2005/06/15 Council Agenda Packet

APPENDIX III LAND USE CONTROL OF ADULT ENTERTAINMENT LEGAL BASIS Zoning has traditionally been defined as a process by which a municipality legally controls the use which may be made of pro- perty and the Physical•configuration of development upon tracts Of land within its jurisdiction. This is accomplished. by means of zoning ordinances which are locally adopted to divide the land into different districts permitting only certain uses within each district for the protection of=public safety, welfare, health and morality. 1 Zoning regulations not only regulate the use to which buildings or property may be put within designated districts, but also the purpose or object of the use beyond the. mere conditions or cir- cumstances of the use.2 In a 1920 landmark decision, the New York Court of Appeals up- held New York City"s comprehensive zoning legislation,3 and re- affirmed this legislation as a proper exercise of the city's police powers. In 1926, the practice of comprehensive zoning received substan- tial support when the United States Department of Commerce pro- mulgated the Standard State Zoning Enablinq Act. This Act be- came the model for most of the early zoning enabling legisla- tion in the country. While" the courts have reaffirmed that municipalities are proper- ly exercising their police powers through zoning regulation, it is generally held that they have no inherent power to zone ex- cept (as is the case with the police power itself) as such power is delegated to them by the state legislature through statutory enactment. The right of state legislatures to delegate compre- hensive zoning power to municipalities, on the other hand, is uniformly recognized by the courts.4 Because municipalities in the state had to be enabled to exercise zoning powers within their jurisdictions, the Indiana State Legislature, by means of enabling legislation, delegated this Power to local units of gove rnment.5 Control of the use of private land inevitably raised a number of constitutional questions. In the landmark 1926 case of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co.6 the United States Supreme Court upheld the city of Euclid, Ohio's municipal zoning ordinance which had been claimed to involve an unconstitutional deprivation of property by deciding that comprehensive zoning ordinaoces are a proper EVEROOOS4