Effects of Zoning on Rural Land

Lori GarkovichProfessor, Extension Rural Sociologist

Department of Community and Leadership DevelopmentUniversity of Kentucky

November, 2003

What is rural zoning?

Governmental regulations or ordinances designed to ensure the orderly and managed use of land outside of municipal boundaries

Thus, rural zoning influences the use of land in the open country or areas traditionally dominated by agricultural or other natural resource uses

Advantages of rural zoning

Provides opportunities for industrial or commercial growth by reserving adequate and desirable sites

Protect rural areas from becoming “dumping grounds” for highly regulated businesses often defined as “undesirable”

Protect property owners from harmful or undesirable uses on adjacent property

Advantages of rural zoning

Deters objections to normal and necessary agricultural practices as well as industrial activities by identifying areas where they are and will be in the future

Enhances the attractiveness of a community by preserving open space as well as unique natural and cultural resources

Is a tool for implementing a vision for the future of the area

Advantages of rural zoning

Perhaps the most important advantage of rural zoning is that the county that does not have zoning in a region where others do will experience a substantially higher rate of urban growth than in the counties with zoning

Moreover, a proportion of this urban growth will be growth that is defined as “undesirable” by surrounding counties

Disadvantages of rural zoning

Perceived as an unreasonable intrusion on individual property rights and individual choices on how their land is used

Seen to limit opportunities for property owners to gain full economic advantage from their property

May be used to limit particular agricultural practices that others define as undesirable

Agriculture and rural zoning

In many rural places with zoning, setback and buffer requirements have been adopted to regulate particular agricultural uses

Setback requirements establish a mandatory distance from property lines for the siting of facilities

Buffer requirements establish a mandatory visual disruption of line of sight between roads and/or adjacent property and particular land uses

These requirements have been applied to livestock confinement facilities, waste lagoon ponds, breeding sheds

Agriculture and rural zoning

Rural zoning ordinances have also been used to try and prevent the expansion of farm facilities or a change in farm practices (e.g., to prevent the construction and operation of confined breeding or feeding facilities)

Whether the use of zoning and setback ordinances to limit particular agricultural practices is legal depends on factors such as the intention behind the adoption of the ordinance, the impact of the ordinance on the economic use of the property, or customary farming practices in the area

Agriculture and rural zoning

In areas with rural zoning, it is critical to ensure that the ordinances permit diversification of farm enterprises, even into activities not traditionally associated with agricultural zones

For example, for agri-tourism to succeed, farmers must be able to establish on-farm retail sales, value-added production facilities, and other activities that increase the resource-based earnings capacity of their farms

Approaches to rural zoning

In most cases, communities have approached rural zoning in the same ways as urban places – minimum lot sizes, single use zones, subdivision regulations, and the presumption that everyone has the right to develop

What this has led to is development patterns that have been costly to the community and led to a dramatic decline in non-urban lands

The failure of traditional zoning

“The standard zoning laws and subdivision regulations are a recipe for suburbanization,. They produce large-scale, monotonous residential subdivisions that obliterate the rural landscape, punctuated by sterile shopping malls and office parks, all connected by a massive network of pavement with immense parking lots”

Russell, 1996

The failure of traditional zoning

A typical approach to rural zoning is to establish minimum lot sizes of 1, 5, 10, or more acres on the presumption that minimum lot sizes reduce residential development pressures

But residential lots continue to populate agricultural areas and realistically….

What is the difference between a subdivision of 40 houses at 4 houses per acre and one of 40 houses at 1 house per 5 acres? 190 acres of land converted to residential use!

Large lot zoning only insures that every available acre will be converted into the familiar pattern of cookie-cutter subdivisions and strip malls

The failure of zoning

"Our zoning laws are essentially a manual of instructions for creating the stuff of our communities.... What zoning produces is suburban sprawl, which must be understood as the product of a particular set of instructions. Its chief characteristics are the strict separation of human activities, mandatory driving to get from one activity to another, and huge supplies of free parking. After all, the basic idea of zoning is that every activity demands a separate zone of its own. For people to live around shopping would be harmful and indecent. Better not even to allow them within walking distance of it."James Howard Kunstler, Home From Nowhere, 1993

Why does traditional rural zoning fail?

