puts the <br />city at a possible competitive disadvan- <br />tage when most cities want to do just the <br />opposite. Citizens bear the brunt of the <br />burden of complexity, because it is harder <br />for non - planners to understand a complex <br />code and no one is being paid to do it <br />for them. <br />center, most residents of Winnipeg, Manitoba, live i n low-densi <br />rchmo d:es :nei bor. ood: Pictured here. <br />rc` <br />n t. h h t d : h ,. <br />ZONINGPRACTICE 2.12 <br />AMERICAN PLANNING ASSOCIATION I page 2 <br />