Transcript: Navigating Land Use and Zoning: Strategies for Property Development and Zoning Compliance
CLARICE:: Hello and welcome to this week’s episode of Environmentally Speaking. Today we are mixing things up again. We have Kerin back.
KERIN: Hi, everybody.
CLARICE:: And I’m Clarice, coming in with questions, comments, and not topics. Topics came from you this week, so we are talking about land use and planning and I guess why it’s important, why we need it, why we need to know how it all works. It seems very mystical from the outside.
KERIN: I think it does from the outside, but it’s not that difficult. I think today we’ll cover a couple of key points, places to start, places to focus on.
CLARICE:: Yeah.
KERIN: Yeah. And then what to do if you, you know, can’t figure it out on your own and you need extra help.
CLARICE:: I love it. So starting out, when we talk about land use we’re not talking about broader scale of what your — it’s a little bit of both. It’s what you plan on using the land for but not so niche of like, I’m building a one-family home, or this is my forever home, or I want to grow beets. It’s, what is this zone for, what can you do with the space.
KERIN: That’s right. And, like you said, it’s multifaceted. Land use is really about making decisions about the use of the land and that involves decisions from cities and towns that make their decisions ahead of time and then clarify them and move and regulations and ordinances. And then it’s also about making decisions from a developer side, what do you want to do, do I want to grow beets, do I want to build a bank, do I want to build houses, those decisions and all the decisions that go into buying and investing in commercial property and then deciding to develop it.
CLARICE:: Yeah. So it’s kind of that idea of what is the space allotted for in terms of what can I put here and then how does that fit with the scope of the community. And we know being in Rhode Island some communities have a bit more stringent rules in terms of zoning and planning. Some are a little bit more lax and that all can be historic, aesthetic, custom. Those are all some things to consider, too.
KERIN: That’s right. You don’t just have your typical residential areas and your commercial areas. You also could have some historic areas, or you could have some particularly important natural resource areas or [inaudible] areas. So it is — it can also be multilayered. You could have your underlying zones where it’s, hey, this is residential, it’s only meant for housing. And then on top of that zone we call it [inaudible]. You could, for example, have a historic zone, so, yeah, it’s residential zone, but within that residential zone there’s [inaudible] and that zone says, hey, in this area there are some special things we need to pay attention to [inaudible].
[0:03:08] CLARICE:: So I guess we start kind of this whole thing with do we jump right in to start talking about the zoning regulations, or is that already digging in too deep?
KERIN: No. I think that’s the place to start. A technical [inaudible] is that is where all of the decisions from the cities and towns kind of get not dumped into but put into, right. So all cities and towns when they’re thinking about what areas do we want to put things, how do we want things to be, they go through and under state law they are enabled to [inaudible]. So that’s where the decisions start.
Cities and towns make those decisions and put them into regulations and ordinances and essentially they’re dividing the town up, the city or the town up into sections which are really zones and that’s where your residential zone, your commercial zone, your industrial zone, your recreation zone all kind of come into place. And then within those zones, they also regulate the [inaudible], the size that you can build, the activities that can happen and the land use in each of those zones.
CLARICE:: And that’s sort of — for us who are just kind of looking at this from the outside, that’s why you typically have not just one shopping establishment or store, you’ve got kind of several clustered together because that’s the area that the town or city has decided this is where this makes sense. So you’re not just going to have a store surrounded by a ton of houses.
Sure, you could have one or two, but it’s odd to have a Walmart and then a bunch of single-family homes all nestled around it. There’s usually some distance. There’s usually some space. There’s usually a bunch of other stores. And then on the flipside, neighborhoods tend to be pretty similar in size or shape. You don’t have the giant McMansions. I don’t know if that’s a thing that everybody says. That was a saying that my dad said growing up. I need some validation that other families said that, too.
KERIN: [inaudible]. I think after I got out of the house I heard it, so it does exist. That’s a real term, yeah.
CLARICE:: Okay.
KERIN: Everyone will know what you’re talking about.
CLARICE:: All right. But like you don’t — you know, you don’t have sort of the mansion with the studio apartment. The idea of like with like tends to seem to follow.
KERIN: That’s the goal of land use and the reason being is that oftentimes there can be conflicts when you have, you know, an industrial manufacturing plant next to a school, or you have a residential neighborhood next to, you know, a mining operation. That’s where those different interests can clash. And what happened was over time the entire country realized that that’s just not a smart idea, that we really should be putting like with like and we really should be having these commercial centers so that people can go and enjoy that downtown main street experience and then the housing is away from that, so the noise and the light and the traffic were separate.
And, honestly, that’s the core of the reason why zoning came to be. And what’s interesting about that is zoning in and of itself, although the thought process behind it is to make everybody’s life a little bit easier and better is — in and of itself it’s a restriction on your property rights. If you buy a piece of property and you want to do what you want to do on it, well, you have to go to the zoning [inaudible]. You might not be able to do that use. That might not be allowed where your — where your property is located.
[0:07:14] CLARICE:: For somebody who’s first buying a piece of property, how do you check in to figure out, does this fit my intention, does this fit what I need it to and/or can I make those adjustments, can I get those variances? Where does somebody even start with that process?
