Title: Zoning legal definition of Zoning
Headings: Zoning
Zoning
Zoning
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Content: It also requires consideration of future growth and development, adequacy of drainage and storm sewers, public streets, pedestrian walkways, density of population, and many other factors that are within legislative competence. Building Codes, which govern the safety and structure of buildings, do not contradict zoning ordinances, but exist side by side with them. Both rest on the police power: zoning stabilizes the use of property, and building codes ensure the safety and structure of buildings. Zoning is intended to have a relative permanency, whereas building codes are much more flexible because they must keep abreast of new materials and other technological advances. Municipalities have power to zone property only if a state grants it by statute or it is derived from constitutional provisions. Zoning ordinances must be reasonable because by their nature they restrain the use of property that the owners could otherwise use as they chose. The landowner cannot complain as long as the power to zone is used in the public interest and for the general welfare of the community impartially and without compensation. The regulations must meet the demands of the constitutional prohibition against taking private property for public use without just compensation as mandated by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution as well as by the constitutions of the states. The U.S. Supreme Court decided three cases that have had considerable impact in this area: