What is the point of council zoning?
Published 1 year, 11 months ago in Where I Live.Everyone’s familiar with council zoning. If you live in one area, you’re allowed to have a dwelling, but no business. If you own land in another area, then you can build a shop, right next to all the other shops that are already there. If you buy land in yet another area then you can build an office.
It just struck me that this is stupid. Why should I be forced to spend several minutes driving away from where I live, clogging up the roads and polluting the atmosphere to buy fruit, when in an ideal world (and a truly free country), my neighbour would be allowed to sell me fruit from a tree in his backyard, as well as anything else he might like to supply to his neighbourhood, out of the front room of his house, without any council interference. That’s how it was in medieval times, and then most people never had any need to leave their respective villages. They definitely didn’t need to upgrade their freeways all the time!
So can anyone tell me, does concil zoning actually serve an essential, proven need, or is it just the result of a lame, ill-thought-through whim of an unnamed councillor “x” years ago? Or is this just the human habit of always trying to group related things seperately and thus break the essential links between different things?
8 Responses to “What is the point of council zoning?”
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Firstly, councilors are usualy not that smart. Often they became a councilor as a stepping stone to state politics, and yes, sadly, they arent to smart either.
How is this one. I live in Knox, at the foot of the mountains. We are told this area is environmentaly sensitive, so we can not do much at all.
However, when the local cemeterym, which is in this environmentaly friendly foothills zone, is running at a huge loss, said council makes an amendment to this zone, allowing for a cememtery development.
Hhhhhhmh, what can i say
You need to do a crash course in Town Planning. Its not Councillors that make these rules….! What a mess we would e living in if you could build whatever, wherever….what are you talking about?
I’d be pretty angry if there was no council zoning and a nightclub was built next to my house.
theshadow, I too live in Knox and what the council does is getting pretty pathetic.
Like skymija, I would like a factory or a nightclub, or a 7/11 to be built next to my house, so zoning does serve a purpose.
Without council zoning you would get brothels in shopping strips, it has happened in the past and only after public protest was there very quick change of zoning law that restricted brothels to industrial areas. I can’t remember the suburb but I remember the anger that the parents were expressing because the neighbourhood school girls were being hassled by the dudes gutter crawling.
OK, I guess there may always need to exceptions put in place for some of the less reputable businesses - hey, I live in a dry area and I have no problem with that; but I still don’t get why I shouldn’t be allowed my own 10sq metres of retail space in the front room of my house, for instance.
Anyway, as for your post hottie, I really must reply to this line for line:
>You need to do a crash course in Town Planning.
Who asks beuraucrats to “plan” towns anyway? Surely the best way to “plan” a town would be to let it grow organically around the needs of the people that comprise it.
>Its not Councillors that make these rules….!
So, why should they follow them then? (ok. ok. You’re gonna tell me it’s a state issue, aren’t you?)
>What a mess we would e living in if you could build whatever, wherever….
Yeah, I agree; It’d be a far more vibrant and exciting place to live - I agree with that point. But if I buy a block of land, don’t I own that land? Shouldn’t I be allowed to use it for whatever I want? Shouldn’t that be my right? Sure, some people (a minority as it’d be against their interests to do so) would build things that others might take exception to, but let’s face it, that happens anyway, it’s not as though instances of it would increase.
> what are you talking about?
No way, I’m not repeating all of that again!
unfortunately there would always people who’d take advantage of system or lack there of and the worlds alot bigger place with a very diverse sector of people unlike the villages of old that were small with like minded people. So though your notion certainly has some appeal don’t think it would work. Anyway there’s nothing stopping your neighbour selling fruit from his backyard or you running a shop from your lounge room, heaps of people do these things already and what councils don’t know won’t hurt them.
“What councils don’t know won’t hurt them.”
I couldn’t have put it better myself! (Now if they can just learn to mind their own business, then I’ll be happy)
I actually don’t think there would be much potential for people to take advantage of relaxed rules. Any business wanting to stay in business knows better than to alienate potential customers. Building an unwelcome development in the wrong place is a bad and risky business move, so any instances of inappropriate development would disappear after a while and not be repeated. Which is what happens under the current system of constant council intervention anyway.