Residential Zoning

Residential zoning is the layer of land use regulation that determines what types of housing can be built in a given location, how large structures may be, and how close they can be to property lines and neighboring buildings. Almost every parcel of land in a US city or suburb is assigned a residential zone designation, and that designation controls what you can and cannot do on your property. The traditional American residential zoning system organizes land into density tiers — with lower-number zones permitting lower density and higher-number zones allowing progressively more housing units per lot — though many cities use naming conventions that differ from the standard R-1 through R-4 framework.