New York's 'Zoning Handbook' Teaches the Intricacies of Planning

Amy Plitt reports that the New York Department of City Planning has released a new series of Zoning Handbooks to help laypeople understand the ins and outs of zoning in the city.

According to Plitt, "the raw zoning code is thousands of pages long, and can be difficult for laypeople—or even those who consider themselves well-versed in urban issues—to grasp. The Department of City Planning, the steward of that code, knows this; to make the various rules and regulations governing zoning more digestible, it’s put out a series of Zoning Handbooks, offering plain language translations of the code’s complexities."

The Department of City Planning released the latest edition of the handbook this week. "One big addition for the 2018 edition was an explanation of the city’s affordable housing zoning regulations, Zoning for Quality and Affordability (ZQA) and Mandatory Inclusionary Housing (MIH)," reports Plitt. "Those changes were made in 2016, and the new handbook provides a clear description of what those are, and how they contribute to the creation and preservation of affordable housing in the city."