A Citizens Guide to Zoning

Over three consecutive Tuesdays in February led by land use attorney, planner and FWC Board Member Eric Larsson, eighteen neighbors, some traveling from as far away as Bath, took time out of busy schedules to show up at the Odd Fellows Hall to learn about zoning. Zoning is the tool that Portland, and most municipalities use, to divide a place into districts each with their own set of regulations for land use and dimensions. It plays a central role in how places grow (or don’t) and how they look. The class began with a brief history of zoning, which the United States Supreme Court held was a valid exercise of the police power in 1926 in  Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty.  Attendees also learned how to use Portland’s GIS parcel viewer,  Portland’s GIS zoning map, and Portland’s land use code to explore the zoning rules for specific parcels, and participated in an exercise to explore how many dwelling units might or might not be allowed on two specific parcels in Woodfords Corner.  The course concluded with a discussion of alternatives to traditional Euclid-style zoning.

For those who want to follow real live development plan applications in Portland you can sign up for notices here. You will also need to create an account with the Citizens Self Service Portal, but once you do so you can search for public records using the plan numbers identified in the notices to see electronic copies of everything that has been filed in a particular application.

For those who want to study more on their own, the following books are a good place to start: 

The Zoning of America: Euclid v. Ambler by Michael Allan Wolfe

The Color of Law by Richard Rothstien

Arbitrary Lines:  How Zoning Broke the American City and How to Fix It by M. Nolan Gray