Zoning is often accepted by planners in a rather Churchillian fashion - acknowledged to be the worst land use planning tool out there, except for all the others. And, the older your building stock, the worse zoning gets - the existing assortment of buildings falls further and further behind current sensibilities of how to use land. One commonly recognized manifestation of this is in older residential neighborhoods where not a single house on the block could be rebuilt under current zoning if destroyed in a fire. (This was the case when the ICC lost Stevens House a few years ago. The emotional response was to rebuild it back, exactly as it was - but this would have violated the existing zoning in a dozen or more ways. We eventually sold the lot, for over $400,000, and it currently sits empty.)

Zoning's conflict with older residences is generally geometric. Setbacks, defining minimum distances from the lot line to the building; minimum lot sizes; and maximum home size to lot size ratios create very tight envelopes around older homes in cozier settings, strictly limiting any kind of expansion. The rebuilding problem occurs when your home is already over the lines, or violating the ratios. In these conditions - where your home is already over the line - you may not even be able to do some things within the existing envelope. Want to make that shabby one-story addition into two stories? Well, sorry, it's over the setback line, and making it taller would be considered "increasing the non-conformity".

In this way, not only does current zoning prevent us from building or rebuilding today what are some of our most valued older neighborhoods from being rebuilt today, it often prevents comfortable use and personalization of those neighborhoods. A little while back, I was discussing with a resident her hoped-for remodeling plans, and had to tell her that every piece of what she most wanted to do would violate the zoning in some way. She exclaimed, "Oh, I wish I could just sell this house and buy a different one, if I can't do anything I want!"

It is recognized, of course, that zoning is imperfect, and that laying down standard restrictions on land, a very non-standard product, will cause problems. Your local Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA) exists for this reason. The ZBA has the power to grant variances from the zoning - to say that, yes, your situation is unusual, and we'll let you build to within 10 feet of this lot line, instead of to within 12 feet. In this way, the resident above could do what she wants if the ZBA agreed that it was appropriate, such that my advice to her was, "You could do that if the ZBA gave you such-and-such a variance."

The ZBA is a rather poor tool for this purpose, however, in my mind. The ZBA's decisions are statutorily based upon determining that "practical difficulties" exist that prevent reasonable use of the land under the existing zoning, and that these difficulties are unique to the property in question and have not been created by the property owner and granting the "minimum variance necessary" to allow reasonable use of the property. Sticking closely to statute would mean that the ZBA would rarely grant variances to residential properties in this situation - reasonable use is possible in almost all cases, as there already is a house on the property, or because some house could be built. The difficulties are not unique - your neighbors have the same problem, and, well, they're living with it. And, even were these not the case, is the variance you're asking for really and truly the minimum that will allow reasonable use? Surely you could build some porch without a variance, or with a smaller variance!

ZBAs tend not to be completely strict with these standards, though - fortunately for homeowners. However, I still consider this system broken. You shouldn't have to rely on a body to play loose with their statutory duties for permission to undertake fairly routing renovations on your house.

So let's examine an alternate entity - the Historic District Commission. In a town that has a historic district defined by ordinance, the HDC is given the authority to review any proposed changes to a "resource" in the district that would affect its external appearance. Anything from painting a house to tearing it down has to pass the HDC's muster as appropriate to the character of the district. This doesn't mean, generally, that everything must be done exactly as it would have been when the home was built. Ypsi's HDC, for example, generally allows necessary re-siding to be done with certain modern composite materials rather than wood. You'll generally be allowed to put double-paned windows in your house to replace the loose, drafty ones, with certain restrictions on materials and appearance. Unless the structure is particularly important, in a landmark sense, your HDC is statutorily capable of being very flexible in how you accomplish your "appropriate" exterior modifications.

Let's compare. A Zoning Board of Appeals is meant to protect the Zoning Ordinance while acknowledging its occasional shortfallings and handing out the minimum variance necessary to get around these shortfallings. A Historic District Commission is meant to review proposed work in the context of the existing character of the structure and the neighborhood. The zoning ordinance will treat all "single family" neighborhoods alike; the historic district ordinance allows the HDC to treat everything as unique.

In my mind, therefore, a Historic District Commission could be set up as a far better reviewer of proposed variances than a Zoning Board of Appeals. An HDC is not only statutorily tasked with a far more flexible and context-sensitive purpose than a ZBA, but additionally tends to host more appropriate expertise. When it comes to reviewing the appropriateness of a change to a century-old house in the context of a century-old neighborhood, it would make sense to have the review body host architects, contractors, and historians, would it not? Do you want your proposed changes reviewed by a body that is supposed to look for "the minimum variance possible", or a body that is supposed to make its decision on "the overall pattern of masses and shapes"?

From this line of reasoning, I'd suggest that, where an existing residential pattern exists, requests for geometric variances should be reviewed not by the ZBA but by the HDC - even where the property in question is not within a historic district. Variances to setbacks, height, minimum and maximum floor area of buildings, etc, would be reviewed not based on protecting the zoning ordinance, but on appropriateness in context. This of course requires that an area have some sort of existing residential pattern - it would only apply to renovations or new contruction to individual homes - but would allow a flexible and sensitive review to be the mandate of the reviewing body, rather than a diversion from it. (This also, of course, requires that you consider your local HDC to be an entity that is reasonable in its consideration of proposed changes, and keeps in mind that the historical norm is for structures to evolve and change, rather than a body that wants to freeze the existing form in amber forever, and treats the built form as a museum exhibit.)

I would appreciate feedback, especially from those who happen to be planners, architectural historians, or otherwise in possession of training that would enable them to tell me exactly why I'm wrong. To my knowledge, what I propose is legally possible, but has never been done. Why not?