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Conditional Uses: Using <br />Hoping for Certainty <br /> <br />8y Gall Easley, a~c~ <br /> <br />Discretion, <br /> <br />For 80 years counties and municipalities have been adopting, expanding, <br />revising, and complaining about zoning as the primary means of implementing <br />local comprehensive plans, <br /> <br />Communities adopt zoning ordinances be- <br />cause they are a Familiar method of regulating <br />the design and use of land. The complaints <br />arise because zoning ordinances faU short of <br />the predictability they promise and do not <br />ensure the quality of design citizens desire. <br /> Chief among the complaints is the need <br />~or fexibility and the ability to exerdse discre- <br />tion in the application of standards. Eady on, <br />',he variance was created as a means of allow- <br />ing a proposed development to vary from the <br />terms of the zoning ordinance. A vedanta would <br />be appropriate when thoro were special circum- <br />stances of the ~ropetty. which, together with <br />the imposition of the zoning standards, would <br />result in unnecessa~/or undue hardship. In The <br />ZoninE Game (University of Wisconsin Press, <br />t966) author Richard Babcock colts this a <br />"crude means to grant and deny ~vors," and <br />characterizes the vedanta not as a safety valve <br />to avoid undue hardship but as "leakage" from <br />the certainty of the zoning ordinance, <br /> <br /> Ultimately, another means of achieving <br />flexibility was created: the conditional use, <br />which is the topic pi: this issue of ZoninE <br />Practice. The technique has several names, <br />including special permit, special use, and <br />special exception, ail of which mean the <br />assignment of conditions to the approval of a <br />uae. Local governments establish conditional <br />uses as a technique in the zoning ordinance <br />for flexibility end because special standards <br />are sometimes required for desirable uses. <br /> <br />SPECIAL STANDARDS FOR DLSIRASLB USES <br />The fundamental purpose of the zoning ordi- <br />nance is to establish districts (zones) which <br />have a common set of pemqissJble uses and a <br />common set of site design standards within <br />each. Anywhere a particular zone is applied, <br />so are the same set of uses and standards. <br />Permissible uses are called "by*right" uses, <br />meaning that the uses are named in the zon- <br />ing ordinance and a property owner has the <br /> <br />188 <br /> <br /> <br />