Zoning and ordinances

Local municipalities have a lot of power to create a community that keeps everybody happy, healthy, and well. Municipalities can work with residents to:

  • Create and update comprehensive plans;

  • Pass zoning laws;

  • Pass ordinances;

  • Write resolutions.

These four levers can look different in each community, and residents can work together to make sure their local laws and policies are driven by the hopes, dreams, and vision they have for their community.

Are you a nonprofit? Check out "Navigating Advocacy and Lobbying for a 501(c)(3)” to see how you can still move your ideas forward!

 

create or update comprehensive plan

A comprehensive plan is an official roadmap made by your county or municipality. The plan tells where the municipality wants to go in the next 5-10 years.

Usually - but not always - both counties & local municipalities have comprehensive plans.

Decision-Making Power = Municipal governing body and/or County governing body

planning commission + comprehensive plan - model ordinance
 

zoning

Zoning laws are the rules about how land in your community can be used. Zoning shapes our communities by informing where housing, industries, school, and parks are located, who can access them, the expectations about how those facilities are good neighbors, and how they are built.

Zoning and Permitting - Thinking Like a Lawyer, February, 2026

Zoning is one of the ONLY ‘stamps of approval’ that a local community has on development and facilities being proposed in their neighborhoods. It can create checks and balances. Without zoning laws, communities give their decision-making power to the state.

Decision-Making Power = Municipal governing body and/or County governing body

zoning example worksheet
Rezoning - What It is and How to Have a voice in the process

  • Zoning has been used to create segregation and unequal access to opportunities, and higher exposure to environmental hazards for households with low-income and households of color. Here are some zoning strategies that can help Environmental Justice:

    • Public Participation: Meaningfully bring diverse groups of neighbors to be part of the process to create or update a comprehensive plan and zoning laws. This makes sure that zoning is developed to reflect the needs of the community. Zoning laws can also strive to be more proactive and inclusive of public input during decision-making of future developments by requiring more notification; additional or different structure for public meetings; and transparent and accessible assessments and reports by potential developers.

    • Citizen Involvement: Local boards (zoning hearing board, for example) make a lot of decisions that impact environmental justice, but often those who are part of these boards may not represent the full community. Appoint board members who represent the diversity of the community as a whole - including race, gender, income, homeownership, renters, and age.

    • Environmental Impact Reviews and Analysis: Require that developers address demographics and Environmental Justice matters in Environmental Impact Assessments (including: traffic studies, acoustic studies, air quality studies, hydrological studies, geological studies, pre-development and post-development testing). This can give municipalities ability to review and seek to ensure that cities have the power to reject these applications or require changes that mitigate their impacts. It also increases accountability and transparency.

    • Community Impact Statements: Mandate a process where members of the impacted community make a statement about what they believe the positive or negative impacts will be if a particular use is approved or allowed to expand. Local officials could be required to take the results of the community group's CIS into consideration.

    • Eliminating Non-Conforming Uses: Usually, developments that have been in the community already are 'grandfathered' in, which means they do can continue functioning even if they do not meet a town's new zoning laws. You could:

      • In some states, you can adopt a local amortization law to eliminate the use. Amortization laws give developments that do not follow new zoning laws a certain amount of time, or a change in owners, to either comply with new zoning laws or stop functioning. Unfortunately, this is not legal in PA, and may not be legal in West Virginia and Ohio.

      • Pass new zoning laws. If you change the underlying zoning rules and the existing development tries to change into a different type of development in the future, they will need to re-apply for a non-conditional use approval. For example: imagine a new zoning rule creates a residential neighborhood, and a restaurant has been in that neighborhood for years. The restaurant can continue to exist in that residential neighborhood because it’s already there. If the restaurant gets popular and wants to expand, it can build a patio without any problem because it’s still the same business – serving food. But now let’s imagine the restaurant wants to change to be a bar. This may not be allowed under the new zoning rules because it is now trying to operate as something different – it would need to try and apply to be a non-conforming use. This gives the municipality a chance to say ‘no, you can’t – this doesn’t align with our new zoning rules.’

      • Pass and enforce public nuisance ordinances to meet the updated plan and zoning codes and create accountability for industries to follow updated laws.

      • Ohio law allows zoning regulations to eliminate non-conforming uses if the use has been voluntarily discontinued for at least six months.

    • Conditional or Special Use: Ensure new developments that may harm health or wellbeing comply with additional requirements before they are approved.

    • Overlay Zones: Create additional requirements over an existing zoning district to ensure additional protections. Overlay zones designate specific areas within the community that require higher protections. For example, environmental, public health, or historic zones.

    • Industrial Siting + Buffer zones: create districts that serve as a transition between two or more uses that may not be good next to each other.

