Excerpted by permission of Property Rights Organization of Jefferson County, Iowa.

1. Zoning is Not the Inevitable Result of Progress

It is an experiment in centralized control that has failed, often with devastating consequences.

2. Zoning Raises Taxes

Zoning increases the complexity and cost of government with a whole new layer of bureaucracy.  Local governments can easily spend 65% of their time on zoning issues.

3. Zoning is Bad for Communities

The purpose of zoning is to forcibly separate activities into different areas.  It makes residential areas deserted during the day and work areas deserted at night.  This decreases interaction among neighbors.  When people work, shop and go to restaurants all in the same area it creates a sense of community that is missing in a bedroom development.

4. Zoning Increases the Risk of Crime

When residential areas are deserted during the day and work areas are deserted at night, and neighbors are strangers to each other, it is easier for criminals to remain undetected while committing crimes.  Zoning also increases the risk of corruption of administrators.

5. Zoning Lowers Property Values

Reducing the usefulness of property by limiting its uses and raising the property taxes decreases its value.  Growth of prosperity in the whole area will be limited by zoning.  Zoning eliminates all buyers but for the one approved use.

6. Zoning is Bad for the American Dream

The American values of independence, self-reliance and resourcefulness have their roots in the rural lifestyle.   Zoning supporters think that by preventing people from building on farmland they are preserving the rural lifestyle.  The exact opposite is true.  Through higher taxes and building restrictions, they are driving more farmers out of business and more people out of the country and into the development.  The goal of zoning is to gather houses together in controlled, centralized development.

7. Zoning Is Bad for Farmers

If a farmer works off the farm as well as on the farm, that may disqualify him from having a farming exemption to zoning requirements.  Zoning increases the cost of farming by raising property taxes on farmland and by increasing compliance costs with zoning regulations.  Even if agricultural uses are not zoned, farmers’ residences will be.  Zoning interferes with a farmer’s children building a house on farmland and continuing the family farm.

8. Zoning Ordinances Can be Easily Changed to Be More Restrictive

Once zoning is passed, it is easy for officials to change the rules.  In communities where zoning has passed, it has gotten more restrictive as time goes on.  Your home should be an expression of how you want to live. Some zoning rules actually say what color the outside and inside of your house have to be.

9. Zoning Serves the Interests of the Rich and Well Connected

Wealthy individuals and some developers can afford to locate where they want to or purchase enough land that they care not limited by the zoning regulations.  Wealthy interests can afford to petition and sue for the variances they want.  Zoning has historically been opposed most strongly by the less wealthy who are more severely affected by limitations caused by zoning and are less likely to be able to afford the cost of regulations and increased travel made necessary by zoning restrictions.

10. Zoning is bad for Churches

Zoning ordinances prevent churches from locating near neighborhoods and from expanding.

11.Zoning Wastes Time

Zoning creates regulatory red tape.  This consumes lots of time and energy of property owners getting permits, applying for zoning variances, or making costly changes to meet obscure and meaningless zoning rules.

12. Zoning Creates Conflict

Neighbors will call the police to complain about minor violations of obscure zoning requirements instead of speaking to their neighbors directly.

13. Zoning Stifles Positive Growth and Promotes Urbanized Growth

Instead of building where it makes sense, people will be forced to go where the zoning says, or seek area that is less regulated.  Zoning creates lumps of closely packed, identical houses sharply bordered by other areas of densely packed, one-use land.

14. Zoning is Bad for Business

By not allowing businesses in residential areas, zoning discourages small businesses and innovation.  Zoning just makes things worse with another layer of regulation.

15. Zoning Does Not Protect Neighborhoods

Ordinances can be changed and zoning maps redrawn at any time at the whim of local county (or local) officials.  Neighborhood residents must spend time and money petitioning the zoning board, usually against wealthy interests.

16. Zoning is Inferior to Deed Restrictions

Deed restrictions give better protection than zoning because the county officials are not able to change restrictions at will as they are with zoning.  Deed restrictions (known as easements or covenants) give people the choice of living in controlled neighborhoods, while zoning gives them no choice.  (Covenants can be enforced directly by the property owner. – Ed.)

17. Zoning is Not Needed for Organization

Individuals making informed choices can do a better job of organizing than central planners possibly can.  Any needed regulation would be better if applied universally to the entire county through a specific ordinance instead of zoning.  This process allows people to consider regulations one at a time and only implement the ones that are needed.  Many communities all over the country, including the City of Houston, are organized very well without any zoning at all.

18. Zoning Shifts Land Ownership to Government Officials

Instead of citizens being free to use their property as they think best, zoning makes it so any use is assumed to be prohibited unless proven otherwise.  A permit is needed for most land uses.  If a building is constructed that is not allowed by zoning, the government can have it demolished.  Instead of actually owning the land, all you have is the right to pay rent on it in the form of property taxes.  The United States Supreme Court has started to recognize this abuse of power.

19. Zoning is Bad for the Environment

By limiting or removing usefulness of property, zoning removes incentives and motivation to improve, beautify and maintain that property.  By increasing the use of cars, zoning increases air pollution.

20. Zoning is a Bad Idea Whose Time Has Passed

The first zoning ordinance in the United States was passed by New York City in 1916 as the idea of central control of the economy was gaining worldwide popularity.  Until that time efforts to pass zoning ordinances had been blocked by the courts.  They recognized that zoning is prohibited by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, which state that a person shall not be deprived of property without just compensation and due process of law.  You still own the property legally, but for practical purposes, if you cannot use something it is not yours.

Central control of the economy is a failed experiment of the twentieth century.  Central planning boards cannot anticipate the needs of the people.  As the world moves toward freedom and prosperity, we should not take a step backwards by imposing centrally planned land use in the form of zoning.