KERIN: Well, I think the first thing you have to consider is, you know, when you’re looking at property either to invest in it or to develop it there is that initial decision, you know, whether to buy. So even before you buy the property, you really need to be looking at how the local zoning is going to influence the property development and property values currently when you’re thinking about buying and into the future. Zoning ordinances can have a profound effect on the development, especially a commercial property and it influences many aspects of real estate ventures.
Zoning laws dictate, like I said, specific uses like stores, restaurants, offices, where they can be located. They regulate allowable building structures, the size, the parking, the landscaping. Zoning also impacts urban development by directing commercial growth to certain areas. Like we said, that downtown main street area may be an area that the town is saying, hey, we really want to spruce this up, we really want to make this better, so maybe we’ll change the zoning.
And if that happens and you’re looking at property in that area, that could be advantageous. That could be great timing for you to go in and invest and build. The next step after you decide to go — looked at the initial zoning as a concept and what it can and might hinder you from doing is to look at the local restrictions. What are the setback requirements. You know, if you want to build a building that goes right to the lot line, you might not be able to do that. You might want to build a building that’s really tall, but there’s a height limitation that you can go up to and sometimes that’s pretty clear-cut.
Sometimes you know exactly what you want to build and you look at the ordinance or the subdivision regulations and you say, yeah, I’m good, everything checked off, I should not have a problem. That’s great. Sometimes you get into a situation where the ordinance maybe is a little strict or maybe doesn’t read the way you think it should read, it doesn’t make sense and that’s when usually we get calls for legal assistance. You know, can you take a look at this, I’m not sure about this, how has this been interpreted. And sometimes that’s easy. Sometimes we say, yeah, we’ve seen that, this is how that gets applied. And other times it’s not and that takes us, you know, into the realm of do we need to rezone the property.
That is a process by which we would apply to the town to say, we think this property should be in a different zone or zoned differently, or it should have some sort of relief from the current restrictions because we have somebody that wants to invest and wants to build and we think this is a good project. In that case you go to the town. You file an application and you get a hearing and you explain and the town either will or will not adopt an ordinance amendment to rezone your property and that would change the zone. That would change the property zoning from one to another.
[0:10:34] CLARICE:: And when we say rezone, are we talking — does rezone apply exclusively to the idea of use, or can it apply to something like we were talking about before like a setback or a height difference? Rezone is for anything that could be outside of what the current restriction or regulation is?
KERIN: Rezoning is typically the zone itself, so if you have a property and it’s zoned residential and you want it to be zoned commercial you would ask for that change. Say the property exists right on the line of residential and commercial —
CLARICE:: [inaudible].
KERIN: — and it’s at like the end of main street and you just want to slip it over into the other one, that would be an example of that.
CLARICE:: Okay.
KERIN: Now, that’s not to say that the city or town council that passes it couldn’t put other conditions on it. They can. The council has the power to do that, but what you’re talking about is more [inaudible] and that’s another option. So say you don’t need a complete rezone. Say you just want to build a little closer to the setback than you’re really allowed. Say you need to be 20 feet from the treat and you want to build 15 feet from the street. Something like that you would go to the zoning board and ask for what we call a dimensional variance and that can be done for any sort of dimensional standard that exists in the zoning ordinance, your height, your setback, and other things.
The other option is sometimes uses are not strictly allowed or not allowed. Sometimes they’re conditions, meaning it’s a special use permit. So you might have a zone where the city or towns says, this is a commercial zone, but, you know, this particular use we’re okay with, but you just have to come in and get a special use permit. And that is a situation where you would go to the town to get zoning relief and ask for basically a special exception [inaudible]. But it’s a special use permit to say that in this particular case the town is okay with doing this use in this zone and that would be similar to the dimensional variant process in the sense that you’ve got to get zoning relief.
CLARICE:: And special use could be the idea of this type of business is allowed to be here, or this type of — I mean, I’m now in my head using the example of like a commercial space. So, you know, typically this business isn’t allowed here, but we’re going to make an exception. So would that be —
KERIN: That’s right.
CLARICE:: Okay.
KERIN: So typically all cities and towns have some sort of a use table or a use section and you would go to — first you figure out what zone you’re in and then you would go to that table [inaudible] and you would see a listing of all of the uses that are allowed, not allowed, and allowed by special use permit.
[0:13:40] CLARICE:: Uh-huh.
KERIN: So typically at the table you’d find your zone. You’d go down that column of the column and then you’d find your use and in typical table fashion where the two intersect that’s your answer. And if it says permitted, then [inaudible]. And if it’s usually an S or some other designation, it’s a special use permit. And then sometimes it’s an N for no, or it’s blank and that will indicate that it’s not allowed.
CLARICE:: This sounds like a scavenger hunt to figure out if you can open your business. This sounds very much like you have to go to this book and get this clue and then take that letter and bring it over to the table and see if the letter matches the goal. This is intense. .
