u/No-Tone-3696

Hi! French senior urban planner here - on holiday and a bit bored - so I started to make research on how zoning code works in US cities - for curiosity, aknowledge myself, gets ideas… i don’t get it all as my English isn’t good enough but for what I understood this is damned interesting!

I skimmed through the following zoning codes of :

- Portland, that is known to be a pioneer city in the urban planning field. (Wow. What a complex document, very detailed and with multi-layered rules..)

- Los Angeles, for the fun and because the city is often quote in this sub. (Good surprise, a relatively new document with a nice pages layout and diagrams that helps to understand the rules, how it works and the purposes)

- New Orleans, maybe for the French acquaintance and because I have an image of the city being a fan of David Simon’s Tremé show. (Easy structure and reading, straightforward, purposes explained)

My first thoughts :

1/ much more rules and detailed regulations than I was expecting. Maybe I had a false cliché in mind of a “laissez-faire” America….

Maybe it’s because I looked at “progressive/liberal” cities that are more regulated…

But maybe also because:

- in France we have much more “national laws” that applies to construction in the whole country so municipal documents don’t need to add / are not allowed to add / local rules on some specific topics

- and / or US cities zoning code are more inclined to preserve a kind of neighborhood “harmony” in terms of density, architecture, the way to treat frontage etc… so the rules are more detailed. (true that when you look at US suburbish/single home urban fabrics it seems fare less messy in the US than in France)

2/ Much more ability to regulate the type of residential dwellings or the lot sizes…. Which is not possible in France (local zoning can’t give a minimal lot sizes or length and you can’t also make rules for single-homes, town houses or collective units.. all is dealt in terms of heights, offset etc…).

3/ For what I understand of the zoning or permit process, local communities are much more involved.. which can be good .. or not (the NIMBY/YIMBY debates)…
but I mainly wonder how the city council gives a political direction to the zoning code.
Maybe I haven’t checked at the right place but I haven’t found a document with the political goals of the city council (where to high density, where to focus on urban renewal, how to organize new development and urban sprawl…). .. and without that kind of document how the legal basis of the zoning code are set to arbitrate between general interest and privates ones ?

I ain’t Tocqueville studying “Zoning in America” and it’s just a leisure time quick analysis.. but if some of you can enlighten me on those topics or advice some zoning code to look at (maybe smaller cities or innovative ones…) I’ll be glad…

Ps : feel also free to DM me if you want to share more on US / France urban planning process, issues, or regulations differences.