[...]... attempted to get the zoning changed to allow the commercial use, which both the seller and the new buyer had assumed was legal The case against the broker and the seller ran on for more than a year, and the property fell into foreclosure because the family had been dependent on the commercial operation to generate enough income to pay a portion of the mortgage I was eventually retained to try to solve the. .. in “colonial or earth tone” colors, that clothes not be hung outside, and that the cars be parked in the garages and not left out in the driveways The company that laid out the subdivision had to – 13 – The Complete Guide to Zoning approve the designs of the independently constructed homes and the landscape plans The objective was to create a neighborhood of compatible homes In the parlance of planning... but no one had told him that it was a matter of interpreting the zoning regulations – 15 – The Complete Guide to Zoning Once he heard what the problem was, he was quick to bring a resolution to help the family Regrettably, it was too late By the time we achieved this quick fix, the family was so far in arrears on the mortgage that it lost the property (and its life savings just as the father was reaching... lighthouselike cupola to the top of his beach house, and a fight ensued over a flagpole at the peak Was it exempt or not? The solution by this architect owner was to have a flagpole that slid down into the –5– The Complete Guide to Zoning cupola I guess he hoisted the pole when the zoning enforcement officer wasn’t in the neighborhood This silliness abounds When my ski house in Vermont was finished, the builder... problem I went to the local zoning authority, which quickly amended the regulations to allow the commercial venture This was a simple, expedient, and straightforward resolution The local zoning board was sympathetic to the family This was a small town, and the chairman of the board was a high school teacher who had the family’s only child as a student The teacher had noted a decline in the child’s performance... retirement age) The family left the area, and I don’t know what happened to these people in the end It continues to trouble me two decades later that those who were supposed to be helping the family could not see their way through to a simple solution Let me say this again: One of the keys to success in the zoning game is understanding that there are almost always several ways to address a problem The challenge... by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc Click here for terms of use The Complete Guide to Zoning is the market If the private market for real estate will not support a particular form of development, it won’t happen Often developers of large projects will come to me and ask what the plans and regulations allow them to do with their property More often than not, I tell them to design the best project they... retained to represent them once they discovered the problem also represented them in the closing He should have attempted to fix the zoning rather than take the stereotypical lawyer’s approach of suing everybody in sight for damages, without even attempting to solve the underlying zoning problem – 16 – Chapter 2 Zoning as Part of the Larger Regulatory Environment Don’t Get Too Enamored with Public Regulation... judge, who happened to be working in his vegetable garden that morning We got an order from him stopping the construction Shortly –7– The Complete Guide to Zoning thereafter, the lawyer on the other side returned our call and informed us that his client was merely transplanting some spruce trees I know this all sounds like a tempest in a teapot But, given the status of the case, with a zoning application... –9– The Complete Guide to Zoning Making and Losing Money with Zoning This introductory discussion about how zoning works and what is found in a typical zoning ordinance suggests some of the ways in which money can be made and lost through zoning A modest change in density can result in large changes in value If you can change the zoning in your one-acre residential zone from that one acre per lot to . class="bi x0 y0 w0 h0" alt="" The Complete Guide to Zoning This page intentionally left blank. The Complete Guide to Zoning How Real Estate Owners and Developers. hire me for to get the local offi- cials to change the zoning to allow more development—but you don’t have to be a lawyer or a planner to do it. Zoning changes