KERIN: You know, it sounds intense and maybe it’s just because I’ve done it for so long it’s not, but I get it. And that’s where, you know, I think your local planning and zoning staff at your city and town is helpful. I mean, give them a call and if it’s something that they can answer they really do. They’re usually pretty helpful. And, also, you know, if you’re feeling like you just don’t want to do that yet, you’re not sure you want to call the town yet, call legal counsel or call an engineering or a zoning expert and ask the question.
CLARICE:: Yeah. Yeah. I think there’s a part of me that’s like it’s above me. I’d call somebody else. But it’s funny, I think of the idea of, you know, we don’t often think about how things can be — sure, this is commercial, but it can’t be commercial for anything. There are those specific sort of sub-restrictions and intentions underneath that I don’t think are often discussed or mentioned. And I think a lot about — my dad used to travel abroad for work and there was one time he sent a picture of an exotic dance club and a preschool. And in this country they were zoned right next to each other, so they shared a parking lot. The buildings were literally touching each other and I think of that example and I’m like, oh, yeah, we don’t have that here and that could be one of the reasons.
KERIN: Yeah. Some states still do. Some states’ zoning is nonexistent or very little. Here in New England it is alive and vibrant and, yeah, those are the things — those are the decisions in land use that towns start with. What kind of a community do we want for our citizens. What is going to be the look and feel so that we can increase that quality of life and people will want to come and live here and stay here or shop here.
And that’s really the purpose behind it and that’s also the purpose for most of my clients whether they’re real estate investors or commercial developers. Generally the idea behind it is to invest in property, to improve property and to add to the community [inaudible] area that they’re in. So, yeah, I think the two working together makes sense. Obviously there’s conflict [inaudible] but really it’s about decisions and it’s about making the best community possible for the area.
[0:17:13] CLARICE:: Yeah. And I think you had mentioned earlier before the podcast you had sent over some strategies for developers and investors navigating. And I think it’s really important to sort of touch on those because I think those are some really helpful takeaways for people who are interested in knowing more or kind of want to get a sense of how do I move through this process, or how do I find somebody to help me move through this process. So I love how you have several tips just kind of laid out in order. It demystifies it a bit.
KERIN: I think, again, understanding the zoning basics is key. If you’re not familiar with zoning at all, that’s a place to start and there’s plenty of resources to get a general idea kind of what we’re talking about today to start and there’s plenty of other resources online that you can get just a basic understanding of [inaudible]. And then you’ve got to bring it home, right. You’ve got to look at the local zoning ordinance for the property you’re interested in and you’ve got to do your zoning due diligence. And I strongly recommend that that’s done in the early stages, ideally even before you close on the purchase of a property.
Oftentimes we do get clients that will call and they just want us to do some zoning due diligence for them. They want some sort of a letter or information about, this is the property I’m buying, I’m thinking about building this, what’s the legal opinion, can I do it and what are the potential issues or pitfalls. And that at least informs them in the early stages of the project [inaudible]. And, again, you know, legal guidance, zoning experts, we’re out there. There’s plenty of opportunities to contact people if you need guidance if things just don’t seem to be adding up.
And then the other one we really haven’t touched on is you got to think about are there any changes in zoning that could be coming. This past year the State of Rhode Island enacted several zoning and land use changes. They became effective — they were enacted last year and they became effective January 1 this year and those were significant changes to zoning. That’s at the state level and that means that once that happens at the state level local cities and towns have to come into conformance. They’ve got to adopt new ordinances, amendments to the ordinances to come into conformance.
So right now as we speak there are — every city and town in Rhode Island has been working to do that, to come into conformance with zoning, all those changes that have happened, so that’s really important. You have to know and stay informed and that can be done by, you know, attending public meetings, community discussions, monitoring updates from local planning departments. Oftentimes planning departments are great about putting stuff on their website. And like I said, they’re also great if you give them a call. They will help and kind of guide you through what’s happening.
And then obviously if you get through all that and you find out that you do need some sort of zoning relief, there’s zoning variances and special use permits. So those are also relief that you would seek from the local city or town saying, hey, I’ve got this project, it conforms in most ways, we really want to do it, but we need a little relief. And then see if you can get that relief so that you can go forward with the project.
[0:20:45] CLARICE:: So there we go. We’ve got a framework. We’ve got an outline. I’m saying this really confidently like I could now go do this, but really I would just text you. But, yeah, hopefully this was helpful for our listeners who are thinking about this who were maybe even curious about how does this work, where do I begin. If you were feeling overwhelmed, it’s nice to have maybe this as a resource to listen back to as maybe not your end all be all guide but a good way to kind of start your journey on this. Anything that we missed? Anything that you want to add in?
KERIN: Oh, I think that I agree. I think that this is a nice overview of zoning and land use and obviously, you know, our office is available if anybody has any questions or wants to e-mail us. That’s fine.
CLARICE:: And where can they e-mail you? That’s a good segue. Thank you.
KERIN: You can e-mail me at Kerin — K-e-r-i-n — info@DesautelBrowning.com.
CLARICE:: Beautiful. And with that, thanks for listening, everybody.
KERIN: Thanks, everybody.
