Zoning

Key Takeaways

• Zoning is an exercise of the government's police power, so an owner is not paid when a new zoning rule limits how a parcel may be used.
• A zoning code sets both the uses permitted in each district and the bulk rules that shape a building, such as height limits, setbacks, lot coverage, and minimum lot size.
• In Washington, a county or city planning under the Growth Management Act must adopt development regulations that are consistent with and implement its comprehensive plan (RCW 36.70A.040).
• Zoning is adopted, mapped, and enforced by the city or county. The state sets the planning framework, but the answer for a specific parcel comes from the local planning department.

What It Means

Zoning is the set of local government rules that divide land into districts and control what may be built on each parcel and how the parcel may be used. A zoning map places every parcel in a district, such as single-family residential, multifamily, commercial, industrial, or agricultural. The zoning code then lists the uses allowed outright in that district, the uses allowed only with a special permit, and the uses that are barred. Zoning also shapes what gets built, through bulk standards: minimum lot size, setbacks from the property lines, maximum building height, the number of stories, and the share of the lot that structures may cover.

The authority behind zoning is the Police Power, the government's power to regulate private activity to protect public health, safety, and welfare. Because zoning regulates property rather than takes it, an owner receives no payment when the rules change. For a broker, zoning decides whether a buyer's intended use is legally possible, so it belongs in the due diligence on every listing.

How It Works in Washington

In Washington, zoning is written and enforced locally, but the Growth Management Act (chapter 36.70A RCW) sets the frame most of the state's population lives under. A county or city that plans under the act must adopt a comprehensive plan and then adopt development regulations that are consistent with and implement the comprehensive plan (RCW 36.70A.040(3)(d)). The act defines development regulations to include zoning ordinances, critical areas ordinances, shoreline master programs, and subdivision ordinances (RCW 36.70A.030). The zoning map is therefore the tool that carries out the Comprehensive Plan, not a document that stands on its own.

The act also requires each planning county to designate an urban growth area, described in the statute as an area within which urban growth shall be encouraged and outside of which growth can occur only if it is not urban in nature (RCW 36.70A.110). That boundary is why two similar parcels a mile apart can carry very different densities. County zoning authority itself is older than the act: RCW 36.70.750 lets a county regulate the use of buildings and land, and the location, height, bulk, number of stories, yard sizes, density, and percentage of a lot that buildings may occupy. Relief from one of those dimensional standards on a single parcel is a Variance, granted locally, while a use that lawfully predates the current rules is what zoning codes call a Nonconforming Use.

Example

Dana lists an 11,000 square foot lot in a Washington city zoned for single-family use, a district with a 5,000 square foot minimum lot size, a 20 foot front setback, a 30 foot height limit, and a requirement of 50 feet of street frontage per lot. A buyer, Marcus, offers $415,000 and tells Dana he plans to split the lot and build a second house to rent out.

Dana checks the zoning before the offer is accepted. On area alone the split works: 11,000 divided by 2 is 5,500 square feet per lot, above the 5,000 minimum. Frontage kills it. The parcel has only 80 feet on the street, so a split would leave each new lot at 40 feet, ten feet short of the standard. Marcus can apply to the city for a variance, which is a hard sell when the shortage is self-created, or he can keep the lot whole and add an accessory dwelling unit if the code allows one. He writes the offer with a 21 day feasibility contingency instead of assuming the split works, and Dana notes in the file that the zoning answer came from the city planning counter, not from her.

Common Mistakes and Exam Traps

• Zoning and a private deed restriction are not the same thing. Zoning comes from government under the police power; a restrictive covenant is private and is enforced by the other owners or the association.
• A variance grants relief from a dimensional standard such as a setback or a height limit. It does not authorize a use the district bars, which takes a rezone or a conditional use permit.
• Eminent domain takes property and requires just compensation. Zoning regulates property rather than taking it, so a rule change that lowers value is not a purchase of the owner's rights.
• The comprehensive plan is the policy document and the zoning ordinance is the regulation that carries it out. In Washington the two must be consistent, but the plan alone does not change what a parcel may be used for.