Rural community master plans are a blueprint for a future of: Growth concentrated around existing towns, villages

or hamlets, Maintaining commercially viable downtowns and, Protecting the rural “character” of the country

But traditional zoning is based on strategies appropriate for an urban place – segregation of uses due to close proximity and standardized development – which are not appropriate for rural places and will not make real the master plans

Innovative rural zoning

In a rural area, which is more important? A form that fits into the landscape in design and scale? Or, the use of the land regardless of the design and scale of the building in which it occurs?

In a rural area, which would be more appropriate? Hamlets or villages of high density surrounded by large tracts of very low density? Or, large tracts of land with the same density levels, but all are developed to a degree?

The rural zoning challenge

“Master plans articulate the community’s goals. Zoning laws apply these goals to the sometimes conflicting claims of private property rights. This explains why master plans say agricultural land should be preserved while zoning laws prescribe cookie cutter development….Are there other ways to regulate and use land so that the countryside’s rural, agricultural, and natural character can be maintained…?

Russell, 1996

Innovative rural zoning

Sliding scale zoning wherein larger parcels have much lower development densities than small tracts

Smaller minimum lot sizes Rural residential clusters Mixed use agricultural or rural zones that

permit professional, business, commercial uses within limits of scale and impact

Innovative rural zoning

Designate village or hamlet areas with very small lot minimums, multi- and single-family housing, business zoning, and multi-use buildings

Establish preservation overlay zones where protective regulations also apply (i.e., those related to sensitive natural environments, cultural heritage)

Emphasize design standards rather than use standards and combine with low density in very rural areas

Innovative rural zoning

In Lancaster CA, developers can build wherever they want – as long as they pay a premium for moving further from town

The Urban Structure Program (USP) shifts the costs of new public facilities and services to the developments that require them

A computer model assesses impact fees, including a “distance surcharge”

Innovative rural zoning

The USP calculates development impact fees for 3 types of public expenditures: Infrastructure – roads, signs, drainage/flood projects Facilities – parks, libraries, police and fire stations,

administrative offices Operating costs – the projected 20 year cost of public services

such as police and fire protection, public works, recreation and community development programs

Projects located far from existing services pay an additional fee based on the actual distance between the new development and the nearest existing facility/service

Innovative rural zoning

Lancaster CA also established measurable performance objectives for public facilities and services (e.g., 3 acres of public park land per 1,000 users) to ensure a high quality of life

As a local official noted this is not a traditional growth management tool…”It’s more of a financial approach than a planning approach”

Summary and conclusions

If rural zoning is to succeed in preserving the rural and agricultural character of places, we must abandon the assumptions underlying traditional zoning and subdivision ordinances

Equally important, efforts to concentrate growth in small villages or hamlets can help mitigate the financial costs of sprawl on local governments

Summary and conclusions

If local governments do not provide landowners economically viable alternatives to intensive subdivision development, this is what we will get

“Unless the new generation of rural zoning laws abandons the suburban models that have been used previously, we will only get large-lot exurban supersprawl, not a settlement pattern that meets the needs of rural communities.”

Russell, 1996

References Brownstone, D. and A. DeVany. 1991. Zoning, returns to scale and the

value of undeveloped land. The Review of Economics and Statistics. Vol 73 (4): 699-704.

Hsieh, Wen-hua, E.G. Irwin, L.W. Libby. 2001. The effect of rural zoning on the allocation of land use in Ohio. Paper presented at the American Agricultural Economics Association meeting, Chicago.

Feitelson, E. 1993. The spatial effects of land use regulations: A missing link in growth control evaluations. Journal of the American Planning Association. Vol 59 (4):461-472.

Hackman, D. 1996a. How are courts around the country addressing agricultural land use

issues? http://agebb.missouri.edu/aglaw/zone/aglaw2b.htm 1996b. Are set-back for agricultural use constitutional?

http://agebb.missouri.edu/aglaw/zone/aglaw1b.htm Ohio State University Fact Sheet. Rural zoning purpose and definition.

Community Development Fact Sheet #CDFS-300. http://ohioline.osu.edu/cd-fact/0300.html

Russell, J. 1996. The need for new models of rural zoning. Zoning News, American Planning Association. June