This Planning and Zoning Code establishes certain districts in the City and regulates and restricts the ways in which land can be used and subdivided in order to promote the public health, safety, convenience, prosperity, and general welfare. More specific purposes are to:
(a) Promote the orderly and beneficial development of the City of Willoughby Hills in accordance with the City’s land use policies.
(b) Provide regulations, standards and procedures for the administration, amendment and enforcement of this Planning and Zoning Code.
(c) To preserve and strengthen the reasonable balance of commercial and industrial activities within the City, so long as they are consistent with the City’s residential character, in order to serve the convenience of the inhabitants of the City and provide a strong economic and tax base to assure the City’s ability to provide essential services to its inhabitants.
(d) Encourage the most appropriate use of land to stabilize and preserve property values, to protect against congested and unsafe traffic conditions, to provide safety from hazards such as fire, flood, water and air contamination, and to provide adequate light and air and open space to all residents of the City.
(e) Establish districts of such classification and number to implement any applicable plans, including the City’s Master Plan; to encourage the most appropriate uses of the land; to guide the future development of the City; and to carry out the purposes of this Planning and Zoning Code.
(f) Regulate the location, bulk, height, design and land coverage of buildings to protect the character and value of the City’s residential, business, industrial, institutional, and recreational areas and to assure their orderly and beneficial development;
(g) To accomplish the specific intents and purposes set forth in the introduction of the respective Chapters.
(h) Ensure efficient traffic circulation, manage congestion on the streets and improve public safety by locating buildings and uses adjacent to streets in such a manner that they will cause the least interference with, and be damaged least by, traffic movements.
(i) Regulate and limit the density of population to prevent overcrowding of the land and excessive concentration of the population.
(j) Preserve unique natural features of land within the City.
(k) Encourage compatibility between different land uses and protect the scale and character of existing development from the encroachment of incompatible uses.
(l) To guide the future development of the City so as to bring about the gradual conformity of land and building uses in accordance with the objectives of the Master Plan of the City. (Ord. 2006-35. Passed 5-25-06.)