Check Your Understanding Answers
- Give an example of a legal and illegal nonconforming use.
Legal: A motel is situated in a residential area that no longer allows commercial activity. The zoning board rules that the motel may continue to operate until it is sold, destroyed or used for any other commercial purpose.
Illegal: That same motel is sold, and the new owner continues to operate the property as a motel.
- Describe a special use permit.
A special use permit authorizes a use that is not consistent with the zoning ordinance in a literal sense, yet is clearly beneficial or essential to the public welfare and does not materially impair other uses in the zone.
- What is the difference between a use variance and an area variance?
A use variance gives permission to use the land for a purpose not allowed by the current zoning. An area variance permits the variance of one or more of the dimensional or physical requirements of the applicable zoning law, code or ordinance in connection with some proposed construction.
- List two reason zoning laws are often the basis of court cases?
- Zoning ordinances can negatively influence property values.
- Zoning ordinances can unfairly exclude the poor and minorities.
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