The Town Without Zoning Can Caroline, New York, resist the imposition of its first-ever zoning code? (controversial, school)

[Oklazona Bound]

So what do you think. If this town has done just fine without zoning. Should other towns do the same? I know in my town someone I knew wanted to open an auction business. The city threw one roadblock after another at him until he gave up. Probably because the good ole boys were protecting another auction house in next town over.

The Town Without Zoning

Can Caroline, New York, resist the imposition of its first-ever zoning code?

Almost every other community in the country has a code that assigns each property in town to a zoning district and then lays out a long list of rules describing the kinds of buildings and activities allowed (or not allowed) there.

Proponents see zoning as an uncontroversial means of keeping glue factories away from homes, keeping strip clubs away from schools, and generally protecting things everyone likes: open space, property values, the environment, and more.

But ever-mounting home prices and a growing number of stifled small business owners are prompting a critical rethink of just how useful or necessary this mess of red tape and regulation really is.
Once an afterthought, zoning has become the hot-button issue in city halls and state capitals across the country. The debate is increasingly about how best to liberalize the rules that are on the books.

[lookingaround12345]

There are a lot of places in the USA with no restrictions. And it's these places that smart people buy and build in as they move to tighten up. England for example has eye watering real estate prices. You think it is because they don't have land but they do when you go see it. Planning permission and zoning is the biggest scam on the planet. I don't mean you can build factories or whatever but there should be no limit on building a single family home on your own land.

[NJ Brazen_3133]

I never hear of this place. It probably low population living there or few people coming and going, even pass through.

That is why no zoning works. There is little activity, or people.

Once the population rises, and stuff actually does happen in town, the "no zoning" is going to be a disaster.

[James Bond 007]

Originally Posted by RednessConChil

Zoning is done for a good reason.

That is true, but this is a tiny rural community in the middle of nowhere which undoubtedly is getting either very little growth or might even be shrinking, so in this case it's probably not going to make a hill of beans of difference.

And I say this as someone with a degree in urban planning.