      • Watch Out! If your goal is to have a new zoning map to keep all industry together in a specific industrial zone, make sure to also think about how it could still lead to inequities. Why? Historically and today, policies and funding have meant that low-income neighbors and communities of color are more likely to live near industrial zones. Updating zoning to mandate that industry can only be in this part of a neighborhood could make it worse by inviting more or higher polluting industries located near low income or households of color. To decrease that, think about buffer zones to include physical screening, landscaping, significant setbacks, open spaces, affordable housing programs, and even other lower-intensity commercial uses.

    • Exactions and mitigation fees: fees that municipalities can assess developers to reimburse the costs associated with their new development that can be spent on Environmental Justice issues.

    • Banning - ban specific land use or industries that harm health and/or environment. This is the most direct way to impact change but can be challenged in court and may have significant industry push-back.

      • Watch Out! Exclusionary zoning says you cannot create any zoning ordinance that prohibits an economically viable use everywhere in a municipality. The question to ask is: when a zoning ordinance is created, at that time, does it prevent some particular business from operating anywhere in the municipality? It often arises when municipalities try to exclude something with extreme setbacks. For example, an ordinance that says that methadone clinics or fracking wells cannot be placed anywhere within 3,000 feet of a school, church, playground, or nursing home. While that ordinance is not outright saying it’s not allowed, it's also limited it so strictly that there wouldn’t be a place in the whole municipality that fits the description, which means it has, effectively, prohibited this across the whole municipality which is not allowed.

  • This activity may be easier for someone or a team who has these strengths:

    • Relationship Building + Feeling

    • Influencing + Motivating

    • Strategy + Thinking

    • Executing + Doing

  • What Is Zoning Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fbfikDbRtU

    Exclusionary Zoning and It's Effect of Racial Discrimination: https://www.whitehouse.gov/cea/written-materials/2021/06/17/exclusionary-zoning-its-effect-on-racial-discrimination-in-the-housing-market/

    Understanding Exclusionary Zoning and It's Impact on Concentrated Poverty: https://tcf.org/content/facts/understanding-exclusionary-zoning-impact-concentrated-poverty/?agreed=1

    How Zoning Can Reduce Pollution: https://millmanland.com/industry-news/how-zoning-laws-can-reduce-pollution/?fbclid=IwAR3i4Wg8ulYKmGerTDUQyAL0px7-lqycxgV6O25V30h3Nu5amlMyz2raOcU#:~:text=Prohibiting%20Specific%20Land%20Uses,the%20environment%20and%20public%20health

    Local Policies for Environmental Justice, A National Scan: https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/local-policies-environmental-justice-national-scan-tishman-201902.pdf

    Chicago Looks to Overhaul Its Zoning and Land Use Policies to Address Environmental Discrimination: https://insideclimatenews.org/news/15082023/chicago-environmental-justice-zoning-policies-pollution-cumulative-impact/

    Ohio Zoning 101: https://odh.ohio.gov/wps/wcm/connect/gov/791e1124-7fd6-4782-8392-367a68257391/FAQ_Factsheet_Land+Use+Zoning.pdf?MOD=AJPERES&CONVERT_TO=url&CACHEID=ROOTWORKSPACE.Z18_M1HGGIK0N0JO00QO9DDDDM3000-791e1124-7fd6-4782-8392-367a68257391-mJMzfuy

 

create or update local laws (ordinances)

Ordinances are local laws that are made by the municipality. Ordinances can proactively create a new future, or be in response to a complaint, concern, or need.

Your municipality may already have a law about the issue you care about, but maybe it can be updated to meet the full vision.

Decision-Making Power = Municipal governing body

Transparency + Public Participation:

public participation ordinance scan
Codifying Environmental Justice Ordinance Scan
community benefit ordinance scan
Youth Engagement Policy Examples

River Access:

river pedestrian access model ordinance
river visual access model ordinance

Nuisances (dust, soot, smells, debris, sounds):

nuisance ordinance scan

Green Spaces + Beautification:

Tree Canopy ordinance scan
green spaces + community gardens ordinance scan

Check out 36:00-55:00 for Fair Shake's legal and policy options.

public art ordinance scan

Health, Housing + Safety

lead pipe ordinance scan
Lead Safety Ordinance scan
Change Lab Solutions: Model ordinance on proactive rental inspection

Solar + Wind Energy

Solar Database Ordinance (OEDI)
Wind Ordinance Database (OEDI)
 

create resolution(S)

A resolution is a formal expression of opinion or intent by a municipal body.

Resolutions can be a statement of values, which can help when future decisions are made.

Resolutions can be a nudge toward accountability for community members (here is what you said would happen about x, y, and z), and planning tool for decision-makers (here is where we want to go and what we support, now let’s make decisions that match this resolution.”)

Resolutions generally are about a topic that is special or temporary.

Decision-Making Power: Municipal governing body

Resolution opposing advanced or chemical plastic recycling (Ohio municipality template)
resolution opposing advanced or chemical plastic recycling (Ohio township template)

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