- Ohio planning and zoning law   7876 kb by    Salwa Tawfik Ramadan, Salwa | stramadan@vssp.com    Short Outline Since 1943 the state of Ohio has provided zoning subdivision administrations and long-range planning services to the mid-Ohio region. The Ohio planning and zoning law is geared towards those public officials, citizens, planners and board members whose job is to make zoning and planning decisions.Some of the functions of the state planning/zoning commission and board of zoning are to have zoning appeals, devise traditional neighborhood development codes and rural areas on the urban fringe, calculate impact fees, provide fiscal analyses, and the role of land use regulations. This paper outlines analytical and practical procedures for Ohio planning and zoning law for the community development. The purpose of zoning is to control density, traffic, and aesthetics. Also, it is used to encourage development of affordable housing, to protect the environment and morality. Abstract Zoning is a legislative method of regulating land use by the division of subdivision (city, village, township, or county) and the enactment of local regulations to control the uses within district. The state grants local governments the power to regulate land use. The purpose of zoning is to regulate land use in order to prevent land use conflict on a community-wide basis. This paper discusses the legal structure in planning at the local and state level. The planning commission generally delegates the initiation of planning policy to planning commissions. A planning commission has powers and duties for making comprehensive plans studies, maps, recommendations, and reports concerning the physical environmental, social, economic and governmental characteristics, functions, services and other aspects of the region. The paper will focus on planning and zoning law to encourage the development of affordable housing and manage a zoning density primarily for residential development. When infastructural facilities, e.g. water lines, sewers, and roads, became issues, the facilities were those that still had a direct relationship to individual developments. Utilities and roads are physically connected to developments, and the use of these facilities by private developments can’t be denied because of this connection. This practice has evolved remarkably. The paper is a representative sample of planning and zoning using an alternative analytical tool to provide the basis for constructive policy options and help citizens and public officials understand the consequences of alternative ways of managing planning and zoning using these four analytical procedures:1. A unified development ordinance (Density (net and gross density) and dimensional regulations) 2. Encouraging development of affordable housing: the 1990 amendment to Article of Ohio Constitution section 16, clarified the inclusion of housing as a “Public purpose” for political subdivisions. It allows the state to make grants and loans. Thus, zoning regulations and decisions which encourage such housing would certainly advance this state level policy. 3. Impact fees: The Calculation, determination and benefit considerations of proportionate-share 4. Fiscal impact analyses. The Ohio planning and zoning law concluded that state planning development for local and comprehensive plans should be : 1. examined by the development review process to streamline permit processing, and establish time limits for various parts of the review process. 2. Create a hearing examiner position to replace the board of zoning appeals if the board is overwhelmed by applications and decisions take much too long. 3. Periodically review zoning and subdivision for all regulations. 4. Updating the zoning ordinances. This paper focuses on Ohio planning and zoning law as a case study in urban and regional planning for legal foundations and techniques for land use regulation. This paper is intended to help planners and government officials to understand, prepare for, and participate in land use administrative and legislative proceedings. Keywords planning, zoning, law Case Study presented on the ISOCARP Congress 2003: Planning in a more globalized World   Click to open the full paper as pdf document   Click to send an email to the author(s) of this paper