Property Zoning: What is it, and Why does it affect me?
Have you ever wondered why every house in a neighbourhood is almost the same distance away from the road?
Have you ever wondered how shopping areas came to be so organizationally far away from homes?
Part of the explanation for this is possibly of natural source, but zoning is the
main force behind how our neighbourhoods and cities are organized. Zoning is the reason we have residential neighbourhoods. Zoning is the reason that all the homes in your neighbourhood have a front yard that is relatively the same size.
Zoning is the reason you probably don’t have an
auto-shop or another industrial use as your neighbour.
Zoning is also the reason you may not be allowed to add a residential suite to rent out in the basement of your own home.
What is Zoning?
Put simply, zoning is the tool that governments use to affect future development. Municipalities or another tier of government, divide the land into areas called districts, or ‘zones’, within which only certain built forms are allowed.
Each zone has its own specific set of rules and regulations
that define what can and cannot be put in that zone. For example, a traditional single-family home zone probably does not allow a 10-story apartment or a shopping mall within the zone.
Zoning codes are bylaws. This means that anything that is done contrary to the zoning bylaw is illegal. Therefore, if you went ahead and rented out that basement suite in your home when the zoning bylaw did not allow it, that would be illegal.
Zoning did not always exist, and it is argued that countries like Germany were the first to start zoning or districting their cities.
Around the time of the industrial revolution in North America, it was becoming more apparent that certain uses of industry were ‘nuisances’ that should be placed away from the home.
This is where the idea of residential neighbourhoods came from, along
with the push of the ‘American Dream’. This escalated quickly, and beyond nuisances it is thought that zoning quickly became a discriminatory tool, separating low income and racializing groups away from others.
Although it seems like just a tool, like most things, it is also highly
political.
Does zoning affect me?
As we went over in the beginning, zoning can affect the way you use your own property, and the government has every right to do this. But zoning affects the whole community and can even affect you when you are just a tenant.
Zoning is just one tool that governments use to regulate land use, and zoning is closely tied to what is commonly called the Official Community Plan, or Neighbourhood plan.
These plans are the vision for the future of your community.
Let’s say a developer comes into your neighbourhood and buys property, and they want to put a 3-story apartment on that piece of property. If the Official Community Plan and the zoning does not support that kind of use, the developer will have to go through a rezoning application process and an application to amend the community plan. This is why you see those signs up on recently purchased properties saying, ‘rezoning application’.
Ever wondered what the area you live in is zoned as? Easy! All this information should be accessible on your government website. There, you will also be able to see any local hearings that may be coming up.
Many times, there may be project that could be of benefit to an area, but
because the people who oppose this new development are the only ones who show up to these hearings, there may be an unrealistic opinion of what the entire community actually wants.
This often restricts certain projects from happening all together, or it creates a lengthier process which can be a burden on the developer, the community, and government resources.
I encourage you to get more involved, learn more about the processes that define your neighbourhood, and express your opinions on projects that you want to support!