Real Estate Land Use definitions
Land Use & Climate: The idea that land use directly affects climate and weather. It proposes that land use, population growth, and the increased sprawl of development can be a contributing factor in how the climate or weather will be like in the near future.
Incrementalism: It is necessary to accept the realities of the processes by which planning decisions are taken; essentially incrementalist approach replaces grand plans by a modest step by step approach which aims at realizable improvements to an existing situation. It is a method of successive limited comparisons’ of circumscribed problems and actions to deal with them.
Impact Fees: A charge levied on developers by local governments to pay for the cost of providing public facilities necessitated by a given development.
Rational Nexus: A reasonable connection between impact fees and improvements that will be made with those fees. Jurisdictions must be able to justify the fees they charge developers by showing that the fees will be spent on improvements related to the development.
Linkages: Typically, a payment to a municipality for some needed development that is not necessarily profitable for a developer (say low-income housing) in exchange for the right to develop more profitable, high-density buildings (say, commercial development).
Incentive Zoning: Zoning provisions that encourage but do not require developers to provide certain amenities or qualities in their projects in return for identified benefits such as increased density or rapid processing of applications.
Density Bonusing: Density Bonuses offer developments a level of density that surpasses the allowable Floor Area Ratio (FAR) in exchange for amenities or housing needed by the community. These amenities typically include parks, heritage preservation and affordable housing, but offering increased density in exchange for greener development can also be seen as an amenity to the community
Aesthetic Controls: Aesthetic controls are based on the belief that there is a collective good in their application greater than the sum of their cost to each individual.
Exclusionary Zoning: Zoning practices such as large lot requirements and minimum housing sizes that serve to exclude from a community, intentionally or not, racial minorities and low-income persons.
Inclusionary Zoning: Zoning that requires or encourages construction of lower-income housing as a condition of a project’s approval. Provisions may include density or other bonuses in return for housing commitments and may require housing on site or allow construction at another site.
Large Lot Zoning: Large lot zoning establishes a large minimum lot size requirement to limit development densities in districts where the preservation of rural character, agriculture, forestry or environmentally sensitive areas is a goal.
Variances: Area variance involves a departure from the requirements of the ordinance in relation to such matters as lot width, lot area, and setback. Use variance allows the establishment of a use which is prohibited by the ordinance.
Spot Zoning: Spot zoning is the unjustifiable singling out of a piece of property for preferential treatment. It is not a statutory term; it is a judicial epithet/nickname signifying legal invalidity.
Down Zoning: Down zoning is an amendment to rezone to a use of lower intensity. It is the result of neighborhood pressure and usually reduces the value of undeveloped land. A change in the zoning classification of property from a higher use to a lower use. Ex. from commercial to residential.
Contract Zoning: In Contract zoning there is rezoning of a property subject to the terms of a contract. The terms are negotiated between the owner and the local government following a specific proposal by the owner.
Cluster Zoning: Cluster zoning involves the clustering of development on one part of a site, leaving the remainder for open space, recreation, amenity, or preservation. With cluster zoning the overall density of the developed part changes and has several advantages.
Subdivision Controls: Subdivision regulations control how land is subdivided and developed. Subdivision regulations define the development standards and requirements for each new parcel. Development restrictions placed on parcels in a recorded subdivision.
Floor Area Ratio: The ratio of floor area to land area, expressed as a percent or decimal, that is determined by dividing the total floor area of the building by the area of the lot; typically used as a formula to regulate building volume.
Signs & Billboards: A sign can be broadly defined as any device, structure or object in public view intended for advertisement, announcement or direction. Signs can be of various kinds: directional, political, on site- business, free standing advertisements.
Billboards are legally defined as “off premise signs that is sign that do not advertise goods and services available on that particular parcel of land”.
Blighted & Economically Distressed Area: Any area which is predominantly open and which becomes of obsolete platting, diversity of ownership, deterioration of structures or of site improvements, or otherwise, substantially impairs or arrests the sound economic growth of an area, and constitutes as an economic or social liability.
Due Process: Due process implies that an individual whose rights are being determined by a governmental action ought to be notified of that action and to be given the opportunity for a fair hearing before an impartial tribunal. Substantive due process requires that controls serve a legitimate government interest such as the public health, safety and general welfare. Procedural due process requires that fair and proper procedures are followed in relation for example to public notice and hearings of zoning ordinances.
Comprehensive Plan: Long range planning by a local or regional government encompassing the entire area of a community and integrating all elements related to its physical development, such as housing, recreation, open space, and economic development.
Presumption of Validity: Execution with proper legal authority. An assumption, where there is doubt as to the applicable law, that the parties intended the legal system under which the clause or contract would be valid (in a situation where contract or clause is valid under one legal system, but invalid under another one).
Judicial Deference: When policy enters into the courts’ deliberations only to the extent that they do or do not defer to the legislative judgment of municipalities. The courts are not concerned with planning policy issues but with legal and constitutional matters.
5th Amendment: 5th Amendment provides for the clause stating the right for due process as well as the right that private property cannot be taken for public use without just compensation. This clause in the amendment is used in courts as justification for the use of the power of eminent domain.
14th Amendment: 14th Amendment provides that no state shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. Its Due Process Clause prohibits state and local governments from depriving persons of life, liberty, or property without certain steps being taken to ensure fairness. This clause has been used to make most of the Bill of Rights applicable to the states, as well as to recognize substantive and procedural due process rights.