Performance Zoning: A Reassessment

Abstract

To planners, performance-based zoning has long been an alluring symbol of better land-use regulation. Since the early 1950s, performance-based zoning has been used in America to control industrial nuisances, and the technique has since been widely employed in local zoning. The first applications of performance-based zoning predated most of our environmental protection laws' and were in place 20 years prior to the creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. These early local industrial performance standards were an attempt to regulate various industrial discharges or emissions that could degrade environmental quality, threaten adjacent property values, and pose health risks to nearby populations.